Mt Victoria Toastmasters Club

When you join Mt Vic Toastmasters as a new member, you will be assigned a Mentor.

A Mentor is an experienced Toastmasters who will assist and guide a new member, typically for their first three speeches.

The benefits to the new Toastmasters are:

1. someone to ask questions and to explore speech writing ideas
2. to receive feedback in addition to feedback from speech evaluators
3. to learn new skills and to and refine your speaking skills

Some new Toastmasters are very confident and perhaps don’t require a lot of mentoring, others may be less confident and really value having a guiding mentor.

One of the real strengths of Toastmasters is feedback. This comes in the form of evaluations of your speeches and from comments and advice from your mentor. Feedback enables us to grow and develop our skills and confidence.

So, you are not alone at Mt Vic Toastmasters!

-Steve L.

Below is a copy of the Evaluation educational session I took last night.

Some good tips came from the discussion that followed too, thanks everybody that chimed in.

What are your tips for a good evaluation? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Five Points for Evaluating – from Toastmasters International

Show your interest

- be encouraging

Consider speaker’s objectives

- before

- in evaluation

Personalise your review

- What I saw

- What I heard

- What I felt

Evaluate the speech, not the person

- in your language (do Third person)

- in your content (their speaking, not their values or beliefs)

Evaluate to Motivate

- honest, sincere praise

- positive reinforcement

- ‘Do more of’ & ‘Add to’

Nick’s thoughts on evaluating

· Explain the “How”. Use this structure: ‘Noticed that the speaker…’ –> ‘The effect that had was…’ –> ‘Consider doing this…’

· Avoid whitewash & gushing

· Be clear, be bold – not Tiny/Wee/Maybe

· How – be specific, give examples

· Watch for generalities – e.g ‘The speaker drew them in.’ Ok, but How was it achieved?

· If you can, model it

Others’ thoughts?

We’ve had resounding feedback from our members earlier this year on the importance of quality feedback. So, this is part 1 of a two-part post on the topic. Here’s part 1 – an overview…

Good evaluations are a crucial part of what makes our club strong. A good evaluation motivates the speaker to improve, provides valuable thoughts & tips for all members looking to improve, and is in itself an entertaining and motivational speech.

The nature of Mt Vic TM’s evaluations also feed our club’s culture. They’re positive, good humoured and genuine – that’s the Mt Vic Way.

So, how can we ensure that the club consistently has high quality evaluation speeches?

Just like the art public speaking, good evaluators aren’t born – they’re made. There are specific skills to construct an effective evaluation. For example:

– Be encouraging

– Consider the speaker’s objectives

– Personalise your review

– Evaluate the speech, not the person

– Evaluate to motivate

This all seems straightforward, doesn’t it? It is. The art is in the *How*…

Come along to our club night this week for an educational session on how to Evaluate to Motivate, and hear more about the *How*.

We have a quick-reference guide for Mt Vic TM members, on performing ‘speech evaluations’ – which play a crucial role in giving our speakers feedback to improve.

Check out our Speech Evaluators Helpfile, and for further information see the useful guidelines from Toastmasters NZ.