How does a Front Range Club meeting work?

Each meeting starts at 7:15 Sharp. Typically the president opens the meeting and welcomes the guests. If there are any pressing issues, these are addressed at this time too. The Toastmaster for the evening is then introduced who runs the meeting from this point forward.

The Toastmaster is responsible for running the meeting. Sometimes there is a theme to the meeting, sometimes not. The agenda for the meeting is prepared by the Toastmaster who is responsible for confirming attendance and roles of the members. Introductions are made at this point for the other meeting participants.

One of roles introduced at this time is the Grammarian. This person is responsible for presenting the Word of the Day. The idea behind the Word of the Day is to expand our vocabulary by providing a word and definition that is not in our day-to-day vocabulary. The Grammarian's other duty is to LISTEN very carefully to how the English language is used. The Grammarian writes down the words and phrases that are not used correctly, and notes those words and phrases that stick out and draw mental pictures.

Very often, the first major segment of a meeting is Table Topics. This is a game of impromptu speaking. A member other than the Toastmaster is assigned the duty to assemble a list of questions that are asked of audience members. Each participant comes to the lectern and has one to two minutes to answer the question. An award is given to the Table Topics participant who gives the 'best' answer to their question, falls within the allotted time, and uses the Word of the Day, as voted on by the audience.

The next segment of the meeting is typically the prepared presentations. One to three members prepare presentations for each weekly meeting in accordance with the Toastmaster's manual that they are working with. These presentations are usually five to seven minutes, but can be as long as 30 minutes if arranged for in advance. Sometimes computer projectors are used, sometimes visual aids are brought in, most often the speakers simply stand in front of the audience and give their rehearsed presentations. It's truly awe inspiring to listen to the members of this club tell us stories of thier lives or of information they have researched. The audience votes for the better presentation after all speakers have finished.

The third segment of the meeting is the evaluation section. A person is assigned the role of General Evaluator who runs this segment. Each prepared presentation has an Evaluator assigned who comes to the lectern and gives a two to three minute presentation with constructive feedback about how the presenter did, both what they did well, and what could be improved on. It's a session of positive feedback along with an honest assessment of how well the objectives were met. Like the Table Topics and Speakers, the audience votes for who gave the better evaluation of the evening when the evaluators are through.

The General Evaluator then asks for reports from the supporting roles. The Grammarian tells the audience of what they were inspired by, where the English language was not used properly, and how the Word of the Day was used. The Ah Counter gives the audience a report of the Ah's, Um's and 'Ya Know's that were used during the meeting. Finally, the General Evaluator reviews the entire meeting and provides feedback for all the other support roles, from Toastmaster to Table Topic Master.

The meeting wraps up with the presenation of the award ribbons and trophies to Best Speaker, Best Table Topics, and Best Evaluator of the night. The floor is then relinquished to the president who reviews the next week's schedule with the membership, gaining acceptance for the upcoming roles. The guests are asked for their comments regarding what they just witnessed, and the meeting is closed.

Overall, the entire meeting is upbeat, fun and quite interesting.
Fun is had by all.

The beauty of rotating roles

Each week the roles change. One week a person will be a speaker, the next a timer and the next week Table Topics. A schedule is emailed to each member by the Vice President of Education that shows the roles of the members.

The beauty of this system is that nobody is forgotton and everyone has a chance to participate and learn from this experience. Some roles require preparation prior to the meeting, such as when you are a speaker, others you can perform with no prior preparation, like the Ah Counter.

Meeting Roles

Toastmaster
Responsible for coordinating the meeting, creating the agenda, being the Master of Cermonies for the evening. Gives the member a chance to learn meeting planning skills.

Speaker
Each speech is given from a Toastmasters International manual which provide objectives and direction about how to perform the task at hand. The speaker is free to choose their own content and determine how to present the information.

Evaluator
Each speaker has an assigned Evaluator. This person listens very carefully to how the material was presented, following the guide in the manual the speaker used, to provide thoughtful and constructive feedback for the speaker.

Timer
A member uses a stop watch and colored lights to keep the presentations within a set amount of time. This helps to teach the speakers how to be organized and to the point when speaking to the group.

Table Topics
A session of impromptu speeches is given each meeting. One member prepares topics for the meeting and has various people respond to the questions. One never knows what will be asked ahead of time. You could be asked 'What food do you like most?' or 'Why do you drive cars?' This exercise teaches us how to think on our feet and organize our thoughts with minimal notice.

Miscellaneous Roles
There are a number of support roles, such as the Ah Counter, Grammarian, Inspirator, Quiz Master, Joker, etc. Each meeting does not always have all roles, and each teaches some element of communication to the membership.