How to be a General Evaluator

How can you Profit from Being the General Evaluator?

You can get at least four things from being the Gneral Evaluator:

1. Give a prepared mini speech
2. Give one longer, largely unprepared speech
3. Lead a team
4. Practise being a host

Why do we have a General Evaluator on our Agenda?

The Tostmaster principle says: “What can be evaluated, will be evaluated”. Growth is only possible if evaluations let us know how we did and how we could do better. The General Evaluator may evaluate everything that has not been evaluated otherwise.

How To

You preside over the third part of the evening. Please ensure that the meeting stays on time, and remains interesting, and that we learn from what we did.

Before the first Evaluation at the start of the third part of evening, deliver a brief but thorough talk on the purpose, techniques, and benefits of evaluation – particularly for the benefit of the guests. Evaluation is a positive experience designed to help people overcome weak habits and install good ones.

Then call the evaluators on stage to give their evaluations. Afterwards take a vote on the best evaluator.

Now hear the reports from the small roles. In your last part let us hear what you think about the evening. Comment on the quality of evaluations. Were they positive, upbeat, helpful? Did they point the way to improvement?
Try to think of something original to say!

Usually this task will not be assigned to you until you are familiar with the Club and its procedures.

The Main Duty of the General Evaluator is to Evaluate

Everything that is not evaluated by another Toastmaster as part of their role, may be evaluated by the GE.

The GE may not evaluate the speeches, the Ahs, the timing, and the language/grammar. To evaluate these things publicly would mean that you found the performance of the other functionaries sub par. (Sometimes you will have to comment. But make it the extremely rare exception.)

Instead focus on the evaluations, and how the roles were performed. The better the roles are done, the better the meetings will become. Good evaluators make great speakers.

Before the Meeting

Call the functionaries to ask if the have got any questions. Let them know what is important to you.

Brief the Evaluators that evaluation is a positive, helping act. Their goal must be to help fellow Toastmasters develop their skills. Emphasize that evaluations should enhance or at least preserve the self-esteem of the speaker.
Ensure the individual Speech Evaluators understand the project objectives and how to evaluate them. Suggest they talk to their speakers to discover any special evaluation requirements.

At the Meeting

Arrive early in order to finish any last-minute details.
Check with the Toastmaster for any last-minute changes.
Make sure that all evaluators know the objectives of the speech they will evaluate.

During the Meeting

Take notes of everything noteworthy. You will not be able to speak about everything in your evaluation but you can talk to everyone afterwards if there were things they need to know. Do not only talk publicly about room for improvement but also about what was done well. These things are going to be repeated. Do not forget to give feedback to the president too.

During a normal meeting you have got five to seven minutes for your report.

You introduce the evaluators and the reports of the small roles. Always lead the applause before and after each presenter.

When the evaluations are done, do not forget to vote for best evaluator.

After the Meeting

Ask for feedback! And give the feedback for which you did not have time during your speech.