Another one?

With me out of my earlier company and into another Tech major, I am feeling the miss of being part of a regular Toastmasters Club.

Specially, for me, the club at my company was a great one. Particularly for a few specific reasons....
1. Starting the club from scratch was challenging - think about selling the idea of public speaking and communication to engineers who are comfortable sitting before a system in their own cubicle.
2. Setting the standards needed for proper meetings and speeches.
3. Motivating members to attend meetings and persuading them to give speeches.
4. Keeping the club open - like most say, 'Opening a Toastmasters Club is not difficult, but keeping it open is!!!'

Inspite of the challenges, it was really a encouraging result for me, seen from my perspective.
- Improved my communication skills, especially tried to overcome the ahs and ums to a large extent, got a better understanding of how the administrative tasks in TM hierarchy go on, and finally more visibility in my company, better networking, etc.

Now, I have choice to repeat the same in my new work place or be a part of a community club.
Starting a new club would be great, but getting members would be challenge, given the fact that it might be a corporate club with restricted membership. In my earlier company, I had only about 2-3% of the total strength being part of the TM club. If I apply the same ratio, I can count the strength of the club at my new place using the fingers of one hand!!!

Being part of a community club would be nice given the general perspective that community clubs perform better than corporate clubs. But if I need to improve my skills, I must certainly be part of a club that has a strength around 30. Else, I might just be attending the meetings, but not improving my active communication skills.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed till I take a decision!!!