Mentor

Description

As an experienced Toastmaster, you may be selected to serve as a mentor for a new member of our club. According to the dictionary, a mentor is a wise, loyal advisor. As a mentor, you have the opportunity to share your wisdom, knowledge and experience with a new Toastmaster who wants to learn, grow and achieve.

Responsibilities

Sit with the new member

Explain the various parts of the meeting such as Table Topics, prepared speeches and evaluations as they happen and explain meeting duties. Answer any questions the mentee might have.

Orient the new member to Club customs and procedures

If your Club has special awards, events or other procedures, explain those to the mentee. Help the mentee become comfortable and a part of the Club in any way you can.

Explain the Toastmasters Educational program

Show the mentee the Communication and Leadership Manual and explain the 10 initial projects and their goals. Explain the CTM, ATM, CL, AL etc.

Explain how to sign up

Ask the VP of Education to schedule the mentee’s Ice Breaker as soon as the mentee feels ready. Show the mentee the Club Web site and how to check the current schedule, send email to all members etc. Also advise the mentee what to do and whom to contact if he or she is scheduled to fill a meeting role but is unable to attend the meeting.

Help with the Ice Breaker

Many experienced Toastmasters still consider the first speech to be the most difficult. This is because new members are not only uncomfortable speaking before a group, but they are also speaking before relative strangers. Your assistance can help the mentee overcome any fears and start off well. Discuss speech ideas with the mentee and offer suggestions for organizing if necessary. Listen to the mentee practice the speech and offer feedback.

Make the mentee aware of resources

Explain the organizational structure of Toastmasters International; club, area, division, district, region and International conferences and speech contests; Toastmasters supply catalog and role of Club officers. Explain how the mentee can develop leadership skills by serving as a Club officer.

Provide positive feedback

The first few weeks of membership are critical. Mentees must feel that they are already benefiting from the Toastmasters experience. Compliment them on their progress.

Explain Responsibilities

Membership means more than just giving speeches and receiving evaluations. It also means a commitment to helping the Club and its members become successful. Review a Toastmasters Promise, which is printed on the back of the membership application.

Help with speeches and other assignments

Continue to help you mentee prepare speeches and use evaluations to improve. Offer your own feedback too. Help the mentee prepare for assigned meeting roles and offer tips for fulfilling them successfully.

Tell how you have benefited

Share your own goals and aspirations with the mentee and how you have benefited from the program. You are proof that they can achieve their own goals.

Acknowledge progress

Ask for time during the Club meeting to mention your mentee’s progress in the program. Such recognition shows that the Club cares about the mentee’s progress and motivates the mentee to continue.

Keep in mind to that for the mentee/mentor relationship to work, you must be…

• Available. You must have time to spend with the member.
• Patient. People learn at varying speeds and some need more guidance than others.
• Sensitive. Tact and diplomacy are vital. Be careful to say and do things that will motive and encourage the mentee. Be loyal and take care not to betray the mentee’s confidences.
• Respectful. Everyone is different. Respect the differences between yourself, the mentee and others.
• Flexible. You must adapt and adjust to various situations and accept that the mentee may make decisions with which you may not agree.
• Supportive of the Club. You must be proud of your Club and what is has done and can do for members.
• Knowledgeable. Before you can help someone else, you must be familiar with the Club, its operations, the educational program and the TI organization itself. You should have completed at least several speeches in the basic manual, have served in most meeting roles and have enough speaking skills yourself to be of help to the mentee.
• Confident. You should be self-assured and friendly.
• A good listener. Often simply listening, without taking on the other person’s problem can be of great help to the mentee. Just by listening, you can enable the mentee to articulate the problem and sort things out.
• Concerned about others. You must care about your mentee and truly want to help.