Toastmaster
Do:
- Confirm the theme of the meeting as early as Friday or Saturday for speakers and the table topic master to prepare accordingly. Send the meeting theme to the scheduler.
- Have a 5 minutes speech to start the meeting. Your speech should follow a theme that you will try to follow all along the meeting.
- Talk with the speakers before the meeting starts to know how they want to be introduced
- Introduce each speakers with something special about them, something that will prepare the audience to the speaker and the speech
- Introduce the speakers in a professional manner, in the same way as you would introduce someone in the boardroom
- Have transitions between speakers by taking a good point from the previous speech and linking it smoothly to the next speaker
- Notify the audience about any changes to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting.
- After the break, remind the audience to fill the feedback form for the speakers
- After the evaluations, instruct audience to complete feedback form for the speakers, pass the blue basket around, and drop their feedback form in the basket.
Don't:
- Introduce the role of the General Evaluator and Table Topic Master, that's their own role to introduce themselves.
- Put too high expectations when you introduce a speaker (example: she's the best evaluator, a very experience speaker, etc.). Instead, say something more personal about the speaker to let the audience know the speaker better.
- Introduce a speaker in un-professional way such as "our handsome member", "baby skin", "lovely lady": instead stick to the same way you would introduce someone at a professional conference
- Say that Toastmaster is a place to improve your English skills. What you should say: CCTMC is a place to improve public speaking and leadership skills; it's important to make it clear that CCTMC is NOT an English corner if the issue is raised by some members in the course of the meeting.
General Evaluator:
Do:
- Introduce your role: to evaluate how the overall meeting goes, the toastmaster, your evaluation team (timer, Ah counter, Grammarian) and the evaluators.
- Evaluate the toastmasters, the evaluators (prepared speaker evaluators, table topic evaluator, greeter, timer, grammarian, ah counter)
- Pay attention to your time. Usually the general evaluator always lacks of time and it's easy to spend too much time on someone while ignoring the rest of the people to evaluate.
Don't:
- Evaluate prepared speakers or table topic speakers: they have already been evaluated by the prepared speaker evaluators and the table topic evaluator
- Introduce the role of the timer, grammarian and Ah counter, that's their own role to introduce themselves.
Table Topics Master
Do:
- Introduce the purpose of table topic: to offer an opportunity to
- Introduce how the table topic works for guests: participants have to talk 2 up to 2 minutes on a given topic.
- Give clear table topic questions
- If no one volunteers, pick up an experienced speaker for the first participant. It will set the example and give the tone of the table topic.
- Speak loud and clear, especially when asking the question
- Enunciate the table topic to all of the audience, not just the participant.
Don't:
- Give a table topic question that you wouldn't be yourself able to deliver or understand well
- Accept a first-time guest for the first candidate. Instead, take an experienced speaker or a guest who has come several times and knows what is a table topic session.
- Select guests unless they volunteer themselves
Table Topics Evaluator
Do:
- Evaluate the table topic master
- Evaluate the table topic speakers
Don't:
- Forget to keep track of the time so that you make sure that each table topic speaker is evaluated
- Evaluate too much the speakers' content, instead focus more on the structure and the delivery (body language, vocal variety, confidence, etc.)
Timer
Do:
- Introduce your role: Time management is an important role in delivering speeches, speakers need to be aware of the time and you are here to remind them. You have 3 cards of different color: green one means you have reach minimum required time for the speech, yellow one means that you are approaching the end of your speech and you need to prepare your closing soon, red card means that your time is over and you have 30 seconds to finish otherwise you'll be clapped out of the stage.
- Give some examples of how you will time:
- "For Table Topics, the green will go up after 1 minute, the yellow goes up after 1.5 minutes, and the red goes up at 2 minutes."
- "For prepared speeches of 5-7 minutes, the green will go up at 5 minutes, the yellow goes up at 6 minutes, and the red goes up at 7 minutes."
- Established eye contact with the speaker when you are showing the card
- Hold the card for at least 10 seconds
- Hold the card high enough for the speaker to see
- Start clapping when the time is up. You are actually helping the speaker to realize that time control is a critical aspect of a speech.
Don't:
- Shake the card to attract the speaker attention to the card. It might distract the speaker, and it is the speaker's responsibility to check the time.
- Say or apologize it's your first time to hold this role
- Introduce your role: Grammar and the right use of words is very important in the delivery of a speech. You will pay attention to grammar mistakes and report them at the end of the meeting
- Introduce the word of the day. Select an interesting word that can relate to the theme of the meeting
- Remember that guests tend to go over the time limit (20 or 30 seconds), you can have the help of the time to raise the red card. In that way, it's easier to interrupt them based on facts and smoothly move to the next speaker
- Make the guests feel a warm welcome
Education
