Roles and Responsibilities

Toastmaster

The primary duty of the Toastmaster is to act as a genial host and conduct the entire program. It is the Toastmaster who creates the atmosphere of interest, expectation and receptivity. This task is not usually assigned to a member until he or she is quite familiar with the club.

Speaker

The Speaker gives a prepared speech, which is usually five to seven minutes for the basic manual. There are usually four-five speakers in a meeting.
Tips: Preparation is essential to success. For details, read the Toastmasters Program manual.

Evaluator

The Evaluator evaluates a prepared speech. In addition to your oral evaluation, you will also give the speaker a written evaluation from the manual.
Tips: Review carefully the Effective Speech Evaluation manual, which is part of the new member's package.

Table Topics Master

The purpose of the Table Topics session is to have members "think on their feet" and give impromptu speeches. The Table Topics Master prepares and issues the topics. He or she looks for volunteer speakers at first but can call members at random if nobody volunteers.

Timer

The timer is responsible for keeping track of time. Each segment of the meeting is timed. The timer explains the timing rules at the beginning of the meeting and announces each speaker's time taken at the end.

Grammarian

The grammarian has two roles: first, to introduce Word of the Day to members, and second to comment on the use of English during the meeting.
Tips: A Word of the Day should be a word that will help up increase our vocabulary - a word that can easily be incorporated into everyday conversation but which is different from the way we usually express ourselves.

Tips: When preparing the topic, originality is desirable as much as possible.

General Evaluator

The General Evaluator evaluates everything that takes place throughout the meeting. He or she should comment on the Table Topics Evaluators and Speech Evaluators, but not on the speakers. The General Evaluator is also responsible for the evaluation team during the evaluation session of the meeting.