General info on meetings

 Communication

On joining Toastmasters each member receives a speech manual and a leadership skills manual. The speech manual consists of ten speeches each with a set goal e.g. using body language, vocal variety or to persuade with power. Each goal helps to further build on and develop the speaker's public speaking skills.

After completing the ten speeches in the speech manual you can select two advanced manuals free of charge. Each contains five speaking projects designed to develop skills in the area covered by the manual. The advanced manuals currently published are:

 

	The Entertaining Speaker	Persuasive Speaking
	Storytelling	Speaking to Inform
	Interpretive Reading	Public Relations
	Humorously Speaking	The Discussion Leader
	Speciality Speeches	Speeches by Management
	Special Occasion Speeches	The Professional Speaker
	Interpersonal Communication	Technical Presentations
	Communicating on Television

We recommend that people wishing to improve their communication skills also work through the leadership skills manual as this tends to produce stronger, more confident speakers.

 

Meeting Structure

Each meeting is presented by a different club member who calls other club members to come up and present their speeches. There is a timer who signals to the speakers so that they know how much of their allotted time remains. The Grammarian presents the word of the day and at the end of the meeting comments on their use of language. Each speaker is paired with an Evaluator who will provide constructive feedback. There is an impromptu Table Topics speaking session based around a set theme followed by final evaluations and the meeting concludes with the handing out of ribbons to the best Evaluator and best Table Topics speaker. 

 

What are Evaluations?

They say that at a Toastmasters meeting everything is evaluated; and they aren't wrong. The cornerstone of a Toastmasters meeting is the constructive feedback given by fellow club members serving as Evaluators. There are three main evaluations given during the course of a Toastmasters meeting and these are described below.

Table Topics Evaluator

The first evaluator to report back at a meeting is the Table Topics Evaluator. The Table Topics Evaluator will attempt to give at least one point of praise and one point for improvement for each Table Topics speaker.

Speech Evaluator

Speech Evaluators give a three point evaluation on speeches given by speakers working from one of the speech manuals. The structure of the evaluation is:

A reminder of speech objectives followed by commendations (points of praise), recommendations (advice for improving the speech) and further commendations (further points of praise) finishing off with a summary.

General Evaluator

The last evaluator to speak, the General Evaluator, will evaluate everyone who has not already been evaluated during the meeting e.g. the Toastmaster of the Evening, the Table Topics Master, the other evaluators etc and end the evening on a positive note.

 

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