The Time Keeper keeps track of the time to keep the meeting running on schedule.
What’s great about this role:
Time keeping is a great way to work on your communication and organisational skills, as well as get used to the meeting’s format.
Preparation:
- Prepare your role introduction.
- Review the meeting’s agenda.
- Consider how you will take notes for your report at the meeting. Many people simply record their notes on the agenda hand out but you may also wish to check out one of these sample note taking note forms:
At the meeting:
- Operate the stopwatch and signal lights.
- When introduced, briefly explain your role and the signal lights.
- Signal the time to each person (green at the minimum time, yellow at the target time, red at the maximum time, and the bell every 30 seconds after).
- Record the times of each speaker, table topics speaker, and evaluator and report the times when called upon.
Tip:
Adding the speech title or reference to the table topic to your timing reports is a nice touch for the audience. For example, “with a speech entitled ‘Cats and Dogs,’ Speaker A spoke for five minutes and thirty seconds,” or for the Table Topics report, “Speaker B spoke for two minutes and three seconds about why she prefers tea to coffee.”
