The Club Experience

You’ve taken that first step of coming along to your first club meeting and don’t know what you to expect? Everyone that has walked through those doors for the first time has had the very same thoughts.

Typical meetings commence with opening comments from either the Club President, or the Toastmaster – the host for the meeting. Once the format of the meeting has been explained, the Toastmaster may introduce other functionaries, such as a Timekeeper or Grammarian, each fulfilling important aspects of the Toastmaster experience.

From this point on, meeting structure will vary from club to club, but all will contain these three vital ingredients:

Prepared Speeches: Members deliver speeches on topics of their choosing, trying to meet the objectives of the project as well as keep to the allotted time.

Evaluations: Every speaker will have an assigned evaluator (another club member) who will provide both an oral and written feedback, highlighting positive aspects of the speech and potential areas for improvement.

Table Topics (impromptu speaking): Members in the audience are invited without preparation, to give a speech on a chosen topic for 1-2mins.

Finally, the meeting is drawn to a close with reports from the functionaries and a General Evaluator, who ensures that any participant that has yet to receive feedback, has points of commendation and recommendation for improvement to take away.