Sorry, I'm not going to make it tonight - Have Fun!

Liz Saniga

Providing Feedback meeting

I really enjoyed our Evaluation Workshop meeting on May 27, 2015. We had two guest speakers. The first, Mel Bayo, spoke about techniques that can help you win the evaluation contest. Did you ever think that you can rehearse giving evaluations? He suggested doing just that to get lots of extra practice compared to evaluating only at Toastmaster meetings. The second speaker, Jill Lambe, described how contest judging is different from evaluations, and what contestants should do to get the most points from the judges. Knowing the criteria on the judging form will help you remember to have recommendations and a summary in the evaluation contest to score more points. Then we had a mock evaluation contest. The test speaker pointed out that the Toastmasters' definition of a good evaluation will help you avoid giving bad evaluations. Our Table Topics questions were phrased as letters to Dear Abby and the respondents had to provide feedback to the letter writers.

By the way, our workshop participants are doing a terrific job. They are trying the different evaluation formats we are sharing with them. They are giving recommendations for improvement to the people they are evaluating. And I think they are having fun. I certainly like that they are asking questions and participating fully in the meetings. This has been a win-win for all of us.