The new role agenda management tools on Toastmost and WP4Toastmasters websites look slicker but more importantly should make it easier for club members and meeting organizers to perform routine tasks. The Organize section allows club leaders to organize and reorganize the agenda for a specific meeting or for a standard meeting template.

You can switch between modes of interacting with the agenda using the row of radio buttons at the bottom of the screen (the options may vary based on the user’s security permissions, but a site administrator will see all of them).

Modes menu at the bottom of the screen

The options are:

• Sign Up – Sign yourself up for roles and enter speech details. Available to everybody.
• Suggest – Nominate another member for an open role, available to everybody
• Evaluation – Evaluate another member’s speech. Available to everybody.
• Edit – Edit role assignments and notes on the agenda. Administrators can decide whether to make this available to all members.
• Organize – Add, delete, an rearrange roles, as well as other elements of the agenda. Administrators can decide whether to make this available to all members.
• Template/Settings – Change the date and time of an event. Modify the meeting template. Available to editors and administrators. Certain features on this screen are displayed to administrators only.

The change I expect to have the most positive impact is the addition of the Organize tool, which should make it much easier to, for example, change the number of speakers and amount of time allowed for them or move Table Topics from the beginning of the meeting to the end. These are changes that previously required members to have WordPress editing rights and understand how to manipulate agenda content blocks in the WordPress editor.

The Organize screen, as it appears on the front end of a Toastmost website.

See more details on how to edit agendas and agenda templates with the Organize feature.

Ranking a close second among beneficial changes is the increased prominence of the digital evaluation tool, which was previously buried on the WordPress dashboard. Every member who logs in to sign up for a role will now see the agenda tool available to them the next click over (see video).

Help Wanted

Contact me if you would like to help advance these digital tools:

• Documentation help: Improvements mean change, and keeping the documentation of the software in sync with how the software actually works can be a challenge — particularly after a big change like this.
• Publicity and training: I’m looking for opportunities to speak at conferences and training events, and for other speakers and trainers who can help spread the word.
• Technical help: If anyone reading this has experience with the JavaScript React framework used to build these user interface features, I’d welcome your help improving them.

To volunteer or give feedback, write to david@wp4toastmasters.com and include WP4Toastmasters or Toastmost in the subject line.

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