90 Second Speech

by Rick Clements

I visited Toastmasters for the first time because I wanted to improve my presentation skills.  But, I joined Toastmasters because of Tabletopics; I realized this was an area I needed more work.

I was looking over the Toastmaster pamphlet on Tabletopics Thinking Fast.  It mentioned Tabletopics is a mini-speech.  This is something most of us know, but I found the review useful.  So, thought I would write about it this month.

A speech as a beginning, body and conclusion.  Since, Tabletopics is about 90 seconds, this breaks down to 15 seconds, 60 seconds and 15 seconds respectively.  The following paragraphs will attempt to answer the question, "what do I fill all that time with?"

The opening needs to create a context or base for your speech. You need to tell your listeners what you will be talking about and why it is important to them.  The following is an example opening:

• The Metropolitan Service District or Metro should be given their own charter.  Now Metro is accountable to the legislature. They should be accountable to the people within their service area.

The body of the contains the factual support for your point of view.  You need to state your facts in a logical and organized manner.  This is where you will convince people that you point of view is correct, so you need to spend most of your time here. The following is the body that was introduced in the opening above:

• About a year ago, Metro was sitting a garbage transfer station. We call the Metro Councilor for our area.  He told us what a hard job it was sitting a transfer station, but they had made their decision and he didn't care what we thought.  We went to the first public hearing.  It was obvious they had made up their mind and the only purpose of the hearing was to fulfill a legal requirement. They are not accountable to the people in their service area.

• Many people say Metro should be dismantled.  They point out that Metro has four areas of responsibility the zoo, garbage, transportation planning and the convention center.  It's doing well with one, two others are being handled poorly and one is too early to tell.  However, Metro can't be dismantled.  When it was given responsibility for the convention center, it was given bonding authority.  Metro can't be dismantled with out the bond coming do immediately.

The conclusion is your last chance to make your point of view. It needs to be bring together the points you made so people will remember.  The following is the conclusion for the above example:

• Metro is not working in its current form.  It can't be dismantled, so it needs to be changed.  Giving it its own charter will make it accountable to the people it should serve.

Just like any other speech, Tabletopics needs an opening, body and conclusion.  Just like any other speech, there are many different ways to organize your Tabletopics speech.

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