Toastmasters: Why the Timer?

At Toastmasters we practice speaking.
Through a speech we want to deliver a message,
a message about a certain field or in a certain context.

But also do we practice to put the speeches into
defined time boxes (usually between 5-7 minutes).
The time boxes help us to focus on the important parts
because time is always to short ;)

Time boxes help us to focus on the message and
not the whole context.

Funnily today we had all the unprepared speeches
(table topics) just in time.
Some of the prepared speeches were too long,
others too short.

So in considering the results of tonight's TM meeting:
Sometimes it is better to be unprepared.