Later, the General Evaluator highlighted that, once the speaker exceed the time allocated, he or she should not be eligible to be voted as the best speaker.

I agreed with the General Evaluator.

I attended number of Toastmasters Meeting which some speakers spoke more than the time allocated. One project evaluator even at the start of the evaluation, instructed that his evaluation would take 5 minutes instead of the 2~3 minutes. And most of such incident, the Toastmaster of the Day/Evening turned to the Club President for further instructions. Most of the incidents, the President would allow these speakers to be voted as the best speaker.

One school of thought was that, we have to create an encouraging environment in a Toastmasters Club meeting for members to learn presentation skills. Disqualifying those who exceed the allocated time would discourage them from doing future projects, table topics or evaluation.

I agreed on the part on creating an encouraging learning environment. We also have to be careful on what are we encouraging.

There is a timing allocation for each segment in the club meeting for reasons. One reason is to ensure that the meeting will end on time. But making speakers who exceeded the time allocation ineligible to be voted is a method to encourage members to speak within the time allocation.

I strongly believe that each club should stand by the timing allocation. This will also project a professional image for the club.

The General Evaluator in this case performed the duty to remind the member. I hope that the club will remember the General Evaluator’s reminders.

Before I got into details, I asked him to check with his host organization on the corporate communications or public relations policy. This was because his club is a in-house club under a host organization.

Most host organizations, especially companies, have strict policies to protect the company image or branding. The Toastmasters Clubs under the organizations also have to observe these policies on top of the Toastmasters policies.

Over the years, I had seen Toastmasters Clubs being shut down by the host organizations, partly because of the policy issues. But on the positive note, some host organizations provide free web hosting for its affiliated Toastmasters Club, either in the public or intranet domain.

Community Clubs have more options on setting up a club website, and many of such options are free.

The first one is the freetoasthoast (http://www.freetoasthost.org/) -> the official one recommended by Toastmasters International.

I personally have not used it myself, but I know there are many clubs using it. I had checked with some of the users, and in general, the feedback is most likely positive as such.
1. easy to use
2. the template is there with most of the Toastmasters publicity material

Personally, I have observed the only set back: the club website will look like most other clubs’ websites. It is not easily to stand out.

I have known other free options as follows:
1. Blogspot or Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/)
2. http://www.wordpress.com
3. http://www.webs.com

The setback for these options, is other than blogspot, the other 2 will put ads to on the website.

Of course, there are some clubs prefer to have their website with paid hosting services, and this shall be discussed in the future posts.

These are some of the common questions being asked, during Toastmasters Club Speechcraft sessions or Demonstration Meetings. Toastmasters have changed my life for the better in many ways. This is one of the stories which I shared during such events.

One of tasks as an engineering student in the polytechnic, we needed to complete an engineering final year project. Towards the end of my polytechnics days, a close friend doing computer science visited me in the polytechnic.

I was very excited showing him the polytechnic, and of course, my proud final year project.

This close friend was impressed by the technical wonders which we had put into our project. And he believed that the project would score well. Out of interest, he asked what else to be done to the project.

I told all we need to do was to give a presentation to the lecturers.

As my close friend, he was frank with me. He gave me this advice, “Let my project partner do all the presentation works.”

This friend had never seen my project partner, and not even heard him speak. He gave me this advice, but he knew me very well. He knew so well that he knew, my presentation was so bad that almost anybody could do a better job in giving the presentation.

I did not feel anything wrong with my bad presentation then.

Years had passed. As I stepped into the working life, I realized how bad my presentation had affected me in my life. I had difficulty presenting my ideas.

After I joined a Toastmasters Club, I was given a positive environment to improve my presentation skill. On the process, I also gained confident about myself.

Without joining Toastmasters Club, I do not think I am able to give this presentation on “How Toastmasters have changed my life?”.

Toastmasters had changed my life, for the better.