Elements of a Meeting

Club meetings vary in personality, as people vary. All Clubs, however, should have the following in common in their meeting:

• Prepared manual speeches
• Evaluators assigned to provide feedback to the speakers
• Table Topic subjects presented for extemporaneous or impromptu comments
• Rotating program assignments
• Elected club officers

A Typical Meeting

When you arrive as a guest, and guests are always welcome, you are greeted by the Seargent at Arms (club officer) and informally introduced to members. One of the members usually offers to sit with you, so he or she can explain what is happening as the meeting progresses.

The meeting starts with a chairman or club officer calling the meeting to order. Next, one of the members will give the invocation, followed by the membership reciting the Pledge. The President (the top club officer) of the club will formally introduce all the guests (including you) to the membership and then introduce the Toastmaster (a member who is chosen to run the meeting).

The Toastmaster will begin the educational portion of the meeting by introducing the Topicsmaster. The Topicsmaster (another chosen member) will begin Table Topics. This is the portion of the meeting where all the members and guests are able to participate and get a chance to speak. At the conclusion of Table topics, a ballot is cast for the best Topics speaker and the Toastmaster is called back up to the lectern.

The next portion of the meeting is the prepared speeches. The Toastmaster will introduce the speakers and each person will deliver his or her prepared speech (this is usually the best part of the meeting). After the last speech, a ballot is cast for the best speaker.

After the speeches come the evaluations. The General Evaluator (another chosen member) is called up to the lectern and begins the Evaluation portion of the meeting. A predetermined member is called upon to give an evaluation of one of the speakers. This Evaluator gives the speaker advice on improvement of the speech and also highlights portions that were done well. This is repeated for each speaker by a different Evaluator. At the conclusion of the evaluation portion, a ballot is cast for the best Evaluator and reports are heard from the chosen Grammarian, Timer and Word Master.

The Toastmaster again takes command of the meeting, All the ballots are tallied and the the three winners (Table Topics, Speaker, and Evaluator) are given an award. The meeting is then ended by the President of the club.