Meeting Themes

Meeting themes can enhance the already fun-filled time of attending a Toastmasters meeting. Themes range from simply dressing up for a particular holiday to elaborately planning a meeting that requires the cooperation of all meeting participants. For example, a seasonal theme can grow into an elaborately planned meeting where the toast, table topics, speeches, the word of the day – in short everything – revolves around the theme including meeting room decorations and even food.

Here is one idea for an elaborately themed meeting and how to organize it.

Meeting Theme: In Character – Harry Potter

Turn the meeting place into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Plan this meeting at least one month in advance to allow members to obtain costumes.

Planning begins when the Presiding Officer makes the announcement at a meeting that this themed meeting is forthcoming. The Presiding Officer asks for volunteers to bring appropriate food and drinks and to help the Sergeant-at-Arms with decorations. The Educational Vice President’s help is enlisted to ensure those presenting prepared speeches can do so in line with the meeting’s theme. Speakers can either present speeches on topics relevant to the theme or can present a speech while in character. Obviously, the Educational Vice President would not schedule an Icebreaker speech for this meeting.

Most of the organization falls to the Toastmaster of the Day who as leader of the meeting logically assumes the role of Hogwarts Headmaster Professor Dumbledore and dresses as such.

The Toastmaster assigns characters from the Harry Potter books to most of the meeting participants with roles and discusses how to incorporate the theme into their portion of the meeting.

For example:

Table Topics Master Professor Snape – table topics are taken from the Harry Potter books. The Table Topics Master, in character as Snape, points a wand at members to select them for questioning.

General Evaluator Professor McGonagall – wearing a witch’s hat, the GE leads the evaluators who are all presenting their evaluations while in character as Hagrid, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley

Ah Counter Draco Malfoy – the Ah Counter will be particularly unpleasant when presenting the report and may even cast a spell on the worst offenders.

Grammarian Lord Voldemort – dresses in a scary costume and presents an appropriate word of the day such as “malevolent.”

Other members can dress as witches or wizards. Anyone who comes as a muggle or as any of the Dursleys does so at his or her peril.

The Toastmaster of the Day will coordinate with all members so that no two people play the same character.

The Toastmaster will ensure that the toast is appropriate to the theme – it can even be in the form of a spell.

The General Evaluator will discuss with the Evaluators the methods to use in order to present a valid Toastmasters speech evaluation while remaining in character.

The Sergeant-at-Arms will coordinate with the volunteers to decorate the room and ensure the food and drinks are handled. Some ideas for decorating include caldrons, wands, owls, and boxes of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans on the tables, a Hogwarts banner hanging in place of the club banner, and plastic snakes given out along with the ribbons to the evening’s wining speakers.

An elaborately planned themed meeting demands commitment, planning, and coordination from all club members. Themed meetings need not be as complicated as the Harry Potter example. Participation in a themed meeting, however simple or detailed, offers rewards; club members gain an extra opportunity to hone organizational and communication skills while also having a lot of fun.