Members performing meeting roles make it possible for the speakers to be at their best. The meeting roles provide the essential supporting infrastructure the speakers need. We are very impressed with our most recent members: Danny, Pawan and Faisal. Toastmasters meetings are not just about speaking; they are also about listening, giving feedback and keeping the meeting moving along. That’s what the meeting roles do; and our new members impressively performed their roles.
Danny, took effortlessly to the critical meeting role of Time Keeper. He ensured that speakers, and the meeting, kept to their allocated times and impressively recorded the other information needed. 
Pawan, who has already given several excellent speeches turned, this time, to evaluating impromptu speeches. Pawan impressed us all with his eye for detail and helpful observations. 
Faisal took the role of Ah Counter. Faisal’s profession requires him to be an attentive listener and he deployed these skills giving impressive feedback.
At our meeting of 24 August 2021, these members stepped right up to their roles and made the meeting a fulfilling success. They have previously already volunteered for meeting roles which they performed incredibly well. But, the more roles they perform, in addition to their own speeches, allows them to apply their own background knowledge and experiences to the roles; and to develop their own unique speaking styles.
Danny was Time Keeper (who keeps things moving at pace), Pawan was our Table Topics (impromptu speaking) evaluator and Faisal was our Ah Counter. The Ah Counter makes speakers aware of why and when they use filler words like “Ah” and “Erm” with the intention of eradicating these distracting expressions and making the speakers more polished.
It’s not just the new members who have excelled at the meeting roles. Two of our more experienced members, Kevin and Alex, impressively performed roles: Grammarian and a Speech Evaluator.
Kevin as the Grammarian. This role is to look out for the strengths of the speakers and to give feedback on great uses of language. First class job, Kevin. 
Alex was the speech evaluator for Lincoln and gave a great deal of praise for Lincoln’s excellent speech on Diabetes as well as making suggestions to make it even more powerful. Great work, Alex.
These roles develop important soft skills; listening and giving feedback in particular. Meetings have a number of these and members are encouraged to take one of these when they are not in a speaking role although some people like to do both!
The Speeches.
We had three very well researched speeches and all were superbly delivered. Toastmasters shows the speaking skill areas to be developed or strengthened (the what) and provides supporting materials on how to do this (the how) but the speakers choose the subject matter. Members learnt a lot from these three very informative speeches.
Lincoln is a natural teacher: He effortlessly explained Type 1 Diabetes.
Lincoln then went on to take random questions and answered the curiosity of the members to help them understand the condition. First class, Lincoln.
Another ‘wow’ speech from Jan. This time on vocal variety.
Vocal variety is the means to engage your audience by applying different speaking techniques: volume, pitch (high, middle, low), rate (the number of words – giving a sense of urgency or calm) and quality.
The members were so impressed that Jan has kindly offered to write a short blog post on this topic. Well done Jan.
Faisal enthralled us all speaking about emotions and their use in leadership
Faisal called on his professional background giving us a powerful talk on the types of emotion we can call on, how to control them and how to apply them in leadership situations. Absolutely fascinating. With his natural, storytelling and informative style, Faisal is a speaker we yearn to hear more from.
All in all, with our outstanding role performers and three first class speeches – and a number of visitors who stood up and spoke to an audience they did not know, the meeting was a great success and we appreciate the two guests, Aaron and Jim, who have since joined. We welcome you to the club and the team!
image sources
- Toastmaster Pawan during his evaluations of Table Topics: Hull Speakers
- Toastmaster Faisal giving his second speech from the Presentation Mastery Path: Hull Speakers
- Red: Hull Speakers
- Lincoln: Hull Speakers
- Jan DTM: Hull Speakers