President's Tip of the Week

President's Tip of the Week

Club Standards - Your Opportunity for Leadership (Series)
>    Standard 1: Meetings are showcase events (4/3/08)
>    Standard 2: Club officers are effective (4/10/08)
>    Standard 3: Membership recruitment is ongoing (4/15/08)
>    Standards 4 and 5: Member inductions & Mentoring (4/21/08)
>    Standard 6: Members are working toward CC, CL, etc. (4/28/08)
>    Standard 7: All members are trained in effective evaluation (5/5/08)
>    Standard 8: Members are recognized for their accomplishments (5/12/08)
Gilbert Toastmasters Mentor Program (3/26/08)
The Distinguished Club Program (3/18/08)
The Ah Counter (3/10/08)
Evaluating Someone with More Experience (3/3/08)
How to Use the Competent Leader Manual (2/20/08) Click here for CL Tracking Sheet
Turn Your Real-Life Speaking Engagements into Credit Toward Your Toastmaster Award (2/14/08)
Playing it by the Book (2/7/08)
How to Make a Great Speech Even Greater - Write a Fabulous Introduction (1/31/08)
Four Things a Speaker Needs to Do Before the Sergeant-at-Arms Pounds the Gavel (1/17/08)
On the Spot Speakers (1/14/08)

Evaluating Someone with more Speaking Experience

As a new Toastmaster, you will almost always be called upon to evaluate someone with more experience than you have. Don't let this panic you! Being a good evaluator isn't the same as being an experienced speaker. To use an analogy, a restaurant reviewer only needs to be an expert on eating food, not preparing it.

Evaluation has three main components:
>   Listening
>   Critical thinking
>   Sharing your opinion about what you saw and heard

The Competent Leader manual offers projects that will help you develop your skills in all three areas. This information is contained in the first three projects in the manual. Be sure to take advantage of what is offered there.

Before you give your first evaluation, ask your mentor to give you some tips on evaluation. Your mentor can also provide you with feedback after your evaluation so that you know where your strengths lie and what you can work on for the next evaluation assignment.

In the meantime, take notes during evaluations at the meetings you attend. Listen to how experienced evaluators structure their feedback and the types of feedback they provide.