Our Meetings

A typical Preston Persuaders Toastmasters meeting is broken down into the following parts:

Introduction

Meetings begin with an invocation and the recitation of the club mission. The President of the club will then introduce guests and the Toastmaster of the evening. The Toastmaster will present a theme for the meeting and will introduce individuals who have been assigned a helper role (ie. timer, vote counter, Ah horn, posture bell, lexicologist, grammarian, listener, and joke master).

Prepared Speeches

During this section, members present the speeches that they have prepared in advance. Usually 3-4 members will give a prepared speech at each meeting.

Table Topics

This is the "impromptu", or unprepared speaking portion of each meeting. The leader has prepared a list of questions in advance, and will ask each member to respond to one of the questions (as many as time allows), giving as many people as possible an opportunity to speak at each meeting.

Evaluations

During the evaluation section of the meeting, each of the prepared speakers receives oral and written feedback on their presentation skills that night (both what they did well and 1-2 areas for improvement). Assigned evaluators will give their evaluations. Afterwords, the General Evaluator will provide remarks on the meeting as a whole.

Following the three sections of the formal meeting, we usually have a short business meeting plus announcements. Afterwards, many of the group will migrate to a local pub, where people get together for conversation, drinks, and snacks.