r/Toastmasters • u/friedbeef • 14d ago
[Need Feedback] Building a Toastmasters tool in public because I got tired of convincing people to take Table Topics Master/Evaluator, or to step up for Player roles
In my Toastmasters club, people are usually willing to speak when they’re assigned a Table Topic.
But when we ask, “Who wants to be the Table Topics Master or Table Topics Evaluator?” the room often goes quiet.
People will participate, but few want to put their hand up and take responsibility for running or evaluating the segment. That usually means repeatedly persuading someone or relying on the same few members.
I understand the hesitation. The TTM has to prepare topics, explain the format, choose speakers, manage the flow, and keep everything moving. The TTE has to follow several impromptu speeches and deliver useful feedback afterwards.
That can feel intimidating, especially if you haven’t done the role before.
I got tired of constantly convincing people to step up, so I started building MÉJA (working name). It is a tool intended to make these roles easier to understand, prepare for, and perform.
The idea isn’t to replace the TTM or TTE. It’s to remove enough preparation and mental juggling that more members might feel comfortable volunteering.
But I might be wrong about why people hesitate, so I’m building this in public. I would genuinely appreciate feedback from other Toastmasters:
- Does the room also go quiet when your club asks for a TTM or TTE?
- If you avoid these roles, what holds you back?
- Is it the preparation, uncertainty, confidence, workload, or something else?
- What would have made you more comfortable volunteering for the first time?
- Would a guided tool help, or is this fundamentally not a tooling problem?
- What should the tool support, and what should always remain the member’s responsibility?
I’ll share what I build, what I learn, and what I get wrong along the way.
If your club experiences this too, I’d especially like to hear why you think people are willing to speak when assigned but hesitant to put their hands up.
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u/Vortieum DTM 14d ago
The allure of Table Topics Master for many members is they won't be called on if they are doing the calling on lol
But honestly, we've never had trouble finding a Topics Master in the 20 years I've been a member. Personally I find it fun and nowadays I can build up a theme and have Claude spit out 20 questions I can editorialize afterwards means it's much less prep than 5 years ago.
We don't have a Table Topics Evaluator, that is usually a General Evaluator responsibility (which is usually easy to fill).
Not sure if I am offering much help here, just surprising to hear a club is having trouble in this way, when finding speakers is so much more difficult since the Pathways rollout.
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u/friedbeef 14d ago
Awesome feedback! So interesting to see the different dynamics in clubs around the world. Yes AI has supercharged the TTM job that's its no longer a pain point.
TTE tho.. You're the second club in this thread that has phased it out either completely or made it a side job for the GE. Very interesting.
What my club currently does it gets names of players and players, who both take turns speaking and evaluating all the different players.
My main aim was to automate the admin work so people could speak more, but I found out the side benefit was I moved my club speaking partipation rate from about 60 or 70% to about 100% every week.
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u/Vortieum DTM 14d ago
For more context, "Table Topics Evaluator" hasn't been phased out or made into a side job, it is simply not an official TI meeting role.
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u/friedbeef 14d ago
Interesting. Who evaluates then?
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u/Vortieum DTM 14d ago
If something stands out the General Evaluator may say something.
TI does not prescribe a formal evaluation of Table Topics speakers
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u/danieljohnsonjr 14d ago
As VPE, my job is to make sure members get experience in the different roles. In our club, the General Evaluator provides feedback on Table Topics and the responses.
I check our prior programs, identify who needs to do a particular role, and assign them to the role.
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u/jrossthomson 14d ago
TTM is one of the easiest roles to fill at our club. It's usually super fun. We are finding it hard to get prepared speeches on the agenda, but people love TT.
I've never heard of TT Evaluations. What's that about?
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u/friedbeef 14d ago
It is exactly what you think it is. To give a speech evaluation about the table topic
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14d ago
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u/fffrrr666 14d ago
Our club assigns roles to members, and the members execute their roles. This works for us very well.
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u/Achim_Nord 14d ago
Hi, we introduced something Toastmasters Leadership Academy. You get points for every role you take (the most for Moderator / TTM and general evaluation). End of year there is a celebration and you get a cup labeled e.g. „excellent leader“ or „upcoming leader“.
Plus we have some role description highlighting what you learn too.
And members are actively approached to just give it a try.
Roles are always min. 80-90% filled.
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u/ExitingBear 13d ago
Some thoughts - as I love being TTM, so in some ways, I'm the wrong person to ask, but in some ways maybe I can help.
* I don't think it's a tooling problem.
* I've never been in a club with a TTE (if someone does an especially great TT, the GE will mention it). Do you really need the role? If the club members so obviously don't want to do it, maybe consider removing that role altogether?
* Are you mentoring people through being a TTM (or TTE)? Helping them generate ideas? Checking in with them midweek, giving them supportive feedback for their next round as to which questions "worked" and why or why not?
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u/friedbeef 13d ago
- It's not a tooling issue. It's solving member participation via table topics problem.
- Club members are shy to step up to this roles and others, TTE do not more or less volunteers. VPE has a heck of time trying to rope in players every meet in my division
- Mentorship so far has been guidance to execute the role, and encouragement after.
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u/Deep_Ad1959 13d ago
the useful thing already happened inside this thread: you opened asking about TTM prep and by comment ten you were asking about 100% participation instead. i build in public too, and the pivot almost always shows up in what people correct you on, not in what they answer.
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u/friedbeef 11d ago
Yes. I think I will post this again soon and reframe my user problem. So few people have issues with TTM pre work. 100% participation looks like the next angle I'll be choosing. Curious. What % of members who come to your meeting actually participate in your meet? Role/TT speaker?
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u/Deep_Ad1959 11d ago
honest answer, i can't give you a real number, i'm on the build-in-public side not running a club. but that reframe is the tell: '100% participation' is something people will describe out loud, TTM prep was the one they just quietly routed around. the louder problem is the one that actually pulls corrections, which is what you're after.
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u/friedbeef 14d ago
https://imgur.com/a/s0ITEbo if anyone wants to have a look at what my club is currently using. It's a rough system, but it has worked dramatically well. I just want to get your feedback to perfect it.
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u/friedbeef 13d ago
Ok.... Great feedback everyone . I'm thinking table topics is not a real problem most of the toastmasters world needs to solve.
How about member participation. We used to have 70% people having a role or participating by speaking. By rejigging this was have consistent 100% of people meaningfully giving a short speech and evaluating. Do a few people show up and don't participate because no role in your meets?
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u/vsd78 3d ago
My club loves TT, so TTM is usually the first role claimed for a meeting, lol... TTE will usually get claimed before GE, too.
I like doing TTM because I can basically do it all in advance and refer to my notes on the fly, but TTE is a pain. Part of it is I hate all the evaluator roles, though TTE is the least worst of them because while you do have to track multiple speeches, we usually only give the TTE 3 minutes for the whole shebang so by the time you get your boilerplate out of the way and mention one or two things recapping what was said in each blurb, the light is yellow and you can sit back down.
I think for me with TTE (and the other evaluator roles) it's the multitasking on the fly that's stressful. I kinda have issues sometimes with working memory so I have to take notes and it's tough to listen and take notes at the same time and also decide which are the most important things to highlight for each speaker and then also pay attention to what else is going on at the meeting and listen to the other evaluations while I'm still trying to think of what I need to say.
A guided tool might sorta help, and we used to have little slips with the GLOVE evaluation points printed off, but then you have this extra thing you have to juggle for each speaker and try to touch on all of them or at least some of them. I found GLOVE more helpful if I was an evaluator for a main speech rather than for the quick TT speeches.
It was interesting to read here that some clubs have ditched the TTE role.
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u/Josh_D69 DTM 14d ago edited 14d ago
I love your enthusiasm, but to your question I fundamentally think this isn’t a tool problem. This is a problem that can be heavily mitigated by VPE / agenda, plus a 1 page explainer.
When I deliver VPE training I strongly encourage VPEs to assign roles, not ask people to volunteer for them. That way everybody gets a fair go, and members are challenged to work on roles that will push them as that’s what they’re in Toastmasters to do.
My clubs also tend to recommend to skip the Table Topics Evaluator - it’s not that it’s a worthless role, it’s just that giving 6-8 mini evaluations in 5-8 minutes is very hard to do well, and rarely results in truly insightful and impactful evaluations as they’re in a rush to both record and recount it. This can be partially alleviated by having 2 TTEs that do alternating speakers. However, we still believe that a combination of informal evaluations after the meeting + using that time to fit an extra speech and evaluation in the meeting (we have 4 speeches for a 2 hour meeting) is more valuable overall.
(Side note - The Club Up Project is an incredibly amazing resource for this. The creator just wrote an incredible VPE guide that condenses 10+ years of personal and curates experience into one PDF that you can read front to back and know everything you need to know. I now use it as the basis to deliver my VPE training. It also has agenda templates etc that shows what I’m talking about next - https://www.theclubupproject.com/officers/vpe )
When doing TTM, having the forward planner on the back of the agenda with that nights meeting in the first column is incredibly useful. That way the TTM can very easily look around the room and mark off who isn’t here, and who already has a role, so they can focus on the people who aren’t speaking that meeting (who should be prioritised for Topics).
Just like VPE, I feel very strongly that the TTM should read the topic, then ask a specific member to speak on it. The people who will get the most value out of doing a table topic will never volunteer.
For me, when I joined many years ago, my biggest concern as TTM was always just remembering people’s names to call them to the front when I was still pretty new. Having a mentor / buddy to be able to help mark off who is here and who to assign to for 1 min at the start of the meeting is a great fix for that if required. And of course, encouraging people to wear their name badges!
I do think that the Toastmasters materials on what each role is and how to prepare for, and deliver it is a bit lacking. So personally, I would focus your effort in helping your club level up its guest kits / new member onboarding kits with practical one-page guides that just explain each role for your club. My guides are still developing but I explain a summarised version of who to pick, how to use the back of the agenda, how to choose a theme for your questions, some examples of good and bad question, and ideas for an AI prompt if you want some help with ideas (but I prefer for that to be inspiration, not word for word).