Like other Toastmasters clubs worldwide, we have different roles that need to be filled at each meeting. Here’s an overview of them and their specific responsibilities.
Did you know that guests can also take over roles? You can indicate your interest in the guest sign-up form.
To fill a role, you need to have an EasySpeak account. If you don’t have one yet, you can set it up for free here. When you sign up for a meeting, you need to provide your username to match you in the system.
Toastmaster
The Toastmaster, sometimes called Toastmaster of the Evening or TMOTE for short, is the moderator of the meeting. They guide participants through the agenda, announces speakers, requests reports, and keeps an eye on the time.
Speaker
Speakers are those members who have prepared a speech that they will deliver at the meeting.
Evaluator
Every speaker has a designated evaluator who will deliver oral feedback after the speech. Evaluators should familiarize themselves with the objectives of a speech project and ideally talk to the speaker beforehand to find out about any specific issues they should pay attention to.
Timer
Good timekeeping is essential. Therefore, all speeches and evaluations are timed. The timer’s job is to operate our electronic timer that shows green, yellow, and red lights. A green light is shown when the minimum time is reached. A yellow light indicates halfway between the minimum and the maximum, and a red light marks the end of the allotted time.
General Evaluator
Whereas the speech evaluators focus on one particular speech, the general evaluator looks at the entire meeting and gives feedback to those who have held roles. This helps us improve the quality of our meetings.
Topicsmaster
Most meetings include a segment with short, improvised speeches called “Table Topics” in Toastmasters speak. The Table Topics Master prepares suitable topics and moderates this segment.
Ah Counter
We all use unnecessary filler words – ums, ahs, or certain words such as “like”, “you know” etc. To some extent, this is fine but done excessively. It distracts the listeners from the message. To get a feeling of how many of those we use, the Ah counter keeps track of all those instances and gives us feedback at the end of the meeting.
Grammarian
The grammarian observes the use of language and offers feedback on grammar, style, and vocabulary.