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Prioritize New Speakers

The "Prioritize new speakers" setting modifies how The Club Schedule assigns speakers and evaluators, giving newer members priority for speaking slots and pairing them with experienced evaluators.

How to Enable It

  1. Go to your Club Dashboard
  2. Select Schedule Options
  3. Find the Prioritize new speakers toggle
  4. Enable it to activate the feature

The setting takes effect on the next generated schedule and can be toggled as your club's needs evolve.

What Changes When Enabled

Speaking Order

Members are arranged by join date, with newest members getting earlier speaking opportunities before longer-tenured ones.

Speaker-Evaluator Pairing

Rather than assigning the Toastmaster first, speakers are paired with evaluators immediately. Evaluators are ranked by experience (past evaluations, General Evaluator history, recency) to match experienced feedback-givers with speakers who need the most guidance.

Why This Order Matters

In standard mode, experienced members are sometimes assigned to Toastmaster before evaluators are selected. This can leave new speakers without expert feedback. The prioritize setting ensures experienced evaluators support newer speakers first, providing mentorship-quality evaluation.

How the Assignment Order Changes

flowchart TD
    subgraph standard ["Standard Mode"]
        direction TB
        S1["All Speakers"] --> S2["Toastmaster"] --> S3["All Evaluators"] --> S4["Other Roles"]
    end
    subgraph prioritized ["Prioritize New Speakers Mode"]
        direction TB
        P1["Speaker 1 → Evaluator 1\n(newest speaker + most experienced evaluator)"]
        P1 --> P2["Speaker 2 → Evaluator 2"]
        P2 --> P3["Speaker 3 → Evaluator 3"]
        P3 --> P4["Toastmaster"] --> P5["Other Roles"]
    end

In standard mode, Toastmaster is assigned between speakers and evaluators. An experienced member might get claimed by Toastmaster before they can be paired as an evaluator for a new speaker.

In prioritized mode, each speaker is immediately paired with an evaluator before any leadership roles are assigned --- ensuring the best evaluators are reserved for the speakers who need them most.

All other fairness rules (absence dates, opt-outs, role gaps, prerequisites) remain active in both modes.

When to Enable This Setting

  • Your club recently recruited multiple new members
  • Ice Breaker speeches are scheduled
  • You want intentional mentorship pairing between speakers and evaluators
  • Your club culture emphasizes member development

When to Disable It

  • Membership has stabilized and early speeches are completed
  • You prefer pure fair rotation without tenure priority
  • All members have similar experience levels

Tips

  • Toggle as needed --- This isn't an all-or-nothing setting. Turn it on during onboarding waves and off when things stabilize.
  • Combine with role prerequisites --- For maximum effectiveness, make sure your role prerequisites are configured so new members are guided through roles in the right order.