Roles at Typical Meeting

Below is a short description of the roles at a typical toastmasters meeting. For more details please refer to pages 69-78 of the Communication and Leadership Manual. For practical reasons our club has some deviations to the manual.

Toastmaster – Serves as genial host, provides a meeting theme, introduces assistants (ah counter, grammarian, timer and quizmaster humorist), introduces speakers, table topics master, general evaluator, provides closing thought

Sergeant at Arms Assistant – Prepares the meeting place, welcomes guests, calls meeting to order, silent invocation, provides thought of the day, introduces Introductions Master. 

Later in the meeting counts votes for best Table Topics and announces the Table Topics winner. 

Introductions Master – Leads introduction of members and guests at beginning of the meeting. Introduces Toastmaster.

Ah Counter / Grammarian – Listens and records verbalized pauses, ah’s umm’s, you knows and so forth and improper usage of teh english language. Provides the word of the day and encourages each speaker to use it during the meeting.

Timer – times the speeches, evaluations, table topics and breaks.  Timing lights are used to aid speakers.

Quizmaster/Humorist – Listens for interesting facts in speeches and table topics and quizzes members at end of meeting during the general evaluation segment.  The humorist tells a funny story or joke.

Speakers – Prepare and present speeches based on a project from their speech manual.  Most speeches are 5 – 7 minutes in the basic CTM manual.  Advanced speeches may vary up to 10-20 minutes.

Table Topics Master – Leads the impromptu-speaking portion of the meeting.  Introduces the topic and calls on members to speak for 1-2 minutes.  This part of the meeting helps us to develop “thinking on your feet” skills.

General Evaluator - Leads the evaluation part of the meeting, which includes an evaluation of each prepared speech, as well as the meeting as a whole. The General Evaluator is responsible for creating the official record of the meeting on the proper club form and storing the completed form in the Secretary's book.

Evaluator – Evaluates the speakers.  Each speaker is assigned an evaluator who prepares both a written and verbal evaluation of 2-3 minutes.