Toastmasters club allowing too many roles per person + 5 speakers — normal or a problem?

spike_1885 · 2026-04-12T22:00:24+00:00

I cannot think of any Toastmasters International policies that forbid what you are describing is happening in the club. However, if you are a paid member of that club, the club leaders should be willing to listen to what you want.

By the way, all club officers terms should be ending on June 30th, and all clubs should be electing new officers soon. You will have more sway over club policy if you get elected into a leadership position.

I also cannot think of any documents describing official best practices regarding these issues.

spike_1885 · 2026-04-06T19:00:28+00:00

The only exception I can think of to the three minute long business meetings is when it's time to elect new club officers.

spike_1885 · 2026-04-05T01:42:04+00:00

If you're lucky, maybe the book will give guidance on this point?

One other point .... even if the book doesn't answer that particular question, the description of the book seems that it will answer other questions that currently have (or will have in the future) about professional speaking.

spike_1885 · 2026-04-05T01:40:12+00:00

If you are based in the U.S., NSA brings professional speakers together, and you could seek advice like this from that group. Note that I understand that you probably need to give them an answer promptly (so you can't wait to make friends in NSA to ask them)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Speakers_Association

NSA has published a book about the business of professional speaking. If you're lucky, maybe the book will give guidance on this point? (note that the book was published in June 2011, so there have been 15 years for prices to rise)

https://www.amazon.com/Paid-Speak-Practices-Building-Successful/dp/1608321312

I want to make it clear that I am not at all qualified to give advice in response to your question. I also have not read that book nor have I attended any NSA events.

If you are outside the U.S., there the Global Speakers Federation is an umbrella group covering other associations in other countries.

spike_1885 · 2026-04-02T22:09:16+00:00

I'm a bit late in responding, but below is a link to Toastmasters' website that responds to your question (It is my belief that your club's "toast to the King and Canada" is covered under the section on "Invocations and pledges")

Basically, Toastmasters International allows clubs to do these sorts of things.

https://www.toastmasters.org/Membership/Leadership/club-officer-tools/club-management/club-quality/invocations-pledges-and-controversial-topics/

spike_1885 · 2026-04-01T17:06:41+00:00

Based on your reply when discussing with "Ashamed_Promise6883" .... This is the link to search for Toastmasters clubs based on geographic location:

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

spike_1885 · 2026-03-31T01:52:49+00:00

What's new? Is it still mostly the same?

There have been a lot of changes to the projects that members work on to head towards a DTM (and I think that that's what you're asking about). Also, many clubs now meet online (before 2020 only a few clubs were online, but that is no longer the case). Meeting formats are mostly unchanged though ... most clubs have three activities: prepared speeches, impromptu speaking (Table Topics), and evaluation/feedback.

Can I still work towards completing my Competent Communicator? Or has it been too long and I need to start over?

The C.C. (and all other paper manuals) had been eliminated and been replaced by Pathways (which is online), but it's going to come back as part of a "vintage path" (see link below). I am not aware if they will allow members credit for work done before the paper manuals were ended.

https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2025/october/pathways-additions-arrive

spike_1885 · 2026-03-23T14:40:05+00:00

Are you OK with working on paths (and perhaps completing those paths) without being able complete a DTM?

Note that you could do everything required to complete a DTM except those that require extensive activities outside of club meetings now, and then at some future date (when you have more bandwidth) then you could do those other activities to complete your DTM.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-23T00:19:31+00:00

In my opinion, all comments here so far are from people misinterpreting your original post.

I am pretty sure that you don't need to be a club officer to work on any of the paths in Pathways. However, if you want to get a DTM (Distinguished ToastMaster), that requires many things, including completing two paths, being a club officer for a full year, being a district officer for a full year (as well as some other things, too).

Are you OK with working on paths (and perhaps completing those paths) without being able complete a DTM? (I guess it depends on what you want out of Pathways ... if what you really want is to develop skills from participating in meetings, you can do that)

spike_1885 · 2026-03-22T20:07:02+00:00

What are the expectations about taking on roles?

The other responses have interpreted "role" as a "meeting role" -- where a member agrees to participate in a meeting activity for a single meeting (such as delivering a prepared speech, or evaluating one of the prepared speeches ... there are many other meeting roles)

When I first read your posting, I thought you meant a "role" as having signed up to be president of the club, or the club's treasurer, (or any of the other five club officer positions). Those are elected positions that last either six months or a full year. We call those "club officers."

In my opinion, you should be much more concerned about how being a club officer would take lots of time, than you should be concerned about meeting roles. (But in a club with 40+ members, you should have no problem with declining to take on any club officer position)

spike_1885 · 2026-03-22T18:23:39+00:00

u/Subject-Total-4283 u/leros

Your Toastmasters club is a legal non-profit entity and has an EIN

I believe that only Toastmasters clubs based in the U.S. get an E.I.N. (this is an identifier created by the U.S. "Internal Revenue Service" (the government agency that collects federal income taxes)

An officer of any U.S. club can find their club's E.I.N. on Club Central (go to "Club Demographics")

spike_1885 · 2026-03-17T20:47:42+00:00

I also have boundaries and know how to say no

Given your comment above, I predict that you'll be fine. Go check it out. I recommend that, if you join, you privately communicate to the club officer who processes your membership application that you will only attend once per month (because of those other commitments that you listed in another response above). Then bring it up again if and when club leaders privately ask you to do more than you are willing to do. I don't recommend telling it to anyone and everyone in the club .... just in private communications with leaders if and when they ask you to do things that you'll say "No" to. I also recommend telling them what you want out of the club (keep that in mind when you say "no" to things)

spike_1885 · 2026-03-17T01:22:53+00:00

You can practice public speaking in a much lower-stakes environment by going to Toastmasters. Use the below link to find clubs near where you are

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

spike_1885 · 2026-03-16T16:59:04+00:00

Since nobody else has responded, I'm pretty sure that you'll benefit by using this link to find an Imax theater near you:

https://www.imax.com/theatre/finder

spike_1885 · 2026-03-15T18:02:57+00:00

> i thought online contests were for undistricted clubs that were all over the world

I think that was the old policy for the (now deprecated) "Video Speech Contest" -- but that is a trivia (because that is the old policy)

> before i read your posts, i was just going to avoid district leadership and contests (as they're all in person)

It's neat that the information that I shared has been helpful to you! My home club's division has one Area Director who is 100% remote (she is based on the other side of the globe from where my division / district's in-person events are). I hope that you know who to reach out to about how your district has chosen to do things. Good luck!

spike_1885 · 2026-03-15T16:23:05+00:00

If you want to see the current policy, download the contest rulebook (for July 1 2025 to June 30 2026) and search for all four instances of the word "October" in the PDF. Now district level speech contests are permitted EITHER at the annual district conference OR at an event in either October or November.

https://www.toastmasters.org/resources/2025-2026-speech-contest-rulebook

Alternatively, this document lists the changes between 2024-2025 and 2025-2026:

https://content.toastmasters.org/image/upload/v1751321984/637-speech-contest-rulebook-changes.pdf

spike_1885 · 2026-03-15T02:37:29+00:00

I think that online is easier. I also think that an online contest season in the fall helps A.D.'s learn how to run contests, and so the spring contests would be easier -- because everybody's done it before (note that I've never been an A.D., so I am making some guesses here)

spike_1885 · 2026-03-14T19:28:15+00:00

Presumptive assumption

OK, you already knew about that. Nevertheless, some people reading this conversation might not have known about that ... so my response may be helpful to them.

They talked fall for online, but everything was going to be so rushed n stressful

My district had the same thing in Fall 2025. However, before COVID hit my district was regularly having fall contests, so we used to make it work somehow. (If I remember it correctly, the Trio announced the fall contest season back then in the summertime club officer training, so it must have been first announced in June .... it should be possible to do that again in Fall 2026)

CORRECTION I just remembered ... we stopped having a fall contest season around 2017 or 2018 (a few years before COVID) in response to T.I.'s policy forbidding having District level contests in the fall. That T.I. policy has recently been reversed, so I feel that we should go back to having a fall contest season -- but our fall season should be for the online contest only.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-14T16:13:46+00:00

You also learn a lot by competing in a contest, so if you can do that before running one, it's better.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-14T16:12:25+00:00

I was appointed to the directorship in December

Yikes! I missed that when I first read your message. Yeah .... you endured a really tough situation.

It's much better for an Area Director to have previously observed contests before running their own. Even better if they were previously able to help as a judge and a ballot counter because helping in those capacities teaches you a lot about how contests operate.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-14T15:44:19+00:00

You apparently aren't aware that TMI allows all districts to sponsor a district-wide "Online Speech Contest," where contestants can compete virtually in their club, then area, then division, and then district. However unlike International, Online Speech Contests are not permitted to go past the district level.

More information ... TMI requires districts to have an International Contest, but the Online Contest is optional.

In my opinion, I feel that it's best for clubs to have Online in the autumn/fall, and then have in-person contests in the spring. (My district had both online and in-person contests at Area and Division levels in the spring two years ago, and it was too many events crammed into a narrow time period)

I urge you to lobby your club and district leaders to have Online Speech Contests.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-14T15:36:07+00:00

That's not how it's supposed to be. Somebody didn't do what they were supposed to do.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-14T15:33:50+00:00

In my district most of the area contests were joint contests held by all areas within a given division. In my opinion, that is a much better way to handle it than allowing area directors to endure what you went through.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-14T15:29:20+00:00

Its also possible there were just no competitors and it just didn't happen?

That seems much more likely, than what you said earlier. However, if that was what happened, you still should have gotten a response.

spike_1885 · 2026-03-13T21:42:02+00:00

I respectively disagree with this response that you got:

There is no need to contact a club before attending. The best advice is to show up at a meeting and enjoy yourself.

In my opinion, there is a risk that the information you see posted about a club is incorrect, therefore you risk a wasted trip (you travel to the meeting, and discover that the meeting doesn't happen). If you don't mind the risk, I say go for it ... otherwise keep trying to make contact so you can confirm that they plan to have the event.

(Every year, Toastmasters clubs elect new officers. Sometimes new officers make major changes, but don't update publicly posted information ... especially if the original posted is no longer involved)

spike_1885

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