Timer Introduction

 Timer Introduction.

You will be called upon by the Toastmaster of the Day to introduce yourself and explain your role as the Timer. The main reason for this is to help the guests, who are probably not familiar with the different roles at Toastmasters.

Start by explaining what your duties as the Timer are. Prepare this explanation in advance and carry a pen, paper and stopwatch (your phone has this feature too, of course) with you. You will also be given 3 coloured cue cards: green, red and yellow. To put it briefly:

• Green represents qualifying time

• Yellow represents target time

• Red represents finish time

In most speeches (if not all), a grace period of 30 seconds is allowed on either side of the speech. What that means is that if our speaker talks for 4:30 minutes or for 7:30 minutes, she still qualifies. In other words, they are allowed to cut their speech 30 seconds short or go 30 seconds above the stipulated time.

For example, in a speech ranging from 5 minutes to 7 minutes, the green card would go up on the 5^th minute (qualifying time), the yellow card would go up on the 6^th minute (target time), and the red card would go up on the 7th minute (finish time).