Meetings

Overview

Toastmasters meetings are designed to give everyone who attends the opportunity to practice and get feedback on their public speaking.

Meetings are structured in sections:

  • Prepared Speeches
  • Table Topics
  • Evaluations

Structure

Prepared Speeches

The first half of the meeting is dedicated to prepared speeches. These speeches are usually 6-7 mins long and contribute to the speaker’s Toastmasters Pathway progress – the syllabus every member of the club is given to follow and help them develop as a speaker.

Speech Evaluations

Every speech is followed by an evaluation given by another member of the club. This might sound scary, but the art of receiving and giving feedback is essential for improving your speaking ability. If feedback is a gift, every meeting may as well be Christmas! 

Table Topics

The second half is for unprepared speaking – the kind of speaking you may be called upon to do when you don’t have time to prepare, like in a work meeting. We call this “Table Topics”. The Table Topics master will decide on a theme for the topics for the day – members can then put themselves forward to speak about a random topic for 2 minutes.  

You can read more about Table Topics in our Table Topics guide.

Other Evaluations and Roles

We round off every meeting with reports from the overall meeting evaluators and functionaries:

  • Grammarian – the Grammarian listens out for good uses of language and decides on a ‘Word of the Day’ for people to include in their speeches.
  • Timekeeper – the Timekeeper monitors the timing of each speaker and reports on these times. Read more about the role of Timekeeper.
  • General Evaluator – the General Evaluator evaluates every functionary role that has not already been evaluated.
  • Toastmaster – the Toastmaster leads the event, introduces speakers and keeps the energy in the room high.
  • President – the President is the leader of the club. They open and close every meeting.

If you’re a member of the club you can sign up for a speech or functionary role before the meeting using our online portal Easyspeak.