How to start a new club

Last week a friend asked for some advice on starting a new Toastmasrer club in her community. I had the following to offer her:

It's a great idea indeed to start a new club. Your leadership skills will be polished while giving you more opportunities to practic public speaking.

There is no minimum requirement to start a new club. This will, however, give you a credit towards AL-Silver even if you haven't completed prior projects yet.

If you already have some connections where you want to host your weekly meetings (as in borough council), it'll make things easier. But if not, you will have to take the following steps that I learned from my experience of trial-and-errors:

1) do a "market research". See if u have a sizable audience.
2) talk to community leaders.
3) decide most accessable place and time.
4) contact TM high-ups (area gov etc. )
5) make a strong PR plan.
6) gather few potential members and take their commitment to join.
7) execute!!

In the end, I recommended that she visit new clubs (like SAP's) and get the real feeling of what environment is needed to get a club up and running.

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