Newport, Rhode Island: Salve Regina University Toastmasters

Newport, Rhode Island
Meets 5 PM Eastern Time on 2nd and 4th Wednesdays
Attendance: 7 (5 members, 2 guests)

Transforming our brick-and-mortar Toastmasters meetings to the online environment during the coronavirus pandemic has been challenging for many clubs. There is definitely a learning curve for clubs whose members have not been involved in online meetings before.

Salve Regina University Toastmasters Club falls into that category of clubs that are still adjusting to Zoom meetings. And club members recognize that. In fact, during the meeting some members were coaching others on best practices for online meetings (lighting, microphones, speaker view, etc.). I even had the opportunity to explain how to "pin" a particular person in Zoom so that person could be your focus on the screen. This especially works well when you are a speaker and you need to see the timer on your screen.

Unfortunately the meeting I attended started 13 minutes late because all of the meeting roles had not been filled and some of the members were having difficulty attaching to the Zoom session. I would definitely recommend that club members plan to arrive at the Zoom room at least 5 to 10 minutes before the start of the meeting. At my home club (Midway Toastmasters in Midway, Kentucky), we open our Zoom room 30 minutes before each meeting starts. Some clubs call this opening the lobby before the meeting. To me, this is a good practice.

Because of the delay in starting the meeting, we didn't have the opportunity to do Table Topics. 

What I appreciated about this club is that they still had two speakers, even with the technical issues and the forced adaptation to online meetings. One speaker spoke about knowing your audience (a module from the Better Speaker Series) and the other talked about the symbols on the back of the one-dollar bill. Both speeches were informational. 

However, I did feel that both speakers could have put more energy into their presentations. I have noticed that many online speakers do their presentations sitting down and that may translate into a lower level of energy in their speeches. The speech about the one-dollar bill would also have benefited from a shared imaged of a bill instead of holding a bill up to the camera.





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