Blog of Kim Loon

On Friday, I was invited to be a General Evaluator for a Toastmasters Meeting. I had not been a General Evaluator for a very long time.

Nowadays, Toastmasters Clubs in Singapore are dropping General Evaluation from the program. Many think that Language Evaluation is more important than General Evaluation. The members think that they learn the most from the Language Evaluation.

I think differently. I learn much more from the General Evaluator than the Language Evaluator. When we take up appointment in a Club meeting, we would wonder how well we had done and what the areas we can improve on. The General Evaluator filled in this gap. Furthermore, members also benefit from the General Evaluations. They can learn what to take note of if they were to take up meeting appointments. In fact, I had collected so many tips from General Evaluators before I first took up the role of Toastmaster of the Evening. These tips had helped me not to sound like it was my first time doing it. And from the General Evaluators, I learn how to improve my Project Evaluation.

The Club also benefit from the General Evaluators. The Club can improve future meetings using the suggestions from the General Evaluators. This in term will also help to raise the standard of the Club and soon helps the club to recruit more members.

General Evaluation is one of the key factors for the magic of Toastmasters. It would be sad that if it is completely removed from meetings in Singapore. I am glad that I took up the General Evaluation for that meeting. Because I know, I had shared the learning points through my observations during the meeting. And through the sharing, I not only reminded myself on the lessons and also learned from others on how to be an appointment holder.