We would like our meetings to compress to under one hour. The two
things we can think of to accomplish this are:

1) Eliminate the pledge of allegiance - Don't see the value of this,
especially since our club has several international members

2) Eliminate voting for best speakers, table topics etc. Takes up way
too much time with minimal perceived value. Furthuremore the overhead
to keep track of ribbons and ordering is too much.

What do other clubs suggest? Are these two fair game or should we be
doing something else?

Thx!

From:	Colin William
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:07:53 -0500

wrote ...
> We would like our meetings to compress to under one hour. The two
> things we can think of to accomplish this are:

How many speeches do you aspire to have in any given meeting?

Colin

From:	John Fleming, DTM
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	Thu, 20 Jan 2005 05:57:08 GMT

On 19 Jan 2005 11:53:46 -0800, while chained to a desk in the
scriptorium, squash@peoriadesignweb.com wrote:

> $We would like our meetings to compress to under one hour. The two
> $things we can think of to accomplish this are:
> $
> $1) Eliminate the pledge of allegiance - Don't see the value of this,
> $especially since our club has several international members
> $
> $2) Eliminate voting for best speakers, table topics etc. Takes up way
> $too much time with minimal perceived value. Furthuremore the overhead
> $to keep track of ribbons and ordering is too much.
> $
> $What do other clubs suggest? Are these two fair game or should we be
> $doing something else?
> $
> $Thx!

Here is a typical agenda from an Attitude Boosters Toastmasters
meeting--designed for a 55 minute meeting.

Greeter

12:05 Opening by Sgt-at-arms
Program Changes

12:07 Sgt-at-arms Introduces Toastmaster
- Toastmaster Introduces Assistants:
Invocation/Toast/Joke of the Day
Word of the Day
Introduction of Members & Guests
Toastmaster Introduces Assistants:
General Evaluator
Grammarian
Ah Counter
Timer

12:20 Speaker(s): Read Objectives of Speech
Speaker #1 (5 - 7 mins) Speech

12:30 Toastmaster introduces Table Topic Master:
Table Topics

12:50 Evaluations
Toastmaster Introduces:
General Evaluator
General Evaluator Introduces Assistants:
Evaluator for Speaker #1
Grammarian
Ah Counter
Timer
General Evaluator's Report (1-2 Min)
General Evaluator Returns Control to Toastmaster

12:58 Awards Presentations for Quality Speakers
Closing Comments
Guest Remarks
General Announcements

1:00 Adjourn

On the first meeting of the month, we substitue a Business meeting for
the prepared speeches.

Invocation/Toast/Joke is one of the three, not three different roles.
The person assigned decides which of the three they want to do.

With a slightly shortened table topic session, we can accomodate two
prepared speeches of the 5 - 7 minute length.

Greeter is someone assigned to shake members' and guests' hands as they
crowd in through the doorway at lunch time.

As a Canadian club, we don't say the Pledge of Alliegance.

--
John Fleming, DTM
Edmonton, Canada

Attitude Boosters Toastmasters (7022-42) - Member
Chamber Toastmasters (5594 - 42) - President

A scientist can discover a new star but he
cannot make one. He would have to ask an
engineer to do it for him.

- Gordon L. Glegg

From:	Mark Perew
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	20 Jan 2005 02:37:48 EST

squash@peoriadesignweb.com wrote:
> 2) Eliminate voting for best speakers, table topics etc. Takes up way
> too much time with minimal perceived value. Furthuremore the overhead
> to keep track of ribbons and ordering is too much.

I would never eliminate these. The value is very high, when it is well
handled.

While experienced members may not need this reinforcement, new members or
even longer term members who are still struggling may benefit from this very
simple form of recognition.

Voting for "Best Speaker" is best done, in my experience, when it is clear
that the criteria is "Who best met the speech objectives?" We become better
speakers by working the manuals. That should be our objective in each
speech project. This does require that a few seconds be given to having the
Toastmaster of the Day or the Evaluator read the speech objectives from the
manual.

Voting for "Best Evaluator" is based on "Who gave the most useful feedback
to the speaker?" This is very useful in working as a constructive team
members and as a leader.

Voting for "Best Table Topics" response is based on "Who gave the best
response to the topic they were given?" It may be easy to have an
interesting 1 to 2 minute impromptu speech about something unrelated to the
topic. However, sticking to the topic is an important skill that has
application in the business world.

If you have a company club, displaying the ribbons becomes a good PR tool.
Seeing the ribbons hanging in a co-worker's office was one of the items that
got me to my first meeting. Receiving a "Best Table Topics" ribbon at my
first meeting was one of the things that encouraged me to go to a second
meeting.

As for the overhead, make it the responsibility of each incoming Sergeant at
Arms to take inventory and to have the Secretary order a supply to last
through the officer term. That way it is only done once or twice per year.

--
Mark Perew
To the world you may be just one person,
but to one person you may be the world. (Source Unknown)

From:	John
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 2005 15:05:17 -0500

wrote in message
news:1106164426.419636.72770@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> We would like our meetings to compress to under one hour. The two
> things we can think of to accomplish this are:
>
> 1) Eliminate the pledge of allegiance - Don't see the value of this,
> especially since our club has several international members
>
> 2) Eliminate voting for best speakers, table topics etc. Takes up way
> too much time with minimal perceived value. Furthuremore the overhead
> to keep track of ribbons and ordering is too much.
>
> What do other clubs suggest? Are these two fair game or should we be
> doing something else?
>
> Thx!
>

I don't know if or how much time you spend at the begining of the meeting on
club/area/district news. Such as speech contests and conferences. But this
info can go on back the agenda.

Even if you have a two hour meeting I would suggest doing this.

Club and TI business can be boring to guests and even some members.

From:	p c
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 2005 16:47:26 -0500

Our club does one hour lunch meeting.

Here's a typical agenda

Welcome by the President
Toastmaster of the Day
Word of the Day by Wordmaster
Prepared Speech #1
Prepared Speech #2
Evaluation for Speech #1
Evaluation for Speech #2
Table Topics
Reports to the Toastmaster
Wordmaster
Timekeeper
General Evaluator
Conclusion by the Toastmaster

We can add one more prepared to the agenda and run all the above roles
if all the speeches are 5-7 mins. For speakathons, we drop the non
related roles and run 4 or 5 speeches with evaluators and a toastmaster.
If we don't have enough person for speeches, we extend the table topics.
Brief club news and actions taken care of during the club president's
opening. We halos start the meeting 5 minutes "late" to allow people to
get situated or get their lunch. Club officers meetings are scheduled
for 30 minutes ether before or after a meeting when they need to.

....PC

squash@peoriadesignweb.com wrote:

> We would like our meetings to compress to under one hour. The two
> things we can think of to accomplish this are:
>
> 1) Eliminate the pledge of allegiance - Don't see the value of this,
> especially since our club has several international members
>
> 2) Eliminate voting for best speakers, table topics etc. Takes up way
> too much time with minimal perceived value. Furthuremore the overhead
> to keep track of ribbons and ordering is too much.
>
> What do other clubs suggest? Are these two fair game or should we be
> doing something else?
>
> Thx!
>

From:	Eric Matto
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 2005 22:18:01 -0500

It can be done. The most variable part of the meeting is TableTopics. When
there isn't a lot of time, cut these by either cutting the number of
particupants or the time per topic. You could reasonably plan to have two
5-7 minute speeches in your meeting time. I was in a lunchtime club
previously and we never had business sessions or reading of minutes.

My only comment about your proposals is to tread carefully, especially if
these elements are ingrained in your club's "culture".

--
Eric Matto, DTM, PDG(D30)
President, Mississauga Valley TM Club #8277-60
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

wrote in message
news:1106164426.419636.72770@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> We would like our meetings to compress to under one hour. The two
> things we can think of to accomplish this are:
>
> 1) Eliminate the pledge of allegiance - Don't see the value of this,
> especially since our club has several international members
>
> 2) Eliminate voting for best speakers, table topics etc. Takes up way
> too much time with minimal perceived value. Furthuremore the overhead
> to keep track of ribbons and ordering is too much.
>
> What do other clubs suggest? Are these two fair game or should we be
> doing something else?
>
> Thx!
>

From:	Colin William
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 2005 22:44:53 -0500

"Eric Matto" wrote ...
> It can be done. The most variable part of the meeting is TableTopics. When
> there isn't a lot of time, cut these by either cutting the number of
> particupants or the time per topic. You could reasonably plan to have two
> 5-7 minute speeches in your meeting time. I was in a lunchtime club
> previously and we never had business sessions or reading of minutes.
> My only comment about your proposals is to tread carefully, especially if
> these elements are ingrained in your club's "culture".

Not a bad point. Eliminating the Pledge seems like a move likely to tick off
some people, with only a minimal gain in time (what, 15 seconds). Business
meeting stuff does tend to suck up time. And I'd leave table topics until
afterr the speeches. That way you can gauge better on the fly how much time
you have for them, moderating the allotted time if the speeches run long or
you have people giving longer assignments.

I'd mostly ingrain in people a sense of efficiency - starting on time,
keeping things moving. A lot of the ewated time gets sucked up in
transitions and inefficiencies.

Colin

From:	Joe Caruso
Subject:	Re: Ideas to compress meetings to under 1 hour
Date:	Wed, 19 Jan 2005 19:24:36 -0500

My former club used to do meetings in 50 minutes:

- review of agenda / . introduction of guests

- word of the day

- table topics - voting for table topics

- Viewpoint or educator

- 2 speakers max

- general evaluation and speaker evaluations and vote for best speaker and
best evaluator.

- timekeeper and grammarian report

- certificate awards for table topics, speaker and evaluator

- special announcements.

We never had a business session and the club was always at Charter Strength
until corporate downsizing and reorgs moved people all over the place, there
was no nucleus to keep it going and it died. The quality of evaluations was
very good; people stayed within their time limits; we had area contest
winners from the club; a few ATMs; even an area governor.
--
- Joe
"Helping People Improve Processes and Revenue"
www.gacmanagementandconsulting.ca
www.joecaruso.ca

wrote in message
news:1106164426.419636.72770@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> We would like our meetings to compress to under one hour. The two
> things we can think of to accomplish this are:
>
> 1) Eliminate the pledge of allegiance - Don't see the value of this,
> especially since our club has several international members
>
> 2) Eliminate voting for best speakers, table topics etc. Takes up way
> too much time with minimal perceived value. Furthuremore the overhead
> to keep track of ribbons and ordering is too much.
>
> What do other clubs suggest? Are these two fair game or should we be
> doing something else?
>
> Thx!
>