What to Expect at Your First Toastmasters Meeting

Some people think that confidence is something that some people just have. Even though I may look confident strutting in a two-piece on a stage, there are days when I'm so nervous, or I feel like, 'Oh my gosh, I don't know if I can do this

- Catriona Gray

When you think about going to your first Toastmasters meeting, do you get so nervous that the butterflies in your stomach feel like grasshoppers jumping around? Yeah, me too. I think we all felt that way at the beginning. Welcome to the crowd. Not a single person in the meeting started out as a confident, poised public speaker. We all started out right where you are.

One of the reasons we all felt that way is that we didn’t know what to expect. “What is Toastmasters?” “Why am I torturing myself by going? I hate getting up in front of people. I hate having to give a speech. What if they don’t like me?”

Okay, I’m going to tackle each of those thoughts one by one, starting with the last one. “What if they don’t like me?” Toastmasters members are the friendliest, most supportive, the most inviting people I have had the privilege to meet. Trust me, we’ll like you. Guests are always welcomed with open arms (or open mikes in the case of an online meeting). Guests make our meetings much more interesting because guests give a new perspective on what we’re doing.

“I hate getting up in front of people.” Since the global pandemic started in the Spring of 2020, all Toastmasters clubs have met online, usually through Zoom. Coming to a Toastmasters meeting is done from the comfort of your own home so there is no need to get up in front of people. Hey, if you’re really nervous, turn off your camera and be incognito. No one will insist on you being on camera. (Note, some clubs are meeting in person now or a hybrid mix of in-person and Zoom. RCAT will be staying virtual for the foreseeable future.)

“I hate having to give a speech.” This one is easy. At your first meeting, you will likely be asked to introduce yourself and tell us what brought you to the meeting at the start of the meeting, and give us an idea of how you liked the meeting at the end. Each of those could be just a few seconds, if that’s all you can do and if you can only squeak out your name, that’s okay, too. Other than that, there is no way you will be expected to give a speech until you’re ready.

“What is Toastmasters?” Direct from Toastmasters.org: “Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs. Headquartered in Englewood, Colo., the organization's membership exceeds 300,000 in more than 15,800 clubs in 149 countries. Since 1924, Toastmasters International has helped people from diverse backgrounds become more confident speakers, communicators, and leaders.”

In other words, Toastmasters is a worldwide organization made up of thousands of clubs, each one helping its members work through the self-paced education program. The program teaches you the skills of public speaking, the club meetings give you a chance to practice those skills, get suggestions for improvement, and learn leadership skills at the same time.

So, what can you expect at your first Toastmasters meeting? A group of friendly, supportive members who want to help you be the best speaker and leader that you can be.

The typical Toastmasters meeting follows an agenda but from club to club, that agenda may vary. There will be a person assigned as the Toastmaster, the emcee of the meeting. They will control the meeting from beginning to end. The Toastmaster will introduce the members who have taken on the various meeting roles and each of those people will give an introduction to what their role is all about. Fairly typical roles are:

• the Grammarian who will give the “word of the day,” a word to be used throughout the meeting to help build our vocabulary. They also count filler words like “um,” “ah,” and “so”, and make note of any notably good or notably bad grammar

• the Table Topics Master who will ask questions during the impromptu speaking part of the meeting. Members are given a topic and are asked to speak on that topic for 1-2 minutes. You MAY be invited to participate in Table Topics but there is no pressure to do so.

• the General Evaluator who controls the evaluation portion of the meeting

• the Speech Evaluator(s) who give a friendly, supportive evaluation of a prepared speech, often giving the speaker suggestions for improvement. It is these evaluations that really help you grow as a speaker.

• the Timer who times certain parts of the meeting like the speeches. One of the things we learn in Toastmasters is to speak within given timer limits. These limits are from 1-2 minutes for a Table Topics speech, 2-3 minutes for a speech evaluation, and 5-7 minutes for a typical prepared speech although there are specialty speeches with different time limits.

• and sometimes other roles such as the Quizmaster who will ask questions at the end of the meeting to test our listening skills, another skill you learn at Toastmasters and

• the Jokemaster, who tells a clean joke to start the meeting in some clubs to set a lighthearted atmosphere.

As I said, most clubs have a fairly standard agenda for their meetings, but they will vary from club to club. Also, there may be different agendas when something special happens, like extra speakers, club executive nominations, which happen once a year in May, special events, end-of-year celebrations, and the like.

The usual agenda at this club is for the Toastmaster to open the meeting, introduce the theme, introduce the timer, the grammarian (who gives the word of the day), and the quizmaster. We then get to listen to 1-3 prepared speeches, after which we are given some time to jot down any comments we would give the speaker (we’ll get to that part later). At this point, the agenda varies from meeting to meeting, depending on the time. We may listen to the speech evaluator(s) and have the round robin evaluations or have the Table Topics session. Sometimes we do Table Topics first. Either way, we try to get everything done within 2 hours.

The round-robin evaluations are special to this club. Each person is given the chance to give the speaker(s) one or two points of improvement. This is why you will be given a minute after each speech to jot down your thoughts. It is very powerful to get multiple perspectives on improvements rather than just one Speech Evaluator’s perspective. This technique is catching on and you can see it in multiple clubs now, especially advanced clubs. Raising Champions Advanced Toastmasters have been doing them for years.

Karen MacNeil, DTM