Agenda Positions

The following is a guide to a typical meeting of the Crystal Lake Toastmasters Club. We hope it will help you understand what we are trying to accomplish with each segment of the meeting. 

Each position is a voluntary opportunity to practice public speaking. Members sign up prior to each meeting for a position that will challenge their abilities. A GREAT meeting occurs when all positions are filled, everyone is prepared for their position, and everyone participates!

This Toastmaster is your host for the meeting. It is his or her duty to lead, coordinate, and motivate participation according to the day’s agenda, a set schedule of events. The Toastmaster of the Day is also responsible for making sure all people scheduled for assignments will be present and are prepared for their portion of the meeting. This is an opportunity to practice meeting skills by making sure the meeting runs on schedule, allows everyone to speak, and ends on time.

The invocation is an opportunity to deliver an inspirational or motivational message. This speaker also leads the pledge of allegiance to our country. This position is an opportunity for a brief speaking role, one that is prepared and practiced beforehand.

This portion of the meeting allows members to hear the latest club business news. The person chairing (or conducting) the business meeting gains practice in both meeting leadership and parliamentary procedure. These skills can be applied in any type of meeting, such as at work, school groups, and civic organizations.

A fellow Toastmaster introduces and defines a new word to expand our vocabulary. We are challenged to use this new word in any speaking we may do at the meeting today.

Humor is an important part of speaking and telling a joke has its own set of challenges. A fellow Toastmaster will practice this skill, entertain us, and add a little levity to the meeting.

One of the many skills involved in effective communication is presented. This serves as a review for experienced Toastmasters and as an example for newer Toastmasters. Everyone learns.

The purpose of Table Topics is to give Club members an opportunity to think and speak on their feet - without prior notice. Today’s Table Topics Master has a variety of questions and may call on any fellow Toastmaster (except today’s speakers) for a 1 to 2 minute impromptu talk on that topic. This helps give all members in attendance a chance to speak in public today.

A ten minute break to relax and socialize with other members.

The speakers today have volunteered to prepare and present their own speeches on a topic of their choice. Most speeches are from a specific project in either the basic Communication and Leadership manual or one of the Advanced manuals from Toastmasters International. Each project is a learning opportunity for a different aspect of public speaking. The Toastmaster of the Day will introduce each speaker and give the objectives for their speech. The length of most project speeches is 5 - 7 minutes.

The Master Evaluator is chairperson of the evaluation portion of the meeting. This is where we can learn how to do even better next time.  Evaluations are personal opinions that praise strong points and successes while also offering constructive criticism. The Master Evaluator introduces each of the speech Evaluators, the Timer, the Grammarian, and offers comments on the overall meeting. This is a learning portion of the meeting as we all continue to improve.

Each Evaluator has been assigned to one of today’s speakers. They will give an honest, personal opinion on the speaker’s performance and effectiveness toward the speech objectives in 2 -3 minutes. A good evaluation comments on the speaker’s good points as well as areas that may need improvement.

All speeches are timed to help the speakers learn to speak more effectively in the time allotted. The Timer records minutes and seconds for each Table Topic speaker, Evaluator, and Prepared Speaker. Times are announced during this segment of the meeting. The Timer also counts ballots from the members who vote for Best Table Topic, Best Evaluator, and Best Speaker from today’s meeting.

The Toastmaster assigned to this task has the enviable position of catching mistakes each of us make during any speaking we do. Each little "um", "oh", and "ah" is counted along with grammatical errors. For every mistake, each member is asked to contribute a nickel to the club’s "coffee and supplies" fund. This report is given near the end of the meeting.

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