What made you leave Toastmasters

NotTheOnlyGamer

Combination of factors for me:

• The REP (“Pathways”). I don’t want to be online all the time, I want printed manuals. Their DRM and enforcement is a clear sign that it’s not about the member anymore, it’s only about the money.
• Dues increases: From $30 to $45 to … , at a time when TM wasn’t providing me with that kind of financial growth.
• MLM/Cult atmosphere: There has been a remarkable shift over the last decades. TM started as an educational business focused organization for men in sales, marketing, and managerial roles. It expanded to include women, and became a community organization and almost a family atmosphere. Over time, there’s been subtle shifts and moves to change things – the formalization of the “leadership” program being chief among them. Additionally, the constant pressure to recruit new members rather than develop the members you have leads to fast turnover and a lack of good mentoring.
• Internal politics: It’s worse in some Districts, I’m sure, but I’m tired of it. Either we’re here to improve everyone, or we’re not here. Also included here: changes to the Constitution & Bylaws which the membership had no chance to properly vote on, nor was there any offramp for clubs who refused to ratify the new Constitution & Addendum; or to surrender their Bylaws & Standing Rules.
• Unemployability: When TM was on my resume, it meant I didn’t get interviewed. When I brought it up at an interview, I didn’t get the job. When I concealed it and took it off my resume, I got interviews & I got jobs. This even happened when I applied to companies which I knew had TM clubs. When I reached out in my District, no one was working in a position high enough or general enough to suggest me for a job. It’s not good for networking and it’s not seen as a benefit by employers. It’s not beneficial to waste that money.
• Dan Rex: Went from a decent guy as head of Education to a major drain on the money without any visible impact.
• HQ moving from Rancho Viejo to Rancho Cucamonga to Colorado: The first move, so far as I saw, made some sense. There was a bigger, nicer facility that wasn’t over a hundred years old in Cucamonga. It suited the needs of the HQ better, or so we were told. But Colorado was so obviously a money move it was depressing. It’s not about moving HQ to a development area where they could build new clubs, nor was it moving to the largest District to provide better direct support. It was about employee wages and taxes. If HQ is that broke, maybe they shouldn’t have wasted money on the rebranding, or on board offsites, or on exec salaries, rather than making big breaking changes.
• The Rebranding: a big waste of money and time. It’s as bad as the Pepsiverse document, but came out to a total waste of time that looked like a high school kid did it (and not a particularly creative high school kid either). The old logo was fine. The old colors were fine. The old website (though limited in function) worked. All of that changed. It was the death knell.

As you can see, it’s everything from personal lived experience to International relationships.