Prioritize New Speakers

Prioritize New Speakers

The “Prioritize new speakers” setting changes how The Club Schedule assigns speakers and evaluators. When enabled, newer members get priority for speaking slots and are automatically paired with your most experienced evaluators.

Where to Find This Setting

  1. Go to your Club Dashboard
  2. Click Schedule Options
  3. Find the Prioritize new speakers toggle
  4. Turn it ON to enable this feature

[Screenshot: Schedule Options page with Prioritize new speakers toggle highlighted]

What Changes When Enabled

When this setting is ON, the assignment algorithm changes in two ways:

1. Speaking order prioritizes newer members

Members are sorted by their join date. Those who joined most recently get priority for speaking slots before longer-tenured members. This helps new members get speaking practice sooner.

2. Speaker-evaluator pairing happens first

In standard mode, Toastmaster is assigned before evaluators. With this setting enabled, each speaker is paired with an evaluator immediately—before Toastmaster, General Evaluator, or Table Topics Master are assigned.

Evaluators are scored by their experience—including number of past evaluations, General Evaluator history, and how recently they’ve evaluated. This ensures your most capable evaluators are matched with speakers who need them most.

Why This Order Matters

In standard mode, an experienced member might get assigned to Toastmaster before evaluators are paired—leaving no one with deep experience to evaluate your nervous new speaker.

With this setting enabled, speakers and evaluators pair first. Leadership roles fill with whoever’s left. New speakers get mentorship-quality feedback.

When to Enable This Setting

  • Your club recently added several new members
  • You have a wave of Ice Breaker speeches coming up
  • You want experienced members paired with newer speakers intentionally
  • Your club emphasizes mentorship as part of its culture

When to Disable This Setting

Switch back to standard mode when:

  • Your club membership has stabilized
  • Most members have completed their early speeches
  • You prefer pure fair rotation without tenure-based priority

Tip

You can toggle this on and off as your club’s needs change. It takes effect on the next schedule you generate.

How the Algorithm Works

When enabled, the assignment order changes from:

Standard Mode:
Speaker → Toastmaster → Evaluator → General Evaluator → Other roles

With Prioritize New Speakers:
Speaker 1 → Evaluator 1 → Speaker 2 → Evaluator 2 (paired) → Toastmaster → General Evaluator → Table Topics Master → Other roles

Speakers are sorted by join date (newest first). Evaluators are scored by experience and matched to each speaker before leadership roles are filled.

All other fairness rules still apply: absence dates, role opt-outs, major role gaps, and prerequisites are all respected.