My toastmasters club is currently on our summer hours meaning that our regular two hour meetings are condensed into a compact, efficient one hour time slot. This is good and bad. The good being that one hour a week is a very manageable amount of time to attend toastmasters. The bad being that there is less time each week to participate.
In order to ensure I continue to improve this summer, I have been trying to take on a role each week. This week I was a speech evaluator for the first time.
Prior to the meeting I spent a bit of time researching a good checklist for a speech evaluator. I personally like checklists or organization in general so I don't feel like I am going in blind. I came across a thorough checklist on the Toastmasters New Zealand website. At first glance, I thought this checklist was everything I would need.
Nope. It was way too much!
During the speech I found myself scrambling through the document to check off things that the speaker was doing well. It was definitely difficult for me to focus on the speech while searching through the detailed document. I also made notes all over the document despite there not really being any places for notes.
When I went up to evaluate the speech, I found the document was a bit hard to read at a glance. A couple of times I had stop and look carefully at the document to see what I had checked off. I felt as if the pauses were a bit long and took away from my message. Perhaps I even came across as nervous.
Next time I evaluate a speech, I would like to take some of the elements from the checklist and make a smaller, easier to read document that is focused on the speaker's specific goals. I would definitely recommend this approach for any one evaluating for the first time.
Every week is a new lesson, and I doubt I will ever feel as if there is nothing more I can learn from Toastmasters.
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