Love Local Porirua 2022 – The Proposal

By VP Public Relations 2022-23 Dale
Blog Post #1

Do you ever have a really, really good idea, but need a team of people to help you deliver the results you want? It’s something you simply cannot do on your own!

Every now and then an opportunity comes along that’s simply too good to pass up!

In May 2022, Dale saw that Porirua City Council was holding its popular “Love Local Porirua” event on 30 July. This Expo is for local businesses and clubs to showcase their products and services to the people of Porirua City.

Wow – how can Spinnaker Toastmasters Club take advantage of this event right on our doorstep. Well, that’s the problem Dale, the incoming 2022-23 VP Public Relations at Spinnaker Toastmasters, was facing.

She realised that the Expo was a great opportunity to promote Spinnaker Toastmasters Club to gain some new members, thereby achieving two membership goals on the Toastmasters Distinguished Club Program of at least 8 new members. New members would help revitalise the club and bring in new blood. It would open up a world of new opportunities to new Toastmasters who can learn from experienced speakers, and they would be joining a worldwide network of public speakers and communicators giving them access to a vast range of resources. Existing club members would have new faces to speak to, and to help the newbies achieve their communication and leadership goals.

Having previously worked at Porirua City Council and visited past expos, and being a former Business tutor, Dale had a good grasp of what was involved in organising and producing a promotional booth at a trade show, or expo. So she drew on her previous knowledge and skills to present the club with a proposal:

Love Local Porirua 2022 Expo is a golden opportunity for us to showcase Spinnaker Toastmasters Club as a membership building and public relations event.

Over 100 exhibitors are expected along with over 5,000 visitors on the day, rain or shine, and it’s free to the public.

I am seeking the support of the club to help plan, prepare, setup, run and pack down a booth at the Expo, and do follow-ups with interested parties to invite them to an Open Meeting the following month.

The Club jumped at this idea, and appointed a small subcommittee of the President, VP PR and Secretary to proceed with planning and delivery of the event.

Dale also saw the event as a team building opportunity, where each member of the club contributed in some way to the event. We’d need document designers and resource gatherers, a set-up team, a pack-down team, and a production team for the day of the Expo. Everyone would have a part to play and the event would help to build team collaboration and enhance personal development.

The Expo would provide an opportunity to practise in real life, the skills which Toastmasters practice in a club environment. We would need to talk to the public about Toastmasters and what we do at club meetings. We would invite interested people to come along to our OPEN MEETING being held on 16 August and if they liked what they saw, we’d ask them to join the club. There’ll be more information on how we would go about this in a future blog post.

The Expo Subcommittee is now in the planning stage, and this will be described in the next blog.

See Blog Post #2 – Approval and Funding

About Toastmasters
Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organisation that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, the organisation’s membership exceeds 300,000 in more than 15,800 clubs in 149 countries. Since 1924, Toastmasters International has helped people from diverse backgrounds become more confident speakers, communicators, and leaders.
About Spinnaker Toastmasters Club
Spinnaker Toastmasters Club chartered on 18 September 1990, and originally met in Whitby. Now the club meets in Plimmerton on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. The club has 12 active members and is looking to increase that to at least 20, the desired size for an active and dynamic Toastmasters club.

About the author
Dale is a Distinguished Toastmaster and a member of Spinnaker Toastmasters Club since 1998. She has received a Presidential Citation for her work as District 72 New Zealand Webmaster, and helped charter three other clubs. She has completed the Presentation Mastery educational Pathway and is currently working on the Motivational Strategies Pathway. Dale is the VP Public Relations for 2022-23.
About this blog series
The purpose of this blog series is to fulfil the requirements of the Level 4 Elective “Write a Compelling Blog” in the Motivational Strategies Pathway. She has chosen to document the process of organising and presenting a booth at the Love Local Porirua 2022 Expo being held in Porirua on 30 July. The target audience is her fellow Toastmasters who may have an opportunity to run a similar activity at a future event. To do this, a minimum of 8 blog posts must be created and published. Club members will be asked for feedback, and when done, Dale will deliver a short speech on her blogging experiences.