Polska SA

Last Wednesday I visited the oldest club in Warsaw - Toastmasters Polska SA. Unfortunately I mismanaged time and came to the meeting late. By that moment all role takers have alre explain their responsibilities. Then began a part that was rather unusual for me: toastmaster introduces topic of the day and all people can say couple of words on the topic. This was introduced and everyone could participate.

As you can see from the agenda all time limits are stated but colors were a bit different: green, amber and red. What’s more curious - timer didn’t have cards, she had colored flags.

During prepared speeches session I was surprised as each evaluator was introducing each speaker in a very precise manner and 1,5 mins to do that. I especially liked the last speech and later on I was told that it was performed by the winner of humorous speech contest.

There was a coffee break before TTS during which we could get acquainted with each other. There were about 30 people and the meeting was quite cozy.

After the break Toastmaster welcomed back - made a short introduction to the topic of the day. TTS was funny and people were actively participating.

At the end of evaluation session I witnessed interesting thing: everone could share feedback to all speakers. Speakers were very open to critics and suggestions.

Also we’ve got useful tip from timer:

assume that you speak 100 words per minute, then for 7 minutes speech write 700 words and cut off 100. That’s how you will be on time for sure!

All things considered I liked the meeting and I am now lucky to become an official member of the club. Members were quite interested when they saw a new person in the club: most of them thought that I came occasionally. However I contacted officers team before the meeting and I handled all the membership transition details in advance. That’s why my transition was smooth and quick. Moreover they were looking for people who could represent their club as judges at the area speech contest but more information about this will be soon...