"Starting a Gavel Club.pdf"  contains start-up information based on our experience with the Queen City Gavel Club in 2002. All financial estimates given in this document are based on our actual experience.  If Toastmasters International changes their prices, your costs will be different.

Starting a Gavel Club.pdf

Gavel Club Cooperation Covenant.pdf 

All Roles defined for Gavel Club.doc Each club is slightly different.  These are the roles as we define them in the Queen City Gavel Club.

Lights for the Timer:   We bought a $20 novelty flashing traffic light (brand Lite F/X,  mmeworld.com) from Target --Wal Mart has them, too -- and then wired in a rotary switch from Radio Shack.  We couldn't find a 2 pole, 4-position switch, so we bought a 2 pole, 6-position one.  The catalog number was 275-1386A.  The switch fit right into one of the slots on the back of the traffic light case.  We cut of about an inch of the metal pole so we could attach a 1" knurled knob on the back(Radio Shack catalog no. 274-424A) and attached stickers to show what color of light each position of the switch turned on.  We replaced the flashing bulbs with non-flashing ones .

20 Member Scheduling Model.xls  If your club has 20 members, you can modify this Excel spreadsheet to use in scheduling.  This model rotates 20 members through the various roles with each member giving a speech and an evaluation every 5 weeks.  For the other roles, such as Toastmaster or Master Evaluator, each member gets a turn to do these jobs once every 20 weeks.  There are two unassigned Gaveliers each week.  They are the first ones chosen to substitute for absent members. 

To use this spreadsheet,  input the names of your club members in cells A65 to A84.  The schedule will be automatically populated with the names you input. You can change the dates, role titles, and notes, but be careful not type over any of the cells with formulas in them.  We use highlighting, plus notes in blue below the schedule to point out any changes due to absences or planned substitutions.   

The weakness in this model is that it groups the evaluators and the speakers.  For twenty weeks, the same four evaluators evaluate on the same day; the same four speakers speak on the same day.  When the first twenty week session is over, we relist our members in cells A65 to A84 so that they are speaking/evaluating with different people.