Towns of York Toastmasters

Telling a joke successfully is a skill that many people don’t feel they have because they have never taken sufficient time to learn and practice. While you may not aspire to be a stand up comic, your ability to use humour skillfully or tell a joke will enhance your presentations and your social skills. Appropriate, skillfully timed hurmour helps build rapport and puts people at ease in tense or serious situations. 

If you read the material that comes from Toastmasters, you will notice that the Jokemaster  role is not mentioned.  That is because the Towns of York (and many other Toastmasters clubs) have created this role to provide an additional speaking opportunity that is adaptable to both new and experienced members.

As Jokemaster, your task is to deliver a clean and tasteful joke or short entertaining story that fits with the theme of the meeting.  The Jokemaster role serves as the appetizer to warm up the meeting with laughter while providing you with an opportunity to concentrate on practicing this essential speaking skill.

Humour should be of good taste. Objectionable language, racist, sexist and "toilet humour" are unacceptable at Toastmasters meetings. As Toastmasters, we need to be aware of the feelings of our fellow members and be sensitive to them. As a result most jokes about religion and politics should be avoided. Jokes that may be suitable at a party might not necessarily be suitable for a Toastmasters meeting. If you are in doubt, get another joke.

Prior to the meeting, prepare for your role by preparing and practicing a joke suitable for a Toastmasters meeting that takes no more than 2 minutes to tell, and (if it is within your comfort zone) a 5-15 second explanation of the Jokemaster role for new members and visiting guests.

As Jokemaster you will normally be called near the start of the meeting just after the Invocation and Toast. Once you are introduced, stand, thank the Chairperson, and perform your role. When you are finished pass control of the meeting back to the Chairperson before being seated.

This role can expand and contract based on the skill level of the participant and the timing of the meeting.  For the very new and/or timid speaker, simply stand and read a joke.  For the more experienced, you should concisely explain your role as Jokemaster (5-15 seconds) and/or include a short preamble that integrates your humour into the meeting. When this role performed by an experienced member, it should ideally be a 1 to 2 minute mini-speech that uses humour as a way to emphasize the theme of the meeting. 

As your experience and confidence increases you should focus on gestures, timing, adding vocal variety, and carefully choosing the words.  A written joke is different than a spoken joke.  If you take a joke from the internet, wordsmith it into a "spoken" joke to make it more "story-like". Simply changing a phrase like "A man was walking down the street and..." to "George was walking down the street and..." can make a big difference.

Mastering the art of humour and joke telling requires practice, practice and practice. Take the time to practice, just as you would for a speech so that you can present your joke without reading. Be dramatic: act out the part enthusiastically, and use all the skills of vocal variety and body language to enhance the story line and lead effectively to your punch-line. Be sure to rehearse the punch line especially if it’s complicated or a tongue twister. Your joke telling success all rests right there in the delivery of those words.

Tips and Other Important Points

• Prior to the meeting you should find out what the theme of the meeting will be by contacting the chairperson.
• The timing for this roles is between 1 to 2 minutes (Total time 3 minutes ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM)!
• Like any other presentation, you must "know your audience". Your humour should relate to the theme of the meeting and be clean, tasteful, and politically correct.  Toastmasters is not the place for off-color humour. Keep in clean and inoffensive.
• Challenge yourself based on your skill, experience level and the amount of time you have available for preparation - you will grow and have the most fun if you make your role a GENTLE stretch.
• Until you’re experienced, stick with something short, and that is easy to follow or you’ll lose people and the ending will be anti-climactic. It take a great deal of skill to pull off telling a long, complicated story with a hopefully funny ending.
• The best jokes are often ones that you have learned from personal experience.
• Your humour can be joke, anecdote, or personal humorous story that leaves everyone feeling good. You do not need to find the funniest joke ever told, nor do you need to deliver a joke so perfectly that the members are rolling on the floor laughing.
• Old books are often a better source of good humour than the Internet because chances are that less people in your audience will have read or heard the joke before. A recent entry from a "joke e-mail list" is most likely fresh in the minds of many of the audience and could fall flat as a result. If you are going to use material, from a "joke list", search the archives and pick something that is several years old.
• Relax and have fun and remember to SMILE!
• If the agenda is very light, then there is a bit of room for creativity or impromptu commentary. If the meeting is full or likely to run overtime, keep your delivery focused by reducing any setup preamble to a bare minimum.