7:00 Sargeant at Arms goes over agenda, opens the meeting and introduces the chairman. The Sargeant at arms is usually one of the first people who arrives at the meeting. He or she ensures the tables and other accessories are set up and that people are greeted at the door. At the start of the meeting the sargeant at arms makes sure that positions left vacant on the agenda by people who can't make the meeting are filled with those present.
7:05 Chairman opens the meeting. The chair of the meeting runs the first part of the meeting, and closes the meeting.
7:06 Invocation. The invocation is a prayer or an inspirational thought to get the meeting off to a positive start.
7:07 Guests are welcomed. Guests are always important in a Toastmasters meeting, and at Vital Words we like to make each guest feel comfortable in a setting which they might not be comfortable in.
7:08 Grammarian/Gruntmaster gives the "Vital Word" of the Day. The grammarian/gruntmaster is a sort of "watchdog" of our spoken words, to help us improve our grammar, and cut down on our "grunts" (those are little embolalia like "um"s, "ah"s, "er"s that we all seem to use as a crutch phrase at one time or another.) The "Vital Word" of the Day is a word the grammarian chooses to be used in the context of the meeting, if you wish, to not only have fun with new words, but also to expand our vocabulary.
7:10 Introductions, Explanation of Duties, and Club Warmup. The introductions and explanation of duties gives the guests and new members a chance to learn who the people are and to learn more about their roles of the evening. We also usually have a theme to the meeting, or the VP of Education contributes interesting facts about the day in history on the agendas that give every club member present a chance to "warm up" speaking and speak about the theme, the day in history, or whatever they want, provided it's no longer than about a minute or so. This way everyone gets to do what they come to Toastmasters to do, practice speaking!
7:20 Toastmaster of the Evening is introduced. The Toastmaster of the Evening acts as the meeting's MC, introducing the major meeting participants as they present and being the general host of the night.
7:20 Humour. As you may have guessed, humour is very important at Vital Words, we all like to laugh, and in the humour session we share humourous stories and anecdotes with our fellow members.
7:25 Table Topics. Led by the Table Topics Master, table topics is an exercise in impromptu speaking in which some or all of the members present are called upon to present an extemporaneous speech up to two minutes in length on a subject not known to you until the moment you get up to speak! The member of the club who is acting as the Table Topics Master at a given meeting will prepare a list of topics, usually around a theme, in advance, then, at the meeting, he or she will call upon members (and guests, if they wish to participate) to stand up and speak on the topic. Our topics have been quite diverse, and are always fun to do!
7:45 Table Topics Evaluator. Toastmasters speeches, whether table topics or prepared speeches, are evaluated by various evaluators so that we can get an impartial gage on how well we did, and which areas of our presentations we need to work on improving. Members are always helpful in their evaluations, and take into account a members level of speaking when they evaluate.
7:50 Break! During our breaks, we usually have coffee and tea ready, sometimes goodies, but mostly, you guessed it, the members like to socialize!
8:00 Prepared Speeches. The main part of any Toastmasters meeting, members present speeches they have worked on based on the guidelines in the "Communication and Leadership Manual" or "Advanced Communication and Leadership Manual", to practice various aspects of public speaking. If you are scheduled to speak at a meeting, you will probably spend a week or two beforehand creating a speech on whatever you like, taking into account the objectives listed for that speech. Then, when you go to the meeting, you hand your manual to your evaluator and that person makes written comments on the checklist while you speak. Then after the speeches are completed, your evaluator will rise to give oral commentary as well. Vital Worders also like to pass along comments to the speakers on pieces of paper so that they get feedback from more people than just their assigned evaluator.
8:25 General Evaluator. Yup, you guessed it, more evaluation! The general evaluator gives their comments on the whole meeting and the meeting participants, again both encouraging them on what they found they did right, and giving them constructive feedback on how they can improve on their duty next time. They also evaluate the speech and table table topics evaluators, to help them in their evaluating skills.
8:32 Reports. The people helping out in the meeting give reports at the end of the meeting, such as the:
* Timer. The timer makes sure that the speakers are within their alloted
time frame and that the meeting is run smoothly, helping members with their
time management skills.
* Grammarian/Gruntmaster. As defined above, the Grammarian/Gruntmaster
gives their report on members' grammatical performance, improvement on use
of crutch phrases, and the occurance of the word of the day.
* Finesmaster. Probably unique to Vital Words, this is a fun role to
perform! The finesmaster is an evaluator in a sense; they assign nominal fines
(usually five or ten cents) for any misfraction they might deem necessary,
for anything such as not improving on eye contact, to not wearing matching
socks, to fining a person who admits in table topics that they like to shovel
snow!
* President's Report. The president gives a report on upcoming events,
and other matters of relevance to the club.
After the reports, the meeting returns to the chairman again.
8:40 Awards and 50/50 Draw. During the meeting, members cast ballots on the best table topics speaker, most improved speaker, best prepared speaker, most humoruous contributor to meeting, etc. The one assigned to tally all these votes gives their report at this time. The winners get a small certificate and a warm handshake. The 50/50 draw is conducted during the break, where members buy 50/50 tickets if they so choose (1 for $1, 3 for $2) and the awards person also draws the winning number, the lucky ticket holder recieves half of the collected pot, the other half goes towards the club revenues.
8:43 Guest Comments and Lessons Learned. As mentioned before, guests are very important at Vital Words, and they also get the last word. If they wish, they can comment about their Vital Words experience that night, and share with us their views. "Lessons Learned" gives all members a chance to state anything they learned that night.
8:45 Adjourn. Although, as you probably guessed, we like to hang around to chat with other members and talk about the meeting.
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