Toastmasters
I joined Toastmasters in January 2016. My friend Duey had joined the Penn Hills club and invited me and a friend of mine Wadria to come to the meeting to watch him as he was Toastmaster of the meeting for the first time. Toastmasters is an international public speaking organization that has the following as it’s mission statement: “ The mission of a Toastmasters club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every individual member has the opportunity to develop oral communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth.” I am about half way through the Toastmasters educational program, with the final goal of reaching the level of “Distinguished Toastmaster” or DTM, and I can say that I have already noticed a marked improvement in my speaking skills.
The structured meetings consist of a number of different roles, but the main part of the meetings are the speeches given and then the constructive evaluations of each speech given. In between the speeches given and the evaluations there is a section called “Table Topics” during which one member chooses table topics and then members take turns giving 1–2 minute impromptu speeches on the given table topic. At the first meeting I was encouraged to join in the Table Topics. I remember the roughly minute and a half that I spoke feeling like it took a life time. Now that I am well along on my Toastmasters journey, a minute and a half seems like a very short time to speak. The Table Topics is one of the most fun sections of the meeting. Duey, the Penn Hills club president, and I, the secretary, often compete to see who can come up with the most fun and unusual table topics to present.
The first speech that I gave was typed out and very highly developed. It was an icebreaker designed to give my fellow Toastmasters an insight into who I am. The speech was very well received, but it was the last speech that I would give from notes. For the second speech that I gave at Toastmasters I again typed out the speech, but then I memorized the major points of the speech and did the whole thing from memory. Again this speech was very well received. This was the last time I typed out a speech.
The first 10 speeches given in the Traditional Toastmasters education system are the same for each member. There is a new system called Pathways which is being slowly implemented but I am on the old traditional system. The speeches are organized around the topics of: ice breaker, organizing your speech, getting to the point, how to say it, body language, vocal variety, researching your topic, getting comfortable with visual aides, persuading with power and inspiring your audience. Once you are done with the first 10 speeches then you are free to work on other manuals per your interests.The additional manuals have 5 speeches each. I recently completely manuals on Story Telling and Entertaining Speeches. The two manuals that I am working on now are Speaking to Inform and Interpretive Reading.
One of the interesting parts of the Toastmasters meetings is that the speeches are timed and there is a grammarian. Every speech in every manual has a time length. Most speeches are 5–7 minutes, some are 8–10 and a few are longer. For a speech to qualify it needs to be no more than 30 seconds shorter than the minimum time length and no more than 30 seconds longer than the maximum time length. During a meeting it won’t make too much of an issue if your speech goes over/under the time length, but in a competition you will be disqualified if you do not fit your speech within those parameters. The part of the grammarian is a person whose sole role during the meeting is to count fillers in people’s speaking. Things such as uh, a, um, you know, I mean, etc as well as improper grammar usage. I did not realize how much of an effect the grammarian at meetings had on me until I was recently taking an on-line course on non-fiction writing and I noticed just how many times the instructors said “ah, um, a”. They literally drove me nuts!
I have only been a member of Toastmasters for 2 years and I can wholeheartedly say that if you want to learn to become much more confident and polished in your public speaking skills, that you should definitely check out a local Toastmasters Club and seriously consider joining! If you are anywhere near Penn Hills on the far east end of Pittsburgh, I invite you to check out the Penn Hills Toastmasters Club. We meet at 7 pm on the Second and Fourth Thursdays of the Month. PM me for details.
