The Chair Person is one of the most critical roles for any Toastmaster’s meeting. They set the theme, encourage people to sign up for roles/speeches and facilitate the overall meeting.
On the week of meeting
- Determine a theme and question of the week to ask members that take on roles/speeches.
- Post on the Metro Speakers WhatsApp group – your theme question of the week & have everyone who has
taken on a role including speakers to email their answers. All speakers and evaluators need to message you
their answers. - Once the answers for speakers/evaluators have been collected, pass them forward to the Toastmaster.
- During the week, check on Easy Speak to make sure all roles are filled and post on WhatsApp to fill
remaining roles. - If someone with a role who hasn’t answered the question of the week, text them on WhatsApp directly
or ask them before the meeting starts
Before the meeting
- If meeting online – post the agenda on the Zoom chat when everyone has arrived. If posted too soon, those arriving late will not be able to see the agenda on chat. Feel free to ask another member to assist you with posting the agenda
- If meeting in person – print out roughly 20-25 copies of the agenda, place them in front of the seats for people to pick up once they arrive.
- Check to see that everyone shows up for their roles
- Check to see all speakers shows up and if cancellations, ask for an impromptu speech.
- If there’s an empty speech slot role and ask during the start of the meeting after you introduce guests if
someone wants to give an impromptu speech. Ask the audience to think about if they would like to
give a speech or ask if someone is willing to step up and do an impromptu speech (that way they have time to think about it). If someone agrees, ask for an evaluator to step in as well. If no one goes, then we can just move on.
During the meeting
- You will be introduced by the Sergeant at Arms
- Give a 2-3 minute speech talking about the theme of the week. It could be why you choose it, a story or anecdote related or anything creative you can think of that flows with it
- After your speech, ask guests to introduce themselves (e.g. Ask each guest what brought them to Toastmasters?)
- Re-post the agenda in the chat. Announce any last minute changes to it/call on people to help fill any still empty roles
- Throughout the meeting, progress through the agenda. Your job is to keep the meeting flowing with transitions between roles (both intro and closing). Typically using a person’s question of the week for their transitions is a good way to move through everyone – but feel free to mix it up!
- During a call for voting (best speakers, evaluator, etc) – direct everyone to private message votes to the Sergeant at Arms. (Vote for best speech only if there are more than two speeches given and the same for best evaluator. It is up to the Chair Person if they want to include General Evaluator or not).
- Sergeant at Arms will message you the winners for Best Speaker, Best Evaluator which is announced at the end of the night’s meeting. If in person, they will hand you a slip of paper.
- At the end of the meeting, you will announce the winners of each vote
- Do one more round of calling on guests, ask them how they felt the meeting went/what they thought of Metro Speakers
- During announcements, ask the Executive Team if there are any announcements (sometimes there are none, if so conclude to wrap up the meeting)
Helpful Resources
Melanie’s Chair Person Checklist
Video Examples