Free Toast Host Toastmaster Web Site - District 38

For the past six months, our club has averaged two or three guests at every
meeting. Most of them join after the first night. Less than half-way through the
Toastmasters year, we exceeded our annual membership goal. When we ask
guests how they located our club, almost all exclaim, “It was your Web site!”
Being the club Web master, my ears always perk up when I hear “Web site.” The last two guests I
interviewed told me they looked at the Web sites of all the clubs in the area and decided to visit our club
because they liked our site the best. They were aghast that some clubs didn’t even have a Web site. When
queried further, the reason they liked our site best was the welcoming message they received from the text
and graphics. “I felt that you really wanted me to visit,” said one re-cent guest. Another said, “Your site
looked so professional. I knew you were the group for me.”
So how do you build an affordable and professional Web site when you aren’t a computer geek and only
recently mastered e-mail? Careful research and planning are the keys to developing a great membershipbuilding
Web site.
Do Your Research
Only 30 percent of all Toastmasters clubs in one of the most “wired” areas of the United States – Maryland,
Virginia and Washington, D.C., – have a club Web site. And yet, in this same re-gion, according to the Pew
Charitable Trust, 70 percent of adults have daily access to the Inter-net, many with broadband. Of all the
adults using the Internet, according to a 2004 Harris Poll, nearly half use it to find information on products,
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