Meeting Structure and Roles

The success of a Toastmasters meeting depends on the program participants. There are many roles to fill, and each job is designed to improve the members’ public speaking and leadership skills. Program participants must know and understand their duties so they can prepare for them.

Our meetings are organized in 3 parts: prepared speeches, impromptu speaking and feedback. Every meeting different members take over different roles.

TOASTMASTER OF THE DAY: Act as host and conduct the entire program, including introducing the participants.

• Always lead the applause before and after each person you introduce.
• Introduce the helpers, each speaker, the table topics master and the general evaluator
• At the conclusion of the prepared speeches request the timer’s report and vote for the “Best Speaker.”
• Turn control of the meeting to the President or other presiding officer at the end of the meeting.
• BEFORE THE MEETING: check agenda to ensure roles are filled, email members to encourage them to sign up, ensure speakers have speech project, title and intro and choose the theme of the day. Print the meeting agendas.

PREPARED SPEAKER:  One of the most important roles of the meeting, the prepared speakers (generally three per meeting) serve as the core of the meeting and present speeches from the educational manuals. Speeches are usually 5 to 7 minutes, but more advanced speeches can go as long as 10 to 15 minutes. BEFORE THE MEETING: ensure you update the agenda with project, speech title and introduction.

TABLE TOPICS MASTER: Responsible for preparing and issuing the topic questions.  This portion of the meeting is to provide an opportunity for Toastmasters to learn to “think and speak on their feet” and to give everyone in the room an opportunity to speak.  Set the stage for your portion of the meeting with brief remarks about the theme or topic. BEFORE THE MEETING: check with Toastmaster of the Day for the meeting theme to select an appropriate Word of the Day. Choose a word that matches the theme, is challenging and also realistic to be incorporated into vocabulary afre the meeting.

• State the time the participant may have for their response (1-2 minutes).
• State the question briefly, and then call on a respondent. This keeps everyone engaged and gets them thinking of what their answer would be.
• Call on attendees who do not have a speaking role in the meeting first and then those that have lesser roles.  After the first or second question, ask any guests present if they would like to participate
• At the end of your session, ask the timer to report who is eligible to be voted for Best Table Topics Speaker
• Ask members to vote for the “Best Table Topics Speaker” and pass their votes to the Vote Counter.
• Return control of the meeting to the Toastmaster.

GENERAL EVALUATOR:  Leads the feedback portion of the meeting.

• In the evaluation portion of the meeting, introduce each speech evaluator by saying, “our first (second, third) evaluator is ______.  He/she will be evaluating the speech of _______.”
• Call on the grammarian, ah counter and timer to give their reports. After the timer’s report call for the vote on Best Evaluator  
• Wrap up by giving your general evaluation of the overall meeting and the performance of the functionaries.   
• After all speech evaluators and evaluator assistants and you have given your reports, call for a Timers Report of the Speech Evaluators and a vote for Best Evaluator  
• Return control of the meeting to the Toastmaster.
• BEFORE THE MEETING: ensure all the helpers roles are filled, timer knows the speech lenghts, grammarian has a word of the day and speech evaluators have the evaluation sheets/manuals for the speaker they will be evaluating.

SPEECH EVALUATOR: Responsible for recording your impressions of the speech on the evaluation page in the manual along with the answers to the evaluation questions.

• When introduced, go to the lectern and give your 2-3 minutes oral evaluation.
• How effectively did the speaker meet the objectives of the project?
• Give feedback about gestures, body language, eye contact, effective pauses, vocal variety, speech construction (opening, body, close)
• BEFORE THE MEETING: connect with the speaker you'll evaluate to ensure you have the right evaluation sheet/manual and ask if there's any area they'd like you to pay special attention to.

TIMER:  Helps members manage time.

• Explain timing rules and demonstrate how green, yellow, and red visual signals are used. Green at the minimum allotted time, yellow half way through, red at maximum.
• Explain the 30 seconds grace period to be eligible for vote.
• Prepared speeches are generally 5 to 7 minutes. GREEN at 5 minutes, YELLOW at 6 minutes, RED at 7 minutes and remains up until the speaker stops speaking. Check with the speaker or the toastmaster of the day if there are any special length speeches in the meeting that day.
• Table topics are 1 to 2 minutes. GREEN at 1 minutes, YELLOW at 1-1/2 minutes, RED at 2 minutes and remains up until the speaker stops speaking.
• Speech evaluations are 2 to 3 minutes. GREEN at 2 minutes, YELLOW at 2-1/2 minutes, RED at 3 minutes and remains up until the speaker stops speaking.
• When called upon, stand by your chair and give your report.
• BEFORE THE MEETING: check with the speakers to ensure you have the correct speech times. Remember not all speeches are 5-7
   

AH COUNTER:  Helps member improve use of crutch or filler words and inappropriate long pauses.

• Listen to everyone for “crutch” sounds/words and long pauses used as fillers by anyone who speaks during the meeting.
• Write down how many “crutch” sounds or words each person used during the meeting. Be specific.
• Words may be inappropriate interjections such as “and, well, but, you know.”  Sounds may be “ah, um, er.”  Also note when a speaker repeats a word or phrase such as “I,I” or This means, this means.”
• Not every but or so is a crutch, practice listening to the difference between appropriate use and filler
• When called upon, stand by your chair and give your report.
• BEFORE THE MEETING: check if there are any ice breakers and identify which attendants are guests or members that have not yet given ice breakers. In this club we do not ring the bell for them, we only track their crutches and report when called upon.

GRAMMARIAN: Helps member improve grammar and vocabulary.

• Listen for any awkward uses of grammar (i.e. incomplete sentences, incorrect grammar, sentences that change direction in midstream, etc.) throughout the meeting. 
• Select and explain the word of the day and encourage meeting participants to incorporate it when they speak.
• When called upon, stand by your chair and give your report.
• BEFORE THE MEETING: connect with the Toastmaster of the Day to find the theme of the meeting and choose a word of the day that is challenging but can easily be incorporated in the participants vocabulary during and after the meeting.
   

REMEMBER: all roles are opportunities to learn and grow both leadership and public speaking skills even if you are not one of the prepared speakers for that particular meeting. And don't forget to enjoy the journey 

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