The success of a Toastmasters meeting depends on the program participants. There are many roles to fill, and each job is designed to improve the members’ public speaking and leadership skills. Program participants must know and understand their duties so they can prepare for them. Some roles can be combined – for example, the Ah-Counter might also be the grammarian or listen for uses of the word of the day.
Meeting Roles can include:
- Ah-Counter
- Chairman
- Evaluator
- General Evaluator
- Grammarian
- Meeting Speaker
- Pledge
- TABLE TOPICS™ Speaker
- Thought of the Day
- Timer
- Toastmaster
- Topicsmaster
Internationally these roles may be called different names such as the Toastmaster that runs the meeting often being called the Chairman, in Australia. The above roles count towards CL level recognition.
Other Meeting Roles:
Many clubs include some fun roles in their meetings that do not form part of the CL manual. These may include:
- Laughmaster or Table Tonic – to lighten the meeting with a laugh. A few quick jokes can sometimes work more effectively than one long joke that may fall flat
- Toast – we are called on throughout life to offer a toast. To fulfil this role decide what is to be toasted, present the case as to why it is deserving of a toast, ask people to stand, toast and then to sit down again. The most important things are to keep the toast itself short, simple and memorable and to remember to ask people to sit.
- Point of View – a short, often unprepared speech, on a topic of interest or current affairs on which the speaker holds a point-of-view.
- Review – a short review of a book or movie delivered as a short speech.
- Listening Post or Big Ears – writes questions throughout the meeting to ask at the end to test how well we were listening.
