My second time as timer

The second time I was timer it was a new club and the members were all busy giving speeches and evaluations. I had been invited along by the area director and club sponsor who was busy, fully occupied with others tasks as the Toastmaster of the evening and Language Evaluator and General Evaluator. She had invited me along as I wanted to visit clubs in Singapore (every night of my working holiday) and she needed extra people to help and experienced people to show all the novices at the new club how to do roles. Therefor this time I was the sole timer. I uttered a feeble protest but she briskly reassured me that I could do it. No point in adding to the general mood of 'Oh, gosh, this is my first time - not sure I can do it.' I was part of the old timers team and supposed to be bright and confident. My role was to do the job, look confident. Being sole timer at a club felt like more responsibility than being shared timer at a contest. Whether you are joint timer, or in my case one of three, somebody else can be sharing the responsibility, the credit and blame, and discuss any uncertainly. On the other hand, if you are acting alone, nobody knows what you are doing. So, in theory, you can announce glibly that the speaker was on time, and make up any number if questioned, and nobody is likely to query you. Often at club level in a new club, the actual number of seconds seems irrelevant. All that they really want is to know is, was I a) In time (don't worry - well done!) b) Disqualified by only a second or two (nearly there - just be careful) or e) Wildly out of time! (Must watch the time. However good your speech is, you won't win. Any other idiot with a short speech not half as good as yours will beat you. Don't let that happen! On the other hand, your 'I could have done better' speech can win - if the other better speaker gets carried away and goes wildly over time.) What usually happens? To any guests, and for me for several years, the timer's lists of numbers meant nothing. First of all I didn't know the names. The first speaker ..... (name I can't remember so I don't know who it was and don't care about the person nor can I recall whether they were over brief or longwinded. Then lists of numbers: 1 minute 31 seconds, 2 minutes and four seconds, three minutes and ten seconds. You just stop listening. Whilst you try to work out whether the first person was on time, you miss the next number. Another way of announcing at a blue meeting when you are short of time (or didn't keep accurate records) is to announce 'Everybody was on time'. To the newcomers, without a proper explanation, the disqualifications sound like an arbitrary way of penalising people you don't like on a technicality. You also want to make every explanation positive. In theory, if anybody has a video they can replay the speech and check the time. But in most contests a video is not allowed, except at the finals in the USA where an official video company makes a video which can be sold or distributed. The best, most amusing and most useful timer report I saw recently at a club turned the timing report into exhortations rather than lists of numbers. "All speakers except one were on time - please applaud those who were on time. Now, groans and sobs please for Michael, who was liquified. Sniff, Sob, wipe eyes. Now, cheer up. It's only a game. It's a learning experience. Next time he'll be on time." "Now the good news in detail. Speaker a - our wonderful Wendy with the blonde wig, spoke enthusiastically about the joys of motoring, and finished promptly at two minutes twenty five seconds. Well timed, but what a worry - two thirty is the limit, my hand was shaking , reaching for the buzzer - another five seconds and she would have been disqualified! "Jimmy, our horseback riding enthusiast, ran out of things to say but was encouraged to complete the mini topics speech with a summary, and reached one minute one second. The minimum length for a topic is one minute, so those last two vital seconds qualified him for your voting."

Angela Lansbury, CL, ACG.

Timely lessons on being a contest timer

A few months ago, in Spring 2016, at the last round of serious speech contests, I was timer twice. The first occasion, three of us were timers. The chief timer said we should all keep time, so that in the event of a dispute about the time, the two who agreed would carry the vote.

TRAINING TIMERS The chief timer sat between the two novices she was training to be timers. I needed to be timer to complete my competent leader manual projects. The chief timer wanted me trained so that as Area Governor she could call on me for small clubs and starter clubs where the members all had roles giving speeches and a timer was needed. MOBILE PHONE TIMER She showed me that my mobile phone had a timer. You go onto your mobile phone home pages, set the icons in alphabetical order, look for the symbol and the word clock, click on it to open it, then look for the word timer or the icon or symbol of an egg timer. You set a time the way you set any digital clock. Two spinning numbers go up and down to show hours on the left, for minutes in the middle, and for seconds on the right. Also look for the buttons saying set and re-set, start and stop. Club Meeting TWO TIMER The second time I was timer, was not at a contest but at a club meeting. Having done it once before, and not being at a contest where so much is at stake for contestants, I was far more confident. CONTEST TIMING For a speech timer, you note in the agenda that the speech is 5-7 minutes and the green light is at five, yellow at 6, red at severn, overtime at 7.30. You simply set your stopwatch at 0, click start as the speaker begins to speak. Flipping Coloured Cards When you get to five minutes, the minimum requirement for a speech, you flip the green card, (or turn the switch to operate the green light. Keep watching for six minutes, then flick over the yellow. Finally, at 7 minutes, the limit, you turn over the red card. Keeping Alert You need to practise this. I decided that the more experienced timer should nudge my elbow when it was time to turn over the cards. On one occasion I was so engrossed in the speech that I forgot to flip the car, so this was necessary! Recently, at the autumn humorous speech contests in 2016, I have been a timer two nights in succession at different club contests. I discovered a way to keep a record of the fact that you are timer if you are not given a certificate, use the timer display label which is used at clubs with desks or tables in Singapore.

Another Timer For Mobiles At the first contest I said I'd been a timer before but would need help operating the stopwatch. The Contest chair decided that I would simply turn the cards and the more experienced timer would watch the time. Both of us timers raised our eyebrows at each other. We thought the purpose of having two timers was so that you could have two opinions. The briefing was done by the Contest Organiser who combined that role with Chief Judge. She was not the contest chair who did the introductions from the lectern. The Contest Organiser told us to throw away the sheet records and forget the results and tell nobody, not even our nearest and dearest, after the contest. If you have only three speakers and two run over time and only one prize is awarded it is obvious who has run over time. At least it is obvious to the audience of experienced toastmasters members. Or anybody who is alert and with a knowledge of numbers. (However, it might not be obvious to family members and other VIP guests who simply note if their own family or friend has come first. Nor does it matter to anybody who simply enjoys the speeches, without knowing the contestants nor caring which one wins first place or how many win prizes.) The form A form is filled in with the contestants in order of speaking, and their times. Only one form. The two or three timers discuss the timing and agree. At one contest I was a bit sleepy and slow and started my timer a second or two later than the other timer. A speaker went over time by one second on the first mobile. But it was touch and go as to whether he said his last word and whether one's finger pressed the stop button exactly on the time. The chief timer wrote down the time allowing the speaker to complete in time, by one second. I nodded agreement. At my previous contest, we discussed how long the timings were for each part of the contest and I wrote them on the agenda. The agenda allowed 20 minutes for the evaluations by three to five speakers, but no indication of the length of each evaluation. At first I thought the length was two minutes, like table topics, with the green yellow and red at one, one and a half and two, and disqualification at two and a half. No. Evaluations last 2 minutes minimum. The three cards are shown at 2, 2 and a half and 3. Disqualification at three and a half. The buzzer for over time does not go after the speeches nor the evaluations. The only occasion when the buzzer is rung is after the test speaker, if he or she goes more than thirty seconds beyond the 7 minute limit. That allows the evaluators to comment on the timeliness of the test speaker. The third time I was timer, one of the contestants stopped mid-speech and asked, "Where are the lights?" In the second half I insisted on demonstrating the lights to the audience and the contestants. By the fourth occasion that I was timer, having had the alarm with a contestant who failed to spot the lights, I interrupted the chair person to say, "May I demonstrate the lights!" She said, "Yes, I am coming to that shortly." At the most recent contest, the other timer had a larger screen mobile showing not just a tiny clock face (on the timer which came installed on my phone) but the numbers very large. I admired his phone and said I wished I had the same. He replied, "It's an ap - you can download it." He showed me how to download the ap from apple play. I had previously ignored the Apple play symbol, thinking it was just games. A free ap. In two seconds, and a thumb or finger on the sign INSTALL, I had a time counter. Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker and author.