Many people wonder what happens at a Toastmasters meeting (and in case you were wondering, we don't meet every fortnight to learn how to cook toast).
Each Toastmasters club organises their meetings differently to each other depending on the main focus of the club. The Camden club covers most of the Toastmasters guidelines and has various features of the meetings to not only be fun, but educational and informative. Some of the major components of the meetings are listed below......
Table Tonic
The Table Tonic is a short feature found towards the start of each meeting. Once the formalities are over (Call To Order, Apologies, Alterations etc) the member assigned to the Table Tonic gets up and gives a short, sometimes funny, often uplifting story, joke or anecdote to get the meeting off to a feel good start.
Introductions
During this part of the evening, Members and Guests are invited to stand at their seats and give a 30 second introduction about themselves. Often, members will include a little something about the evenings "Theme" to add a little spice to their introduction. Guests and newcomers do not have to give an introduction if they don't feel comfortable to. There is no pressure to give an introduction.
Grammarian (Word of the Day)
Another task which is given to members is the Word of the Day..... known as the "Grammarian". The Grammarian's job is to come up with an interesting and underused word in our every day vocabulary, and members try and use this word throughout the meeting. The Grammarian counts all of the uses of their Word of the Day, and gives a quick report at the end of the evening.
Speeches
The main part of each evening is the presentation of speeches by the members. Each Speaker is introduced by the "Toastmaster" (another job given out to different members each meeting) and each speech is evaluated. Speeches are given following a set of guidelines from the Toastmasters speech manuals. From the Basic Manual, to various advanced Manuals on a range of specific topics.
Table Topics
Table Topics is a fun, and sometimes outrageous part of the night. The Table Topics Master (a job assigned to a different member for each meeting) comes up with a list of 5 questions which they pose to 5 different members around the room one at a time. When a question is posed to a member, that member is required to stand up and answer that question and speak for 60 seconds on the topic. This segment always brings some funny and wild answers.
Evaluations
Even though we have lots of fun at Toastmasters, we are also there to improve ourselves, so Speeches and Table Topics sessions are evaluated. Evaluations are there to point out all the good things a speaker did during their speech, and also suggest 1 or 2 small points for improvement. This is so we can all grow and improve. Even the most experienced Toastmaster can receive comments on something they can improve.
Who Said That?
The other really fun part of the evening is Who Said That. This makes sure everyone has been paying attention to everything thats been happening throughout the night. One of the members gets up and reads out 5 little quotes which have been said throughout the night by other members. A little treat is given to those who can recal "Who Said That".
This is a rundown on the major parts of an evening with Camden Toastmasters. There are other areas which make up the meeting, and by coming along to a few meetings you will really see how much fun you can have, and at the same time learning many new skills.
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