Games Toastmasters Play

It’s a well-known fact that people come to Toastmasters to learn. It’s also a well-known fact that people come to Toastmasters to have fun :)

And what better way to combine business with pleasure than to practice your English and public speaking skills by playing games? That’s why occasionally we play games at the meetings. There are a lot of speaking games out there and we have tried many of them, until we found two favorite ones, which have the advantage of giving players a great opportunity to use their speaking skills, while being very thrilling and entertaining.

Hide a Word

To play this game, the audience is divided into two teams, and each player gets a piece of paper with a common, fairly everyday use word, which they don’t show to anyone.

Players from each team are then called to the stage in turn to give a one minute speech on a topic provided by the opposing team. The topic can be anything: the weather, fishing, astrology, etc. The key is to use your secret word during this one-minute speech at least once. When the minute is over, the opposing team gets three attempts to guess what the secret word was. If they guess the word, they get a point, and if they don’t guess, then the speaker’s team gets a point.

The trick is to forward your speech in the necessary direction or to slip the secret word into a sentence without going too far off topic; otherwise the opposing team will easily guess it. And here is where your Toastmasters practice comes in handy :)

Of course, the more specific or unusual the topic is, the more difficult it will be for the speaker to use the secret word without going off topic too much, so there has to be a moderator to make sure the topics aren’t completely bizarre.

We usually play a practice round with the game master being the speaker with the secret word and the players giving the topic and trying to guess the word, so that everyone understands the idea of the game.

This game is great for Toastmasters since it develops quick thinking, adept speaking and attentive listening.

Just 1 Minute

Another game we like to play is called “Just 1 minute” and is fairly popular among Toastmasters.

As with “Hide a Word” the audience is divided into two teams. The game master gives one of the teams a topic to speak on and starts the timer. A speaker from this team starts to speak on the given topic and continues until he is stopped by a player from the opposing team. Any player of the opposing team can stop the speaker if he makes any kind of mistake in his speech, like says “um”, takes a pause which is too long, makes a grammatical mistake, or goes off topic. The player who stops the speaker then proceeds to speak on this topic until he makes a mistake and is stopped by the opposing team. The teams continue until the minute runs out. Whoever is speaking at the end of the minute gets a point for their team.

This game is very competitive and thrilling and really keeps you on your toes. It teaches you to think ahead of speaking even when time is limited, producing an eloquent and seamless speech.

Other Games

We are always looking for new ideas to make our meetings even more diverse and interesting, so if you know other speaking games you would like to play at the meeting, don't hesitate and sign up for the Game master role!

Table Topics Contest

I love Table Topics! Love participating in them, love conducting them, love evaluating them, and just plain watching them. Because a Table Topic session is always a show, it's the most exciting and dynamic part of every meeting where everyone has the opportunity to think and speak on their feet.

And of course the key to a successful Table Topics session are the witty, intriguing and entertaining questions and comments of the person leading the session – the Table Topic Master. Every meeting we reward the best impromptu speaker; there are all sorts of speech contests, but the Topicsmaster always remains the man behind the scene.


That's why last week we held our very first Table Topics Contest. This was a great opportunity for the members to achieve recognition for their creativity, presentation and organizational skills and to exchange experience and some exciting new ideas for Table Topics.

The results exceeded all expectations. All Table Topics were unique and riveting.
First, Yaroslav took us on a journey in time, to the far past, to bring civilization to primitive tribes. We were to explain to the prehistoric people how to use some of the everyday appliances we have in our time.


It's amazing how we take most of the things we have for granted, so when it comes to explaining them, we don't know where to begin. Especially if the questions are a bit... unexpected :)


The next Topicsmaster, Olena has provided us some food for thought with her Table Topics devoted to emotions, good and bad. With her Table Topics session she showed that everything is not black or white and even anger can sometimes be useful.


Alex's Table Topic session was rather unusual. It transported us to a courtroom where we took part in a civil case process between a dog owner who was walking his dog without a leash and a man, whom the dog allegedly bit. Despite the gravity of the matter, the whole trial was hilarious, thanks to the colorful and vivid acting of the participants.

The next Topicsmaster, Reno, had some deeply philosophical questions. He drew parallels between human behavior and the survival mechanisms of orchids. Apparently no matter how evolved we may be, we still adhere to the same rules as the rest of the animal kingdom.


The last participant was Andriy, who also made us travel in time, this time into our own childhood. It was very interesting to hear about the childhood memories people have. And some of the stories were really amusing. Like, you know that cats always land on their feet, and a sandwich always falls butter down. But do you know what happens if you put butter on a cat's back and throw it out the window? It lands on a tree. Go figure... :)

At the end of the meeting 3 winners were determined.


The best impromptu speaker chosen by the majority of votes was Christina, our new member, who won the audience over with a hilarious story from her childhood.
The best Table Topics Master was Yaroslav and the audience choice award went to Andriy.

Overall, the contest turned out to be a success. It was a lot of fun and very educational. I think we'll make such contests a tradition along with the annual speech contests.

Splendid meeting

We had a really good meeting lately, so I want to share with you what I liked most. Maybe, it will give you an idea for your role preparation next time.

First, a grammarian’s word of the day: «to take one’s goat». Usually, the most used words are synonyms to «good»: they are easiest to insert into prepared speech, or to use in some meaningless sentences to fill gaps between speakers. Words with more complex meaning or concerning a particular subject barely make their way to speeches of one or two speakers. This time it was a completely different story. Perfectly announced by grammarian, and promoted by toastmaster, it was used several times by each member!

Then, there was a viewpoint. Rules are following: speaker has 2 minutes to deliver a very controversial speech, a statement that causes a holy war. Each response is 1 minute long. I decided to discuss attitude to police. The statement was that nobody likes them, for good reasons, but still apply for help. We should appreciate their service and collaborate when we can. Certainly, everyone has their own experience with police, and different attitude, so there was a certain flame. Just as planned!

As a tabletopic master, Lena arranged a «job interview in a company of your dream». «Interviewees» needed to answer one question each:

• What are your greatest weaknesses?


• Tell us about the latest problem you encountered. How did you solve it?


• What recent accomplishment are you most proud of?


• How would your colleagues describe you?


• What was the latest mistake you made? What did you learn from it?

It was a constant flow of interesting stories, personal experience, brilliant solutions. I liked the section very much.