Designed a Knowledge Base Blueprint for Toastmasters Club Secretaries
Every July, a Toastmasters club hands its records to a new set of officers. Whether that handoff goes smoothly depends on one thing: whether anyone can find anything.
Keeping those records is the job of the Club Secretary, one of a club’s seven officers. The Secretary maintains files, handles correspondence, and takes minutes at club and Executive Committee meetings. I first served in the role at Pride Toastmasters Club, where I organized our records in Google Drive. I enjoyed the work enough to take it on again at the New York AI Toastmasters Club.
Automated meeting minutes with a gumloop ai agent workflow
It can be challenging during meetings to take effective notes and be present at the same time. I learned this over several years of taking minutes for a nonprofit’s board of directors meetings. I recorded each meeting, but I also jotted down my own notes on the items I wanted to be sure made it into the final record. The more closely I focused on capturing everything, the less I could engage in the conversation.
Developed an App to Match Goals to Roles
Toastmasters depends on members voluntarily taking on leadership roles, but most clubs approach recruitment backwards. They list open roles and ask members to pick one, rather than starting with the member's goal and the skills they want to build or improve.
This is backwards. It led me to build the Goal to Role app, a tool that starts with what a member wants to achieve and works toward the role that can help them get there.
How I Helped a Nonprofit With 50+ Programs Tell One Story
Ask ten people at a large organization what it does, and you will often get ten different answers. For a human services nonprofit with more than 50 programs across multiple regions, that gap was more than an inconvenience. It put the agency's credibility at risk with funders, partners, and the communities it serves. This is how I designed a workshop that gave supervisors a shared story, a common vocabulary, and a pitch they could adapt for any audience.