A Typical George Sutton Toastmasters Meeting

Toastmasters clubs are a bit like McDonald’s. You can travel around the world and visit any location and a Toastmasters club meeting will run close to the same as the next. The main difference with our club, however, is organization. Every meeting is carefully prepared in advance. You won’t typically see members frantically trying to fill meeting roles just before the meeting starts like in most clubs. All members are scheduled for roles month-to-month.

We attribute this advance preparation as a main contributor to the success of our club as a whole and also to the professional growth and real-world experience of our members.

The Goal of a High Quality Toastmasters Meeting

One main objective of any Toastmasters meeting is to give every club member an opportunity to practice his or her speaking skills each week in front of a group. To accomplish this, each member is scheduled to perform various duties. Some of these include Speaker, Evaluator, Table Topics Participant, “Ah” Counter, Grammarian, Joke Master, Table Topics Master, Timer, to name a few.

Meeting Format

Each Toastmasters meeting is divided into three major parts. Table Topics, Prepared Speeches and Formal Evaluations.

1. Table Topics – One of the most challenging elements of communication is impromptu speaking. Table Topics offers the ongoing challenge to speak in front of a group without preparation. Members are called to the front of the room to spontaneously comment on a subject that is provided by the Table Topics Master for the day.
2. Prepared Speeches – Each member is scheduled in advance every other month or so to prepare and deliver a “prepared” speech. At George Sutton, we have three prepared speakers each week. Speeches are normally between 5 and 15 minutes in length. Participants are at liberty to present any topic they’d like but speeches usually follow the guidelines of educational manuals produced by Toastmasters International.
3. Formal Evaluations – One of the most rewarding elements in Toastmasters is the forum to deliver a speech AND THEN get evaluated in a supportive environment. An evaluator typically congratulates the speaker on a job well done, points out several areas of the speech that were performed well and offers 2 or 3 areas to improve upon.

At the end of each meeting, attendees vote for who they felt did the best job at presenting a Table Topic, Prepared Speech and Formal Evaluation. This keeps things competitive and interesting for all members. It also gives newcomers to the club something to strive for.

You Are Welcome!

Once again, we’d like to encourage you to come visit our club. You are under no obligation to join, but, we’re confident that you will consider our club to be one of the most professional, organized, consistent and energized clubs in the area.

Please visit us! We just ask that you let our public relations officer know you’re coming so that we can greet you properly when you walk in the door. Contact information is provided on our Contact Us Page.