Toastmasters

Toastmasters meet from 1215-1315 

A typical West Winners meeting agenda:

• Call to order/Toastmaster comments/agenda changes
• Introductions and explanation of duties
• Word of the day
• Invocation/Exhortation
• Humour
• Speech Objectives
• Speech Introduction
• Speech
• Table Topics - 3 participants
• Speech Evaluation
• Table Topics Evaluation
• Grammarian and Ah Counter report
• Timer's Report
• General Evaluator
• Guest Comments
• Announcements/Meeting Adjourned

What are the various roles in a meeting?

From week to week, members rotate in these roles so everyone can practice:

• The Toastmaster has the key role in the success of the meeting. The Toastmaster's primary duties are to ensure the meeting is run well and acts as a genial host to smooth the transition between meeting participants.
• An Invocation/Exhortation can be a one-to two-minute story, poem, informative article or something that uplifts, educates or entertains the audience. Think of it as a meeting warm-up. 
• Humour can be a joke or very brief funny story.
• The Grammarian finds a "Word of the Day" to build members' vocabulary. He/she listens for use of that word along with the improper or impressive use of the English language.
• The Ah Counter listens for use of "crutch" words or sounds such as "ah" "er" and "um" - or repeated words like "so", "and", "you know", etc. A brief report is provided to make participants aware of their filler sounds and words.
• A Timer keeps track of the time for many agenda items and reports how participants did in achieving the goal for their allotted time on the agenda.
• The Prepared Speaker presents a speech from his/her speech project manual. The speech is written and practiced in advance of the meeting.
• The Table Topics Master leads Table Topics, which can be the funniest and most enjoyable part of the meeting. Table Topics is an opportunity to practice thinking and speaking "on your feet". The Table Topics Master prepares questions adn calls members one at a time to speak for one to two minutes.
• Evaluators provide peer-to-peer feedback. Evaluations encourage and motivate speakers to work hard and improve themselves.