This section provides some general information about Toastmasters and what happens at a normal meeting. Questions are listed below.To see an answer simply click on the question or scroll down the page to see all questions and answers.

 
Q. What is Toastmasters?

Toastmasters is a non-profit world wide educational organisation with a mission to improve communication (public speaking) and leadership skills of its members. Toastmasters has approximately 180,000 members in 54 countries.

Q. I'm scared to death of speaking! Why should I look into Toastmasters?

Almost EVERYONE is afraid of speaking. In poll after poll, "public speaking" comes up as more feared than "death". Public speaking is the #1 fear. Even if you think you're really good at speaking, there will come times when your heart stops and your palms sweat and you freeze before an audience. Toastmasters can help you control that fear.

Remember that EVERYONE in a Toastmasters club is there because at some point they realised they needed help communicating and speaking before audiences. Everyone will remember how wretched they felt when they gave their first speech. You may be startled to find out how supportive a Toastmasters club really can be.

Q. How is Toastmasters organised?

All Toastmasters members belong to one or more clubs. Clubs consist of at least 10 members and may have 40 or more. There are, at present, over 8,000 clubs around the world. There are 2 types of clubs, community and company clubs. Community clubs are open to anyone interested in attending, while company clubs are sometimes restricted to employees of the company. National Toastmasters is a community-based club. We welcome anyone who wishes to attend a meeting and/or wants to become a member.

Q. What happens at a meeting?

The format of a Toastmasters meeting varies slightly from club to club, but here’s what happens at a National Toastmasters meeting.

Generally National Toastmaster club meetings are 2 – 2 1/2 hours in duration. How long a meeting runs will vary from club to club.

Q. What Are"Table Topics?"

Table Topics can be fun! They can also be also terrifying to new members. Basically, they call on you to present a one minute impromptu speech on a subject not known to you until the moment you get up to speak! A member of the club who is assigned to be “Table Topics Master” will prepare a few impromptu topics and call on members (and guests, if they wish to participate) to stand up and speak on the topic.

Topics might include current events (e.g. "Do you think England will ever win a game of cricket against Australia?”) or philosophy (e.g. "If you had no shoes and met a man who had no feet, how would you feel?") or the wacky (e.g. "Reach into this bag. Pull an item out. Tell us about it.").

Q. What Are Prepared Speeches?

A prepared speech is one that a club member has prepared (written / practised) before arriving at the meeting. They then deliver this prepared speech to the gathered audience at the meeting. Prepared speeches very in type and can be different lengths of time, from 5 to 25 minutes.

When you join Toastmasters you receive a Communication and Leadership manual with 10 speech projects. Members usually prepare and deliver a speech from this manual or an Advanced manual. The manual and speech project determines the type and length of the speech to be delivered.

Q. What is Evaluation?

The Evaluation of speeches is an important part of a meeting. All speakers are evaluated during their speeches (including written notes); after they have completed their speech an evaluator will then give an oral evaluation.

Evaluation is challenging to do well because it requires an evaluator to do more than say, "here's what you did wrong." A good evaluator will say, "here's what you did well and here's why doing that was good, and here are some things you might want to work on for your next speech, and here's how you might work on them."

It's important to remember that the evaluator presents just one point of view, although one that has focused in closely on your speech. Other members of the audience can and should give you feedback on aspects of your speech.

Q. What's all this emphasis on time limits?

All Toastmasters speeches have time limits. Table Topics have a time limit of 1 minute, while prepared speeches have varying time limits and evaluations have time limits of 2-3 minutes.  This is in order to emphasise the point that a good speaker makes effective use of the time allotted and does not keep going and going and going until the audience is bored. In the real world, quite often there are practical limits on how long a meeting can or should go; by placing time limits on speeches and presentations, participants learn brevity and time management.

Time limits are rarely enforced to the letter. Most clubs don't cut off speakers if they go overtime. It is common for clubs to use a set of timing lights to warn the speakers of the advance of time. All speeches and presentations have a time limit expressed as an interval, e.g. 5 to 7 minutes. A green light would be shown at 5 minutes, amber at 6, and red at 7.

When the green light comes on, you've at least spoken enough, though you need not finish right away. When the amber light comes on, you should begin wrapping up. If you're not done by the time the red light comes on, you should finish as soon as possible without mangling the ending of your speech. The only times you're actually "penalised" for going over or under time is in a speaking contest. In speech contests you must remain within the allowable time range or be disqualified.