HOLA's Secret Sauce 4? Meeting Themes that stretch capabilities

Let's face it. All Toastmasters meetings (at least those I've attended) have the formulaic way of doing things. We start with the usualy stuff... a call to order, invocation, promise, intro to the TM of the meeting... then we go through the usual routines of having Table Topics, Prepared Speeches then Evaluations. We end with the GE giving some words of inspiration, parting thoughts, then the TM of the meeting wraps up - then the President, or highest officer present, delivers the adjournment.

As I said... Formulaic. It just differs as to who does what role. Unless you are a prepared speaker with intent to deliver a speech and check one more project off your Pathways assignments, there is a tendence that you'll just watch and react to whatever comes along. If things seem repetitive, you just might want to leave early - but don't, out of politeness, or sneak out when you can. If it's online, then you can just camera off and let them drone on as you seek something else more interesting to do like maybe update your stamp collection.

Okay, I exagerate with the last example, but you get the point... if the meeting isn't meeting my interest, then I will simply zone out. A few more of this and I might start looking for excuses not to join. I am now a possible member on the way out of this club.

What's worse, I will (again) wonder if I'm getting what I paid for.

So... how do we address this?

How about themed meetings? Wait... aren't we doing this already? We have a meeting for Mothers, Teachers, Love, Graduation... and anything else the calendar mentions as an obvious holiday or celebration. Yes we do have these... year in and out. It's worse if you club hop... same theme again and again. This is what happens when we just choose the next obvious things to celebrate based on the calendar.

So what themese are we talking about? It should be something different... preferably, something we rarely experience. Maybe even something crazy - something where we might go... 'no way'... and then answer, 'oh yes way!'

So what are examples of such crazy, audacious, stretch-type themes? Well have you tried the revere meeting? In HOLA, we once flipped our meeting - this meant that everything goes in reverse order. What I mentiond above earlier? Now read it from the adjournemt to closing remarks to GE overall comments, etc...

Huh? But the evaluators didn't see anything yet. The Evaluators have yet to watch the speaker perform their speeches, the Table topics evaluator has yet to watch Table Topics happen. The technical evaluators, more so... So how can this happen?

They all invent their comments - and anything they say, the other speakers e.g. the prepared speakers, table topics speakers who were named with what topic, and even the Toastmaster for the day - they all needed to integrate these comments/feedback and reenact these when they were finally called to speak. In other words, aside from knowing what they need to say, they have to do improvisations to make what the evaluators said, come true.

We did this, and believe me, as the meeting was about to start, we were questioning our sanity for even considering, let alone execute such a meeting. But execute it we did, and we were all amazed that we were able to pull it off. It was done online, and no one wanted to leave the meeting after - yes, we had headaches, we were drained... but we all felt a collective feeling of fulfillment. We needed to share the moment - talk about the funny stuff that happened, the faux pas, the brilliance, the sheer guts.

After we finally ended the meeting, we were still talking about it in our group chat the next day. I mean, when was the last time you felt this thrilled with your collective experiences in a meeting? Even if you do such an audacious thing once a quarter, it would still be remebered as a highlight for the TM year. But in HOLA, we did not rest there.

Sure, we had a back to the '70s theme - complete with fashion and music, plus a bit of nostalgic discussions (for those that were old enough to do so), but we also had such things as a Shakespear night. Imagine everyone talking like actors in Bridgerton - that was how we were all doing. Some were clumsy, others were a discovery. Our GE, who was surprised - but game, presented his report quite well, but wnated to kill whoever's idea it was to do the theme.

When our meeting fell on May 4, the geeks took over and we had a "May the Forth be with You' night... again complete with background theme, music, and members in costumes - yes, even our GE came prepared. It was a Star Wars night to remember (all other clubs were focused on Mother's Day as their theme - and although we love our mothers, a meeting rarely falls on My the 4th. So Star Wars won out this time.

We had a meeting wehre we explored our 'might have been's had life taken a different turn. Our alter egos... we discovered we had an 'almost judge', two 'men of the cloth', an army officer, a fashoin vlogger... and we all acted out our roles. Oh yeah, and a Viva Hot Babe too! Imagine the Monsignor evaluating the Hot Babe. It was fun, and again we had laughters aplenty.

One face-to-face meeting was in itself, an improv night, and we had the Oracle of Delphi dishing out funny answers to any one's questions. This meeting was graced with the presence of our District dou, DD Jot and CGD Sucit. They found the evening different... and because of that, memorable.

We had a come as your favorite Super hero theme -though no one wore a full on costume, we were a bit subtle with what we wore, but the props (Captain America's shield, the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver) were present.

THe point here is we kept our meetings lively, fun, interesting, and different from the usual type of everyday meetings. Our memebers were curious as to what was next, and our ExCom were enjoying coming up with such themse.

BTW we also let our CARE groups handle one meeting, so they chose the theme, and were eager to test their creative juices.

Highly fun, different, wacky meetings remove the hum drum, 'same thing again' feeling. It maes our members excited to see what happens. We release teasers of our themes, so everyone has an inkling of wht is to happen next. HOLA avoid staying mundane, and predictable, and that is what makes our members want ot continue attending meetings.

The VP fr Education can be the officer responsible for this, but the entire Excom, or even the memebrs can suggest themesthat may seem ot this world - but if you decide to do it, you'll be surprised with what you are capable of - and he thng is, this can be done by any club. You just need to be daring and creative. Make a meeting theme tht everyone is escited to get behind. In fact, why not start doing it now?