All About Roles at the Meeting

When You Have Another Role at the Meeting

Several members take active roles at each meeeting of Toastmasters. Handling a role will develop your meeting skills and contribute to your development as a speaker.

The specific roles other than Toastmaster of the Day are:

Host opener
Toastmaster Introducer
Timer
Grammarian/Ah Counter
Master Evaluator
Evaluator
Table Topics Master

When You Are Host Opener

Almost any subject is suitable for a host opener: time of year, an amusing anecdote, something you have learned as Toastmaster, etc. Something cheerful or upbeat sets a good tone for the meeting.
Your opener should be 2 to 3 minutes. Do not turn it into a speech of 5 to 7 minutes! There is not enough time for an additional full speech.
While your opener is not a full speech, it is a mini-speech. Pay attention to structure, opening and closing, etc.
When you are done, say "Mr. President," to signal that control of the meeting returns to the President. Wait for the President to come to the lectern again, shake his or her hand, and sit down.

When You Are the TMOD Introducer

This is an important assignment and good practice for introducing speakers in real life.
Your introduction should take one to two minutes.
Communicate with the Toastmaster of the Day in advance to learn basic facts about his or her life, time in Toastmasters, family, hobbies, etc.
Make sure that you have the pronunciation of his or her name correct (or as correct as you can make it).
Do not let the TMOD write the introduction himself or herself. The assignment is for you to prepare the introduction.
Remember that, even if the TMOD is a long-standing Club member, new members of the Club may know little about him or her.
Your closing words will welcome the TMOD to the lectern. Wait until he or she comes to the lectern, shake his or her hand, and sit down.

When You Are the Timer

You must time the Speakers, the Evaluators, and the Table Topics participants. It is useful also to time and give signals to the Host Opener and the Toastmaster Introducer.
Host Opener (2 to 3 minutes): green at 2 minutes, yellow at 2-1/2 minutes, red at 3 minutes.
Toastmaster Introducer (about 3 minutes): green at two minutes; yellow at two and a half, red at three minutes.
The Toastmaster of the Day is likely to ask you to explain the time signals. Do so briefly. Because the Host Opener and the Toastmaster Introducer will already have spoken, there is no need to mention the times for those.
Speakers (usually, but not always, 5 to 7 minutes): green at minimum (usually 5 minutes); yellow one minute later (usually 6 minutes); red at maximum (usually 7 minutes), with the speaker allowed 30 additional seconds to wrap up.
Evaluators (2 to 3 minutes): green at 2 minutes; yellow at 2-1/2 minutes; red at 3 minutes.
Table topics participants (1 to 2 minutes, unless shortened by the Table Topics Master): green at 1 minute, yellow at 1-1/2 minutes; red at 2 minutes.
Enter the time of each speech on your written evaluation form for that Speaker, so that the Speaker has a permanent record of the time.
When called upon at the end of the meeting by the Master Evaluator, report on the times for each Speaker or other participant in the meeting. When time is short, this report may be abbreviated (e.g., all the Speakers were within the time, except for ___).

When You Are the Grammarian/Ah Counter

Count the verbalized pauses by each participant (ah’s, um’s, you know’s, etc.)
Comment, to the extent that you feel appropriate, on:
- Incorrect words (such as “infer” for “imply”)
- Incorrect grammar (such as “between you and I”)
- Clichés or tired phrases
- Poor sentence structure (such as run-on sentences)

Note that it is often best to speak to someone after the meeting about certain errors.
Comment also, if you can and if there is time, on particularly good uses of languages (vivid images or words, etc.).
Report at the end of the meeting, when called upon by the Master Evaluator, on the non-verbal pauses and on such other matters as there is time and inclination to comment upon.

When You Are the Master Evaluator

Confirm that the scheduled Evaluators will attend the meeting and perform their assigned roles. If they cannot and if they have not found a replacement themselves, send out an e-mail to obtain replacements.
If at all possible, notify the Evaluators before the meeting of the speakers that they will be evaluating and the specific speech assignment (information that should be available from the TMOD). Recommend that they contact the Speaker in advance or immediately before the meeting to find out if there are any special points to which the Speaker wants them to pay attention and to make sure that the Speaker will bring his or her manual to the meeting and provide it to the Evaluator.
Introduce evaluators by name, and identify which Speaker her or she will evaluate.
Remind Speakers and Evaluators that the Evaluator should have the Speaker’s Manual in hand before the speech.
After the speeches, when control of meeting is turned over to you, call on the evaluators in turn for their evaluations.
At the close of the evaluations, return control of the meeting to the TMOD (for Table Topics), Timer’s Report, and Grammarian’s Report.
At the close of the Timer’s Report and the Grammarian’s Report, you will be called upon for your general evaluation of the meeting. Use this opportunity to comment, positively and negatively (if necessary) on the overall conduct of the meeting, including such points as meeting starting time, the performance of any participant (particularly Host Opener, TMOD Introducer, TMOD, and Table Topics Master, who otherwise will receive no feedback), the manner in which guests were greeted, etc. This is an ideal time for you to speak your mind on subjects concerning conduct of meetings, even subjects not pertinent to this meeting.
The time for your remarks should be 2 to 3 minutes.

When You Are an Evaluator

Each Evaluator reviews one of the formal speeches at the meeting. The purpose is constructive criticism to bring to the awareness of the speaker the effects of the speech, and strengths weaknesses in style, organization, etc., speech habits, etc. Evaluations are often the most valuable part of a meeting, not just for the Speaker but for all members. In our Club, evaluators stand and speak from their seats, but if you are close to the lectern or if your seat is badly placed, you may feel free to speak from the lectern. Evaluations should be two to three minutes in length.

Ten Commandments of Effective Speech Evaluation:

Read the project objectives and evaluation guidelines.
Confer with the speaker before the speech.
Listen carefully.
Recognize the Speaker’s strengths.
Provide verbal reward for improvement.
Suggest positive directions for growth.
Recommend alternative actions.
Reinforce the Speaker’s commitment to self-improvement.
Be positive and supportive.
Make the Speaker feel good about himself or herself.

Suggestions:

Ask the Speaker what particular elements they would like you to critique.
Choose two or three major points and focus on those in your evaluation.
Be clear, concise, and diplomatic.
Observe: appearance, approach to the lectern, opening and closing, speech structure, gestures and eye-contact, vocal variety, adherence to manual objectives.
If the Speaker presented a Manual speech but did not meet its requirements, suggest that the Speaker repeat the assignment.
Remember that you are addressing Club members as well as the Speaker. Often the best evaluations call the attention of the Club members to the ways in which a good speaker achieved certain results.
When you finish your evaluation, you may say: “Mr. [or Madame] Master Evaluator,” to signal that control of the meeting has returned to the Master Evaluator.

When You Are the Table Topics Master:

Begin with a brief explanation of the purpose and nature of Table Topics (if the TMOD hasn’t done so). The Manual says that your introduction should take no more than one minute and that “[t]he purpose of Table Topics is to give all members not already scheduled on the program a chance to speak, not for you to deliver a speech.”
Remind everyone (if the TMOD or the Timer hasn't done so) that Table Topics responses should be one to two minutes. If time is short, you can announce that response should be limited to one and a half minutes or to one minute (in which case you or the Timer should specify how the time signals will be presented).
Call on an experienced member first: it sets the tone for the rest of the responses.
Make sure to call on the Club members who do not have speaking roles at the meeting before calling on any guest, and try to call upon every such Club member, even though time is often short for Table Topics.
If you have time to call upon guests, invite the guests to participate, but put no pressure on them to do so.
Try not to embarrass the responder.
Avoid questions that have too many parts or subparts. Keep it simple!
Although our Club does not follow this practice religiously, it is good idea to ask your questions before identifying who should respond. That way, everyone has to listen carefully to every question.
It is useful to have with you a one-page list of all the members, on which you mark those with speaking roles and mark off those who are not at the meeting, so that you know who to call upon.

Click here for a description of these roles in Microsoft Word format.