When you first visit a Toastmasters club you might be surprised by how structured the meeting is — and how many evaluations there seem to be! But you’ll soon realise that everything has a purpose, and that both giving and receiving feedback from each other is essential for developing our speaking skills.
Each meeting, club members take turns to perform different roles, which provides variety and plenty of speaking and leadership opportunities. Newer members might begin with the Timer or Ah Counter role, and as they become more advanced will progress to evaluating and chairing the meeting.
As a guest you may be invited to try a Table Topic (short impromptu speech), or simply give a brief comment about your visit at the end of the meeting.
Below is a quick guide to the various meeting roles:
The Chairman is the person chosen to preside over a meeting, managing and providing leadership to other role holders.
The Toastmaster is the meeting’s host or MC, introducing all the prepared speakers.
This club member meets and greets guests, ensuring that they are well looked after, explains the process of the meeting and makes introductions.
The Timer is responsible for monitoring each part of the meeting and each speaker. The Timer operates a light system (green, amber, red) to indicate to each speaker how long they have been speaking for.
The Ah Counter notes down any filler words, such as um, ah, er and so. This helps people become more aware of the words they are using.
The Grammarian is responsible for providing a “word of the day” and commenting on the use of the English language during course of the meeting. This is a great way to practice listening skills!
The Smile Story or Thought of the Day is an inspirational quote or funny story delivered at the beginning of the meeting. This sets the theme for the meeting.
At least 4 club members present prepared speeches during the meeting. These are usually between 5-7 minutes and are based on a project from the Pathways Learning Programme.
Prepared Speech Evaluators give verbal and written evaluations for the Prepared Speakers. The evaluations will be based on the speaker’s personal goals and the project objectives from Pathways.
The Table Topics Master runs the “impromptu speaking” part of the meeting. This person chooses people from the audience and provides them with a question. They will then try to speak on that topic for 1 – 2 minutes.
The Table Topics Evaluator gives a verbal evaluation for each impromptu Table Topics speech.
The General Evaluator gives an overall evaluation on everyone who spoke and everything that took place during the meeting.