The West Carleton Toastmaster’s club is a very active and
successful club in District
61 of Toastmasters International. District 61 is the home
of over 147 clubs and almost 3,000 members in Eastern Ontario,
Quebec and northern New York State.
The West Carleton Toastmasters club meets every Monday evening
from 7 PM to 9 PM.
Meetings are held at the Kanata Legion club -
the address, directions and map are located at the end of this
text.
The members of the club are from a variety of backgrounds, which gives us a wonderful diversity:
You're as likely to meet a homemaker, engineer or single parent, as someone who's self-employed or holding a management position in either the private or public sector.
Our club is well-known for its friendly and positive atmosphere; it's a great place to network and make new friends.
Nevertheless, we encourage potential new members to not only visit our club,
but others as well, to see which club best meets their personal needs.
You are most welcome to start visiting our meetings as a guest of the club. This works even better if you let us know ahead of time when you'll be joining us, so we can arrange the seating order and make any other necessary preparations (name tags etc.)
Our club Contacts are listed here.
Our goal and mission at West Carleton is to help our members
evolve and to improve their presentation skills at a pace that
they are comfortable with.
We achieve this by having a consistent,
structured meeting style, which allows our members to not only present speeches,
but also to undertake various other roles during the meeting, when they
wish to do so.
We measure our success by our members' personal achievements, like:
1. Increased self confidence when presenting to a group.
2. Communicating more effectively through presentations
3. Developing and expanding their creativity
4. The ability to give and accept praise, feedback and recommendations
5. Increased effectiveness in both their personal and their business life
6. Enhancing their interpersonal and management skills
7. Learning new roles and responsibilities
A typical meeting agenda will involve the following roles:
Chairperson:
The Chairperson conducts the business part of the meeting.
Call to order.
Introduce Guests.
Introduce Toastmaster.
Announce next meeting's schedule.
Closing comments.
Toastmaster:
The Toastmaster conducts the speaking and evaluation part of the
meeting
Explain duties if guests are present.
Ask Grammarian for Word of the Day.
Presents Table Topics Master.
Word of the Week:
Provides a new and unusual word designed to enhance the club's
vocabulary.
Grammarian:
The Grammarian provides a definition and encourages members to
use the word of the day during their presentations. The Grammarian
will listen throughout the meeting for good and poor uses of language
and also for use of the word of the day.
Speakers:
Normally, Speakers have prepared five to ten minute presentations,
following manuals provided by Toastmasters International. The
manuals are designed to help the speaker focus on developing new
speaking skills with each presentation. For example, the goal
of one speech might be to practice vocal variety or body gestures.
That and the actual chance to practice in front of an audience,
is what can make you into a great speaker.
Evaluators of Speeches:
For each speaker someone is assigned to evaluate the speech, giving
not only a verbal evaluation for everyone to learn from, but providing
written evaluation in the speaker's manual. Evaluation in itself
is a lesson in enhancing one's listening skills, while getting
the chance to present your views in front of the group.
Table Topics:
Table Topics is a regular Toastmasters activity where members
are encouraged to practice impromptu speaking. Often we are asked
to provide comment or opinion and are given little, if no, advance
notice to prepare. The Table Topics Master provides topics which
other members are asked to speak about for two minutes. The topics
are not disclosed prior to the meeting and the participants are
selected randomly during the Table Topic Session. Guests are welcome
to try a Table Topic if they wish.
Grammarian report:
Following all of the speeches and evaluations the Grammarian has
a chance to briefly give a report on good and bad uses of language,
and how many times the word of the day was used. In addition,
"ahs" and "ums", those awkward pauses many
of us use when we speak aloud are counted. Members are encouraged
to recognize the number of times they use these pauses and try
to reduce them next time out. We are all guilty of this!
Timer Report:
Speeches, evaluations and Table Topics responses are timed. This
is done to encourage people to speak within a set time limit,
preventing speakers from going on too long.
General Evaluator:
The General Evaluator evaluates the entire meeting so that everyone
can reflect on where the group performed well and where we can
improve the meeting next time.
The Next Step?
We would enjoy welcoming you at West Carleton Toastmasters, as
a guest for the evening.
We meet at the Kanata Legion, 70 Hines Road, from 7:00PM to 9:00PM
every Monday evening.
The directions to the Legion are:
International