What I learned from being Toastmaster

1 Make a checklist. Rehearse and record yourself on a smartphone (iPhone or another phone - yours or another club member or a family member's or neighbour's phone or on Skype. Play back and note anything you have forgotten.

2 Re-do the role, again recording it, adding whatever you forget the first time. If necessary mark the agenda with the things you should say.

3 Check with speakers and timekeepers the length of speeches, evaluator feedback, and time for interval or time to stop GE and end meeting.

4 Arrange a signal from Timekeeper or SAA or President, so that if you forget anything they signal subtly, e.g. by raising hand, better still a card with reminder, eg.
a) Remind audience: phones off; fire exits; toilets
b) Break time ONLY 5 MINUTES.
c) GE over-running - ask audience if anybody needs to leave.

5 In the month afterwards either
a) Record yourself doing the role again, making sure to improve on whatever you did wrong last time
and/or
b) take the role again marking the agenda with anything you forgot the previous time.

Memo to myself:
Problem
I carefully wrote the names of the replacement speakers on the agenda. Then I put down the agenda on the props table. I didn't leave my agenda on the lectern in case another person picked it up.
Later, I picked up another agenda from a chair, an uncorrected agenda, so I read out the wrong names for speakers and evaluators who had replaced others or switched running order.

Solution: Bring your own clipboard in a distinctive colour and clip your agenda to it. That way nobody else takes yours by mistake or throws it aside or throws it away in a bin. You can see it in a hurry or direct somebody else to find it and hand it to you.