How to Come Up With Creative Themes for a Toastmasters Meeting

Themes spice up a Toastmasters meeting in several ways. The Toastmaster of the meeting can use fun facts in his/her introductory remarks, and a theme can make it easier for the Table Topics Moderator to prepare for questions.

While speakers do not have to abide by the theme of the meeting, it can also help a speaker who is stumped on a speech topic.

Here are some tips on how to come up with a good theme.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• idea cap

1. Be Specific.
   
   When choosing a theme, it's very easy to make up a list of words like Spring, Christmas, Halloween, Philosophy, etc. These themes are too general.
   
   Instead of Spring, try the following:
   Flowers
   Seedlings
   
   Instead of Christmas, try the following:
   Re-gifting
   Christmas Memories
   Elves
   Decorations
   
   Instead of Death or Halloween, try one of the following:
   Tombstones
   Ghosts
   Re-incarnation
   Haunting
   
   Instead Philosophies, try the following:
   Old Adages
   Myths
   Proverbs
   Famous Philosophers

2. Educate Members.
   
   Themes can be educational, as well.
   Here are some ideas:
   
   -Conduct a Leadership Series of two or three meetings in a row. From the Leadership Excellence modules, choose leadership sub-skills that group together logically. Examples:
   a) Values and Leadership, The Visionary Leader, and Developing Your Mission
   b) Delegate to Empower, Giving Effective Feedback, and Motivating People
   c) Leader as Coach, Service and Leadership, and Values and Leadership
   d) Building a Team, Resolving Conflict, and Motivating People
   
   -Conduct a Successful Club Series module to help newer members and refresh and remind more seasoned members of building blocks of a strong club: Evaluate to Motivate, Mentoring, Finding New Members, etc.

3. Be Wacky.
   
   Juxtapose two unlikely things like "Christmas in July," or "Summer in January."
   
   Do a farce of a television series.
   
   Role-playing themes can be wacky if members come in costume, and include:
   
   -celebrity impersonation meeting
   -historical figures meeting
   -occupation meeting
   -rock stars, superheroes, celebrities, animals, etc.

4. Use an unusual or important "official day or month" as a theme.
   
   Examples include Black History Month, Secretary's Day, Alzheimer's Awareness Month, etc.

5. Change Meeting Location.
   
   Location changes can add excitement to a theme. Here are some ideas for different meeting locations:
   
   Pizza party at a pizza parlor
   Diner/restaurant
   Ice cream parlor
   Coffee shop
   Supermarket coffee shop
   Bookstore
   Mall
   Park--outside picnic meeting
   Member's house
   Bar--drinking culture, toasts

6. Parties/Celebrations
   
   Club anniversaries, member birthdays, achievement recognition, and hosting an annual social are all great reasons to throw a party.
   
   Potlucks are relatively easy to coordinate, and cost no money for the club.

7. Evaluation Variations.
   
   Spin the bottle evaluator
   Panel evaluation
   Stop-the-Speaker evaluations
   Video tape and evaluate during playback
   Interactive evaluations
   Self evaluations
   Evaluate the evaluators
   Table Topics evaluations
   Evaluate to Motivate module from the Successful Club Series
   Random evaluators

8. Here are some more ideas for meeting themes:
   
   All-Icebreaker speeches meeting
   Stage a debate on a controversial issue
   Hecklers/Hostile audience meeting
   Joint Meeting with another club
   Area Super Meeting (all clubs in one Area meet together at one meeting)
   Introductions Workshop
   Mock Press Conference
   Joke-a-thon
   Charades
   Speech Contests special only to the club or Area (make up your own speech contest, like Throwing the Bull, Preacher of the Year, Controversial Table Topics Contest, etc.)
   Poetry meeting
   Youth/Teen meeting
   Campaign Speech meeting
   Book Report meeting
   Movie review
   Show and Tell
   White Elephant Sale
   Raffle Prizes
   Board games
   Host a Murder

Tips & Warnings

• Don't forget the traditional standby, "Open House."
• Ask other members for input on ideas.
• Plan in advance five to eight meetings at a time.
• Some clubs ask the Vice President of Education choose the themes, some let the Toastmaster of the meeting choose the theme, and some clubs democratically choose the themes together.
• Make sure club members are excited and on board for the theme ideas. If members aren't excited about coming to the meeting in costume, for example, then the theme won't go over very well.
• This is not a comprehensive list of ideas. Join the Toastmasters eHow group or e-mail me with questions.

Resources

• Toastmasters International
• Advanced Table Topics Variations
• Fun and Creative Table Topics Ideas

[iknewthat]

on 7/13/2009 Great article. Very informative. 5***** and recommendation!