What Happens at Meetings?

On a rotated basis, members are scheduled to participate in a variety of tasks during the meetings:

Toastmaster The Toastmaster acts as host and conducts the meeting by warming up the audience, introducing participants, and maintaining the flow of the meeting.

Speakers At each meeting, one to three members present speeches from their manuals. These presentations are from four to twenty minutes in length depending on the assignment.

Table topics Master The Table topics Master prepares questions and asks members not on the program to respond "off the cuff". Every member speaks at every meeting--this is a Toastmaster tradition!

General Evaluator The General Evaluator introduces the speakers' evaluators and evaluates the meeting as a whole.

Speaker Evaluators Evaluators use guidelines provided in the speaker's manual to give constructive feedback--a core principle in Toastmasters.

Timer The timer tracks how long each participant speaks indicating when "time's up". Keeping presentations to a specified time is an important skill to learn.

Wizard of Ah's The wizard listens for those verbal pauses we try to eliminate from our speaking -- Um's, Ah's, "You know's" -- anything that distracts from the speech. A report of the total is given after the timer's report and individuals can find out their personal count after the meeting.

Audience What good is a speaker without an audience? If you have no other official job at a meeting, you have the important task of supporting those who are speaking by being there to listen.

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