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Toastmasters Meeting Format
Each Toastmasters meeting offers several educational experiences:
- speaking in public;
- running a meeting on a tight schedule;
- giving and receiving constructive critique; and
- awarding and accepting honors.
To accomplish that, we have several roles for each meeting.
Speaking roles:
Presiding Officer opens the meeting, introduces the Toastmaster, conducts the business meeting, presents the awards, asks for comments from guests, and adjourns the meeting.
Toastmaster acts as Master of Ceremonies and introduces the Topic Master, the (prepared) Speakers and the Master Evaluator.
Topic Master conducts a series of short impromptu speeches called Table Topics, 1-2 minutes in length. They are given by people the Topic Master calls on with a specific question around the day's theme. Table Topics speakers are chosen among those who don't have a speaking role that day.
Prepared speeches, usually four of them, are scheduled in advance and follow the guidelines of specific Toastmasters speech manuals. Most speeches at our lunch meetings follow the CTM (Competent Toastmaster) Communication and Leadership Manual. Each of that manual's ten speaking assignments introduce a specific speaking skill. Completion of all ten leads to a CTM certificate.
Evaluators are assigned to speakers in advance. After all the speeches are concluded, evaluators give a 2-3-minute oral appraisal of how they felt the speech met its requirements and offer suggestions for the future. A formal evaluation itself is an impromptu mini-speech.
Master Evaluator introduces the formal evaluator for each speaker. At the end of the meeting, the Master Evaluator evaluates the evaluators and the entire meeting, including the Toastmaster.
Non-speaking roles:
Fee Collector will collect $15 from each of us. That covers both lunch and the use of the room so please remember to pay her whether you have lunch or not.
Time Keeper operates a stop watch to make sure that each speech stays within its time limit. Prepared speeches from the CTM manual are usually 5-7 minutes long, ATM manual speeches longer. To guide the speakers, (s)he signals with green, yellow, and red flags. For speeches and evaluations, green means keep going - two minutes left. Yellow means be prepared to stop - 1 minute left, and red means stop. If you don't stop within a 30-second grace period after the red flag goes up, the time keeper will stop you by starting the applause. Table topics are shorter, and green means 1 minute left, yellow means 30" left and red means stop or you'll be stopped in 30 seconds with applause.
Um Counter and Grammarian keeps track of the distracting filler sounds and grammatical errors speakers might make during the meeting.
Audience: Some of the most important roles are those of us in the audience. We are here both to enjoy ourselves and to offer feedback and acknowledgment to the speakers. At the start of a meeting, we receive ballot sheets with room for names and comments. We'll fill them out and send them to the ballot counter. At the conclusion of each prepared speech, each of us has a chance to write an individual evaluation for the speaker on what we liked about the speech and how it could be improved in the future. And at the end of Table Topics, all the prepared speeches, and all formal evaluations, we will vote for the best Table Topics speaker, the best prepared speaker, and the best evaluator.
Enjoy the meeting and come often!
Tuula Piispanen-Krabbe, 6/18/98
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