Why was last night’s meeting such a train wreak?
It’s easy to figure out and the general evaluator put his finger on it. People were not fulfilling their roles as set out in the agenda. There were a lot of behind the scenes last minute changes.
Now this is not the fault of the chair or the GE or the Toastmaster.
It’s our fault as members of First Oakville Toastmasters.
We let the club and our fellow members down when we don’t do what we’ve committed to do. It creates a burden on others who have to pick up our slack.
Sure there are emergencies and last minute business trips but it remains the responsibility of the Toastmaster to find their own replacements and sending out a group email doesn’t cut it. The list of roles and responsibilities comes out weeks in advance so we’ve got sufficient time to prepare or find a replacement. And frankly there seems to be a lot of last-minute emergencies recently.
Last night’s meeting was saved only by the competence of the chair and the hard work of the Toastmaster and GE.
We had three very good speeches but only one of which was scheduled.
Of the other two, while both excellent and entertaining, one clearly needed more time and the other went way over time. Both of these speeches deserved better preparation and were offered in the last minute to fill a schedule that had big holes in it.
One speech wasn’t even a manual speech and we should avoid giving none manual speeches as it weakens the educational process offered at Toastmasters. Non-manual speeches can lead to speeches that let the speaker off the hook (although that certainly wasn’t what happened last night) and clubs can end up listening to speeches for which there is no criteria to judge it by. One club, now dissolved, was infamous for speeches from members about their summer vacations complete with slides.
The other speech, while not practiced enough likely due to the last minute nature of its delivery, has International Speech potential. It was that good and the other speech was pretty much the same quality (just too much quantity) so we can be grateful these two Toastmasters stepped up or it would have been a very short meeting.
We’ve had this problem before in First Oakville Toastmasters and the solution is for the executive to contact the delinquent members or their mentors and see what we can do to support them in fulfilling their responsibilities.
What we shouldn’t do is ignore the problem just because it’s painful to address. if the problem persists then the offending member should be removed from the agenda thus allowing a space for members who do fulfill their obligations and want to proceed in their personal educational program.
And I, for one, would suffer through meetings with only one or two speakers giving well-prepared manual speeches until we get this situation fixed. We need to see the consequences for not fixing this problem.
Here’s how I look at this issue. For myself I know that as I am in one thing I am in all things.
So if I’m not fulfilling my role at Toastmasters, I can be assured that I’m not showing up somewhere else in my business or personal life. It means I am not being impeccable with my word. It means you can’t trust me to do what I say I will do. It means I am not stepping up and just taking up space.
This is not an unduly harsh commentary. It is what it is.
In much the same light, last night early in the evening one of the officers (who IMHO) knows better, allowed a participant to go overtime and qualify for a vote. This setup a scenario when a speaker who went overtime was also declared eligible for voting and finally an evaluator was declared eligible even though they too went over time. Fortunately, by the end of the end of the evening the club collectively voiced an objection to the last variance and the evaluation was declared ineligible for voting.
Last night’s situation shows what happens when we don’t follow the educational process.
If we don’t enforce the timing, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes us feel personally, then we don’t serve the Toastmaster who needs to learn that timing is part of requirements of the speech and will certainly be enforced at the next contest or worse at a business meeting or public speaking opportunity. (I misread the time I had for a paying gig and went 10 minutes overtime. The organizers were not happy and I will never do that again. It was a painful lesson.)
There’s a reason we time the speeches and there’s a reason why we have an agenda. It makes for better speeches. It makes for a better club. And best of all it makes for better Toastmasters.
Finally, we’ve still got some members who like to offer their thoughts from the floor during our meetings without either sanction from Robert’s Rules or recognition from the chair. This is not only disruptive but disrespectful of the chair, the parliamentarian and the assembly.
These members should be immediately ruled out of order and told by the chair to be silent unless they are recognized and even then their “helpful” comments should not be encouraged. It is the role of the parliamentarian to interpret the rules and if the member feels the parliamentarian is in error they should speak with them during the break. No member should put themselves in the role of expert when it comes to the business of the club.
There is absolutely no excuse for this loutish behaviour and I am as guilty as anyone in this and should be brought to task for my bad behaviour by the chair or the assembly.
BTW last night we had a new parliamentarian who did a superlative job as evidenced by his strong listening skills which provided him several opportunities to correct several misconceptions voiced by members during the business meeting.
The members of First Oakville have long prided themselves on the excellence of the quality of the Toastmaster program that is provided at this club. Here’s another opportunity to up our game again.
and if anybody has a comment they can add it below or start their own blog. We can use more intelligence debate.
