Reverse Meetings

My previous club (Cleveland #351) liked to have a "reverse meeting", every now and then. (Some clubs call these "backwards meetings"). We started with "closing the meeting" and ended with "opening the meeting." Speech evaluations were before the speeches. Table Topics questions were after the Table Topics responses. The General Evaluation came before all of this, including the Grammarian report. And so on ... (The real evaluation can be given privately to the speaker, of course!)

Here is a sample agenda for a "typical" Reverse Meeting.

There are several good things about a reverse meeting. In the first place ... it's fun. Surprisingly, it's educational, too, because you really have to stop and think about how you do things. You have to literally know your stuff "backwards and forwards." Besides all that, it's just a nice break in the meeting routine.

We found something else, that was rather interesting. We observed that, when we had a guest at a reverse meeting, he or she was a bit more likely to come back and to join. I think it's because the tone of these meetings is a little bit more relaxed and helps people get over any fear they may have about joining Toastmasters. Of course, our regular meetings were friendly and relaxed, too. But these reverse meetings seem to show people how much fun Toastmasters can really be and what a great group of people we are.

Also see District 22's description of a Backwards Meeting.