President's Tip of the Week

Turn Your Real-Life Speaking Engagements
Into Credito Toward Your Toastmaster Award
(2/14/08)

If you are working to complete your Competent Speaker award quickly, it can become frustrating to be limited to speaking once every 8 weeks. It is a little known fact that you can get credit for speaking outside of our club if you follow a few simple rules.

First, the speech you give must correlate with one of the projects in your manual. Non-manual speeches will never count towards a Toastmaster award, no matter where they are given. It would be a good idea to consult with the VPE before to make sure your speech will count toward your award.

Second, you must have another Toastmaster present as an evaluator when you give your speech. The kind-hearted person who agrees to do this for you must fill out the evaluation section in your manual and then review it with you verbally in order for your speech to receive credit.

Third, you must bring your manual to the next meeting to get the VPE's signature in the back under your Record of Assignments page. Show her the completed evaluation form in the project section to verify that you received the evaluation that Toastmasters International requires to qualify your speech for credit towards your award.

There are also ways to earn credits speaking inside Toastmasters. It is sometimes possible to get scheduled as a speaker at a club other than Gilbert Toastmasters. Ask some experienced members for tips on clubs that are open to this or that frequently have open speaker slots.

You can also earn credit for a manual project by speaking in club competitions. You will have to recruit your own evaluator if you do this. Make sure that your speech correlates with a manual project and that you provide your evaluator with your manual, just as you would for a regularly scheduled speech.