Speakers Hive - Progress Report - 29-Sep-2025

Speakers Hive is now 12 weeks old. It is about a month and a half since we shared our last progress update. 

This blog post captures the goals, accomplishments, progress and challenges for Speakers Hive.

1. Hive Chapters & Meetings

• Total Hive Chapters: 2 Community Hives (online) + 1 Corporate Hive (offline/Tantude)
• Started a new online Hive that meets on Saturdays (3 pm - 4 pm) and completed 4 meetings.
• Completed 11 online community hive meetings on Sundays (8 am - 9 am)
• Tantude Corporate Hive has completed 10 online meetings.
• Organizing weekly meetings have become like clock work now. 
• We have now volunteers completely owning the preparation of meeting agenda, pre-meeting flyer, issuing certificates and post-meeting recognitions. This helps us to scale and take the benefits of Speakers Hive to lot more people in the community. 
• We conducted two workshops during this period - Front Office to Board Room Executive (By Lalitha Giridhar) and How to prepare for speeches (by Sudha Rajesh)

2. Membership & Mentorship

• We have 250 members in our community. Average attendance is 20 - 25 (Sunday meetings) and 15+ (Saturday meetings). We are able to provide speaking opportunities for 40+ people every week. 
• We are yet to formally enrol members into the community, as there is a delay in the opening of the bank account.
• Membership growth focus took a back seat, as we were focused on establishing course curriculum / structure, mentoring existing role players and creating training materials for the new joiners. 
• We have 25 mentors who are helping us in coaching / training our role players. This is our significant differentiator for now and it is helping our members learn the most. This is also helping us to run a high-quality meeting. 

3. Curriculum Development

• The Speech Mastery Beginner Level 2 manual (with 5 speeches) is now available (Thanks to Sudha Rajesh for giving this a final shape). 
• We are working on the Leadership Mastery Track currently.

4. Promotions & Marketing

• Created a new youtube channel to host some role-player videos. This would help us to quickly train the new joiners on the various roles played in Speakers Hive.
• We also have a presence in LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. We periodically share updates regarding our meetings and member recognitions on these social media platforms.

5. Administration & Operations

• We received our PAN card (There was a delay of 10 days for this).
• We applied for a Bank Account - and it is under process by the bank. Hoping to complete this task before the end of Oct 2025.

What is ahead of us?

1. Bank account creation and Members enrolment
2. Leadership Mastery Beginner Level curriculum creation
3. Identify Hive Office Bearers from each chapter and support / train them to run the Hive Chapters independently. 
4. Conduct weekly educational programs to make our members and volunteers more informed (a new volunteer has stepped up to own this)
5. Grooming more volunteers to sign-up for leadership roles - this will help us to scale the movement and benefit lot more people in the community.

Checklist for Dry Run for an Online Speakers Hive Meetings

This blog post captures the checklist for the dry-run for online meetings. 

What & Why?

Speakers Hive looks at our weekly meetings as the platform to perform, learn and grow. We believe that a high-quality hive meeting maximises the learning opportunities for all of our meeting participants. Hence, we practice before we perform. We do a dry-run before our online meetings to ensure that everyone is well prepared for a high-quality meeting.  During the dry-runs, the meeting organizer checks if all the role players are prepared adequately for a high-quality meeting.

When?

The dry run happens online typically a day before the actual meeting. 

Who?

It is a must for MC, JAM Talks Master, Time Keeper, Wordsmith, Votes Counter and ALL the first time role players to complete a dry run once with the meeting organiser / coordinator.

ALL role players should consult their mentors before performing their roles. Dry run is a not a substitute for working with mentors.

Hive Talks Speakers should've got their speech scripts reviewed by their mentors and changes incorporated in the speech before the dry run.

Where?

All role players should be educated by the meeting organizer to connect to the dry run / real meeting: 

• from a laptop (all unwanted apps to be closed to maximise the laptop performance)
• with broadband Internet access (video should not freeze, voice quality should be high/clear/audible)
• a quiet place 
• good lighting and preferably a plain background

How?

During the dry run, the meeting organizer/coordinater checks for the following items to prepare the role players.

1. MC anchors the meeting as-if he/she does it in a real meeting. The meeting organiser checks

• if the role players are properly introduced as per the meeting theme
• if the different segments are properly explained/introduced
• the flow of the meeting is as per the meeting agenda
• if the handovers and transitions are smooth 
• meeting is properly wrapped up

2. Time Keeper: This is one of the challenging roles for an online meeting. The meeting organiser checks:

• if the time keeper is able to introduce the role / display the cards without any hiccups (the role player template for Time Keeper provides some tips on how to do this effectively.)
• if the time keeper is able to read out the script properly during the introduction (specifically, mentioning about grace time for each speaker/qualification for voting and the fact that the red card will continue to be UP till the speaker finishes his/her speech)
• if the time keeper is able to show the timing cards during the speech
• if the time keeper knows the timing rules for Hive Talks, JAM Talks and Peer-Reviews
• if the time keeper knows how to "present" the report at the end of the meeting (details available in the role player template)

3. Wordsmith: The meeting organiser checks:

• if the wordsmith is able to introduce the role as per the script (If the word-of-the-day is already introduced by the MC, the wordsmith need not introduce again... )
• if the wordsmith is able to keep track and present the report at the end of the meeting (for word usage, right usage of English grammar, not-so-good usage of English grammar). For the not-so-good usages, the names of the speakers who made the error should not be mentioned. (The role player template already captures this input)

4. Votes Counter: The meeting organiser checks:

• if the votes counter has already prepared a form with the Hive Talks Speakers and Peer-Reviewers names. The JAM Section has to be left empty and needs to be populated during the time of the meeting.
• if the voting form is working properly. the meeting organiser casts his/her vote and asks the Votes Counter to check, if he is able to see the vote from the backend
• if the votes counter knows how to share the results with the group at the end of the meeting

5. JAM Talks Master: The meeting organiser checks:

• if the topics are appropriate for the audience (review done via Whatsapp, and outside of the meeting. Topics need not be shared during the dry-run)
• if the JAM master knows to introduce the role 
• if the JAM master knows to call non-role players first and then role players like Votes Counter and Wordsmith... before calling others. Specifically, the JAM master should not ask for volunteers and waste time. 
• JAM master has to first call the name of the person, wait for a second till the speaker gets ready and repeats the topic twice clearly.
• JAM master has to wrap-up the segment by 8.40 am (for the 8 - 9 am meeting) or when signalled by the MC (mechanisms for signalling needs to be agreed upon during the dry-run)

6. Hive Talks Speakers / Peer-Reviewers: The meeting organiser makes them say a few lines to ensure that their audio / video is good.

Cheat Sheet for Organizing Educational Programs for a Hive

Steps involved in Organizing an Educational Program

1. Identifying the speakers (Saro to help)
2. Connecting with the Speakers and deciding on a date / time (during weekends and not overlapping with Sat/Sun Hive meetings)
3. Getting the speech title / duration (workshop + Q/A) / speaker introduction. (Recommended duration will be 30 mins workshop + 10 mins Q/A and 5 mins marketing / promotion of Speakers Hive)
4. Scheduling the meeting in the Google Calendar (to get an online meeting link)
5. Create flyer and post in social media (LinkedIn, SH Whatsapp groups, FB and Insta)
6. Coach an MC to open the session, introduce the speaker and deliver a vote-of-thanks at the end 
7. Coach a timer to show the timing cards
8. Remind the educational speaker 2 days before the event. Inform the speaker about when the timing cards will be shown.
9. Successful conduct the educational workshop
10.  Send a word of thanks to the educational speaker and the role players (MC, time keeper etc.,)

Here is the list of recommended topics to conduct educational workshops for a budding Hive Chapter:

1.  Mentoring Matters
2.  ⁠Evaluate to Motivate
3.  ⁠Speech Topics are Everywhere
4.  ⁠Brining Voice Modulation in Speeches
5. ⁠ ⁠Using Body Language in Speeches
6. ⁠ ⁠How to Handle JAM Topics?
7. ⁠ ⁠Delivering Memorable Speeches
8. ⁠ ⁠Power of Story Telling
9. ⁠ ⁠Secrets of Champion Speakers
10. ⁠ ⁠Art of Persuading and Inspiring Others

Speakers Hive - Progress Report - 16-Aug-2025

It has been a month since we launched Speakers Hive. It is about 2 weeks since our last progress update. This blog post captures the progress / goals and challenges for Speakers Hive.

 

What have we accomplished so far?

1. Completed 4 online community hive meetings on Sundays between 8 am - 9 pm. Conducted 3 corporate Speakers Hive meetings at Tantude Technologies.
2. Conducting regular online hive meetings for Hive #1 has become like a clock work. Several volunteers have stepped up to finish tasks like creating agenda, creating flyers/certificates, recognising role players etc.,
3. Completed the registration of Speakers Hive Trust. Applied for a PAN card.
4. Our membership has grown from 88 members (as of 31st July) to 231 members. Mr. Mohan from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) played a crucial role in advertising Speakers Hive in the CS community. Nearly 100 members joined from CS network (students and alumni)
5. We conducted our first educational workshop on "How to induce Humor into your speech". The workshop was conducted by the humor champion Sriram Venkataraman from DXC. It was attended by 25 hivers. 
6. We refreshed our role player names to make them unique to Speakers Hive (specifically, Hive Talks segment and Peer-Reviewer roles are new).
7. The Speech Mastery Beginner Level 1 manual (with 5 speeches) is updated to capture the feedback from several volunteers. 
8. We are able to get the help of a number of mentors from the community to train the hivers.

What is ahead of us?

1. Start a Saturday evening online hive meeting (currently planned for 3 - 4 pm)
2. Start an offline/in-person hive meeting on Sat / Sun (timing / venue TBD)
3. Create a bank account for Speakers Hive Trust
4. Complete the members enrolment (after the bank account is setup)
5. Create manuals for "Leadership mastery" program and "Speech Mastery" Beginner Level 2 program.
6. Identify Hive Office Bearers from each chapter and support / train them to run the Hive Chapters independently. 
7. Conduct weekly educational programs to make our members and volunteers more informed. For example, there are several volunteers who are ready to mentor our hivers. However, we are not able to assign mentees to them... as they do not have any prior background mentoring people on communication skills. So we intend to conduct sessions on mentoring for such volunteers.

What are the current challenges?

1. Need more volunteers who can 'own tasks to completion'. Right now, lots of bandwidth is spent orchestrating the tasks across different volunteers. Also, the contributions are currently coming in spurts. (Hopefully, when the individual chapters are established, this overhead will be minimised by the office bearers of the respective Hive Chapters)
2. Need to identify/train volunteers from within the Hive chapters to take ownership of conducting the weekly meetings. 

Office bearers for Hive Chapters

Speakers Hive is continuously learning and evolving to become a better version of itself, along with its volunteers and members. In order to scale the movement, we need office bearers who can lead, manage and drive the Hive Chapters. 

We are envisioning the need for the following roles for every Hive Chapter:

1. Chief Hive Officer  - Chief Hive Officer is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for each hive chapter. He/She works with other hive office bearers to provide the best learning opportunity for all the hive members. He/She is responsible for the success of the Hive Chapter. He/She works with other office bearers to plan and manage budgets for the Hive Chapter (Corporate role mapping: Performing this role would help you develop the skills needed for a senior manager or an executive in a professional environment)

2. Learning & Development Manager  - Learning and Development Manager is responsible for planning, scheduling and running the weekly hive meetings. He/She lines up the role players, prepares them for playing their roles (with the help of mentors), takes care of meeting logistics, conducts dry-runs, coaches new role players and ensures that the meetings are conducted successfully with high quality. In addition, L&D manager plans and organizes educational workshops periodically for the members. (Corporate role mapping: Performing this role would help you develop the skills needed for a program / project / people manager in a professional environment)

3. Members Success Manager - Members Success Manager is responsible for implementing the mentorship program in the hive. He/She assigns the right mentors for the members and tracks the success of mentoring program. In addition, he/she tracks the educational achievements of the members, shares periodic progress reports with the members and ensures a great member experience. (Corporate role mapping: Performing this role would help you develop the skills needed for a program / project / people manager in a professional environment)

4. Hive Growth Manager - Hive Growth Manager is responsible for promoting the hive and the accomplishments of its members in internal/external forums (for ex., print media, web, whatsapp, social media etc.,). He/She is responsible for bringing guests to the weekly meetings and assist them till they become an active member. (Corporate role mapping: Performing this role would help you develop the skills needed for a marketing / sales / branding manager in a professional environment).

Each of these leadership roles helps Hive office bearers develop skills such as teamwork, interpersonal communication, goal setting, task delegation, conflict management, motivating others, and driving results.

Speakers Hive - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What is Speakers Hive?

Speakers Hive is a non-profit community which helps its members to become better communicators and leaders. 

We provide a safe peer-learning platform for our members to continuously prepare, practice, perform and learn. 

2. How can I join Speakers Hive?

You can register yourself as a guest using this Google Form. Our membership team will get in touch with you. 

https://forms.gle/YzQKq2sLaTxsNPaw8 

If you are interested to join and speak, Whatsapp us at 994 0110 924. We will add you to our members Whatsapp group. 

3. What do you do in Speakers Hive?

The members of Speakers Hive (aka "Hivers") meet every week to practice their speaking skills and get feedback from peers. The organizers/volunteers for the weekly meetings, get to develop their leadership skills.  

4. What happens in the Speakers Hive meetings?

Our members play a variety of roles which involve speaking, observing, listening, thinking on the feet and giving constructive feedback.

The meeting organizers get to practice leadership skills such as planning, delegating, organizing, coordinating, executing, managing conflicts, motivating and delivering results.

You can see what happens in our meetings in our Speakers Hive Youtube Channel

The meeting has 3 segments:

1. Hive Talks: Members will come prepared with a speech based on specific objectives and deliver them at the hive meetings (3 - 5 mins duration speeches)

2. JAM Talks: Random speakers (preferably, the ones who have not signed up for any other speaking roles) will be given a topic and asked to speak for about 1 - 1.5 mins

3. Peer-Reviews: Reviewers will share critical, constructive and concise feedback for the Hive Talks Speakers for 1 - 2 mins.

We do not have an instructor / trainer facilitating the meetings. Members get mentoring / coaching support from experts in the community during their role preparations and rehearsals.

5. Why should I join Speakers Hive ?

Speaking is a skill that is similar to cycling or swimming. You cannot learn it by reading a book. Through continuous participation and practice, Speakers Hive members build their confidence to deliver impactful presentations, contribute effectively to group discussions and brainstorming sessions, and speak with clarity in job interviews.

Organizers of the weekly meetings learn to collaborate with teams and develop leadership skills to drive results — whether in corporate settings or community initiatives.

6. Is Speakers Hive free ?

Though we are a non-profit entity, we do have some operational / administrative expenses. We will collect a nominal fee of Rs.600 for every six months. Members who reach an educational milestone will get a certificate from Speakers Hive. 

The individual Hive chapters (specifically the ones that meet in-person) may collect additional fees to cover the operational costs such as rent for the meeting venue, refreshments, organizing special events/contests etc.,

7. I've decided to join Speakers Hive. What should I do?

You can register yourself as a guest using this Google Form. Our membership team will get in touch with you. 

https://forms.gle/YzQKq2sLaTxsNPaw8 

Speakers Hive - Role Players & Templates

We, at Speakers Hive are conducting online meetings regularly. We meet for about an hour every week, to adapt to the needs of the modern fast-paced world. 

Each role player gets a mentor assigned to help them effectively play the role. We also do a dry-run once with all the role players to ensure that we have a high quality meeting, with smooth transitions. 

We give opportunity to 20+ speakers in a 60 minutes meeting, every week. 

Take a look at how the roles are played during our weekly meetings in our Speakers Hive Youtube Channel.

Here are the various roles played in the online meeting and the corresponding role player templates. 

1. Master of Ceremony - Template / Sample MC Script
2. Hive Talks Speakers - Get your speech objectives from the Hive Organizer
3. Peer-Reviewers - Checklist / Constructive Feedback Examples / CRISP Evaluations
4. Just-a-Minute Master - Template  (JAM Master Kit - Sample Output)
5. Wordsmith - Template
6. Time Keeper - Template  Green / Yellow / Red Cards (PPTX) - Use either the PPTX or the G/Y/R cards (whatever is convenient for you)
7. Votes Counter - Template

Here is the template for creating the Meeting Agenda - Meeting Agenda Template

Given below are the descriptions about the roles played in a Speakers Hive meeting:

1. Master of Ceremony: Anchors the full meeting, introduces the different role players (based on the meeting theme), ensures smooth transitions and on-time meeting start/end
2. Hive Talks Speaker: Comes prepared with a speech and delivers it at the hive meeting. The speech gets reviewed by a peer-reviewer.
3. JAM Master: Comes with a set of 10 Just-a-Minute Talk questions and selects random participants (non-role players) to answer them. You can also use the JAM Master Kit. It provides you an option to visually show the topic to each speaker, in addition to reading it out. This will be quite useful during the online meetings.
4. JAM Speakers: Random participants will be selected during the meeting from the list of hivers who do not have an assigned role in the meeting (aka non-role-players). 
5. Peer-Reviewer: Highlights what they liked about the prepared speech (3 points) and what can be improved (2 points) in a constructive tone
6. Time Keeper: Shows green / yellow / red cards at different time limits.
7. Wordsmith: Introduces and keeps track of the word of the day usage. Keeps track of the good / not-so-good grammar usage.
8. Votes Counter: Prepares a google form with the names of the role players (during the meeting) and sends out a link to the participants at the end of the meeting to decide who is the best Hive Talks Speaker, JAM Speaker and best Peer-Reviewer.