Agora Club Experience

Agora's clubs provide a supportive and friendly environment where you can learn and practice the basic skills of public speaking and leadership. There you will find not only a welcoming atmosphere that encourages practice, but you will also be part of a community that will help you with your projects, share experience and provide valuable feedback on the ways you can improve. You may also find a mentor who will guide you as you progress throughout the first projects of the basic path

Clubs can be in English or in many other languages, and some clubs are bilingual.

Before the meeting, members choose what roles they want to have. It can be leading the whole meeting, presenting a speech or evaluating someone else's progress. Some of the roles you might find include:

  • Meeting Leader - The Meeting Leader is a meeting's director and host, the Master of Ceremony. He ensures that the meeting proceeds smoothly, coordinates stage appearances and introduces the guests and the speakers
  • Timer - Keeps track of the speaking times and signals the speakers when they are over the allotted time.
  • Speaker (Prepared Speeches) - Gives a speech on a topic of his/her choice, designed to meet the objectives of the educational manual he's following. Usually speeches are 5 to 7 minutes long.
  • Book/Movie/Thought of the day - Delivers a short (1-2 min) speech on a book or movie. This is one of the best roles for people that are afraid of speaking in public
  • Filler Word Counter - Listens to everyone's word usage, and tracks awkward use or misuse of the language, as well as the use of filler words
  • Grammarian - Listens to everyone's language usage, and reports on great expressions or grammar mistakes to be corrected. This is a role especially useful for those attending clubs that do not use their native language
  • Word / Idiom of the Day - Provides a word or idiom for the day, which speakers are encouraged to use to train in being flexible in their speeches
  • Hot Questions Master - Selects a topic and asks questions to random members-victims, who have to deliver a 1-2min "minispeech" on the subject. This trains quick thinking and reacting to unforseeble circumstances
  • Evaluator - Provides feedback to the speaker, pointing to strong points and areas for improvement and delivers a written assessment of the speech.
  • Hot Questions Evaluator - Evaluates the performance of both the Hot Questions Master and the victims that were chosen by him.
  • Meeting Evaluator - Gives an overall evaluation of the meeting, including the performances of the Meeting Leader, Evaluators, Grammarian, Timer and Hot Questions Evaluator.