Since March 2016 the number of Online Clubs in the chartered and prospective categories have grown – a 184% growth rate. Many publications have featured stories from the Onliners and there are many conversations about them in social media, and I am sure you have heard of them. This the start of something new and exciting that many of you may be interested in including in your Toastmasters journey.

Yes there are 8 online clubs now and more to come soon. Together we are exploring how to:

• schedule meetings online
• manage meetings online
• form strong communication bonds in social media
• manage club contests online
• schedule training workshops and Educationals online within club meetings
• manage inter-club contests online
• schedule leadership training workshops between clubs
• bring ideas from all online clubs together as an Alliance

What is it like to be in an online Toastmaster meeting?

A Zoom meeting enables many Toastmasters to be onscreen simultaneously, Gallery View. All can be seen and heard if they choose to share webcams and microphones.

Meeting formats are usually the same as those at land based clubs. Toastmaster introduces the session, the role players and the speakers. General Evaluator introduces the Table Topics Master and the Evaluators. Round Robins may be held at the beginning of a meeting to introduce new members or visitors and a networking session may be held at the end of the meeting. The Timer uses innovative devices to display the times and we have the Grammarian, Ah Counter listening and giving reports.

Here’s how you can benefit from visiting an online club meeting:

In Zoom

• You can switch from Gallery View to Speaker View to focus on the speaker.
• You can Pin the video image of the Timer so that it is visible at all times.
• You can share your screen for presentations and web sharing.
• You can text chat to participants in general or in private.

Who are they?

Links to the following chartered clubs are available at Find Online Clubs in TI.
These are part of District U, Division O, Area O1.

List of chartered clubs are available at Dashboards in TI:

List of Prospective Online Clubs are available at Dashboards too.

Where can we meet and chat with them?

There are a number of social media groups for Onliners in Facebook that you can explore!

Online Toastmasters
Online Training for Toastmasters
Toastmaster International Online Club
Toastmasters Online
Online Alliance

And these are just the ones I subscribe to. Please leave a comment with a link to others that you would like to see added to this list.

A few individual Online Clubs have a social media or web presence here:

Firebirds Executive  Visit schedules here http://firebirds.easy-speak.org
Great White North Online Visit schedules here http://greatwhite.easy-speak.org
Netizens Visit schedules here http://netizens.easy-speak.org
Witty Storytellers Online Visit schedules here http://wittystory.easy-speak.org 

Some of the Prospective clubs invite you to join in here:

Toastmasters Without Borders Visit schedules here http://tmwithoutborders.easy-speak.org
Online Presenters Visit schedules here https://op.toastmost.org/ 

How can you visit their club and attend their meetings?

Use the links above to access the easy-Speak site or WordPress site for the clubs and self-select to be a visitor for their meetings. You will find that each club specifies the Time Zone conversions for their meetings on their Agenda pages.

What software do they use to conduct their online meetings?

Most of the current clubs are using GoToMeeting and others are using Zoom. Both of these platforms offer different experiences.

Visit GoToMeeting Support site for downloadable support documents and video tutorials.

Visit the Zoom.us Support site for popular video tutorials.