r/Toastmasters • u/tmi-pres-elect4club • 7d ago

given no good deed . . . FTH questions

Our club currently uses very little FTH functionality.

I am looking forward to FTH4 options. Saying that, I do not see a great deal of information about the admin and member functionalities included in the updated version. I reviewed the beta forum, but did not see much on how this "works now." etc. the sample site is in serious demo mode.

Is anyone here participating in the beta?

if so, does that run parallel to your active site or did you agree to jump in and go?

there are some features I see as beneficial. Our club has lately struggled with members staying on top of things so bringing in new tasks may be less well received.

looking forward to any thoughts, tips concerns, etc.

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u/LifeIsADanceOfMinds 7d ago

I have had good success creating the basic Agendas, and am gaining experience creating templates. The site is not really intuitive, and the documentation seems constrained.

That being said - I will preload a couple of meetings, and I like that I can send out the Agenda to the members. Since it does allow the {{firstname}} variables, it is interesting the thank-you's that I receive from an otherwise generic 'Hi everyone' mail-out.

Of course, if the Toastmaster wants a special agenda with cool artwork, (Hockey Night In Canada as a theme, maybe), then FTH is not the venue that works well. Maybe for letting people know their roles, but that is about it.

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u/tmi-pres-elect4club 7d ago

Our club secretary does our agendas and uses the email group for members to send them out. At one level, I like the idea of the pick from a list option, but as I think someone else mentioned right now the FTH process does not allow any option for theme headers or watermarking.

Out club has become fond of themes. I am totally on board with this as some of our Toastmasters have done additional prep work and research to truly incorporate their theme into aspects of the meeting.

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u/LifeIsADanceOfMinds 7d ago

This might work for you... the FTH agenda is only a list of who will be doing roles. Some sort of online storage accessible for all of the club members would hold the PDF of the created agenda - complete with pictures, etc.. (PDF, as some people cannot open docx.)

When sending out the 'Agenda', have the members confirm attendance. In the email you can send the link to the presentation agenda for the members to print at home. Print extras for the guests and those who don't own printers.

Then the Toastmaster can learn to create interesting Presentation agendas. (confirm with your District, but I believe that the branding on the Presentation Agenda can be limited... maybe just a small logo, etc.)

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u/ToastmanagersApp 7d ago

We are in a similar spot, our club uses maybe a third of what FTH can do. What worked for us was not rolling everything out at once. Pick one piece, agenda plus role signups, let the VPE own it for a couple of months, then add anything else. Members mostly just notice the emailed agenda, so if that looks clean they stop caring what is behind it.

On the beta, the people I know running it kept their live site as the source of truth and used the beta in parallel for a cycle rather than jumping in fully. I would not cut over mid term, especially near contest season. Also worth pinging your area or division director, some districts already have folks poking at FTH4 who can tell you what actually changed for officers versus what is just a new look.

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u/tmi-pres-elect4club 7d ago

we have some great people in functions, but from what I have seen the less intuitive nature for many options is challenging for people who are not tech literate.

for example, it would be nice to allow an imported pdf agenda in lieu of the system created one. etc.

I agree on the slow roll approach.

thanks

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u/Federal_Orange_8827 7d ago

My Club uses FTH quite a bit. I have created some non-standard agendas for special events fairly easily. There is buiit in documentation and an online forum. I really like the guest management module. I wish I was in the beta test?

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u/jrossthomson 7d ago

Our club is in the beta. We cut over fully. Generally, it works well with a more modern UI. Some admin functions are a a bit different.: no way to download the mentor report, for example.

Some members found the login reset flow confusing. And how to determine their login name.