I have been an active member of Toastmasters International since May 2005. In this article I will talk about this club and how I have gained from it in such a short time.
"Toastmasters International is the undisputed world leader in public speaking training, with over 10,500 clubs and more than 211,000 members in approximately 90 countries". In US you can find several toastmasters in every town and city. Similarly, it is very popular in other countries all around the world. I am a member of a toastmasters club called "Super Speakers" that has been consistently ranked in the top 1% of all toastmasters clubs. We meet every week and accomplish so much in an hour because of rigorous planning before the meeting.
For every meeting there are several positions that are filled weeks in advance by the members of the club. These positions such as sergeant at arms, exhortationist, grammarian, timer, "Wizard of Ahs", general evaluator and the president have defined roles. For example "Wizard of Ahs" counts the ahs, ums and other "crutch" words for all speakers and presents a report at the end, which forces everyone to reduce their filler words to a minimum.
In every meeting there are three impromptu speeches and three prepared speeches delivered. The prepared speakers usually speak for 5-7 minutes each on the topic of their choice. Experienced members of the club evaluate these speeches and provide improvement tips. These evaluators volunteer much in advance and usually meet the speakers before the meeting to find out if the speakers want them to focus on anything specific.
The impromptu speech section is led by the topicsmaster. He/She randomly calls on 3-4 members and asks them to speak on the given topic for 1-2 minutes. At the end of the meeting everyone votes for the best speaker (both prepared and impromptu) and the best evaluator.
There is no limit to the number of speeches one can give. There are members in my club who have been speaking for over 20 years. One gets recognition after every 10 speeches (also called projects). The speech topics, though chosen by the speakers, have to be such that they show certain qualities as the speakers advance in their projects. For example, the third project focuses on the organization of the speech. By the fifth one the speaker should be using appropriate gestures and body movements to enhance the speech. By the eight speech the speaker should have a good vocal variety and should be comfortable using visual aids and props. Thus with every speech, one should build upon the things learnt before and by the tenth speech become a "Competent Toastmaster". One can then go for the advanced toastmaster track.
Speech contests is another useful feature of toastmasters. There are speech contests such as prepared speech, impromptu speech, story telling, humorous speech etc going on all the time. The winners at club level advance to area level to division level etc and can go all the way to the world championship of speaking. I have seen DVDs of several world championships and they always make me prepare more enthusiastically for my next speech. I have given speeches in front of 30-40 people at work and plan to speak in front of larger audiences in the future. I am also planning to speak in professional institutions such as ASQ (American Society for Quality) and IIE (The Institute of Industrial Engineers). I will keep you posted on how that goes.
I am giving my seventh speech in 2 weeks. I still have butterflies in my stomach everytime I go in front of a large audience but I think I have come a long way. I will strongly encourage everyone to join toastmasters. Effective public speaking has several advantages and there is no better place than toastmasters for learning the tricks and getting speaking practice. It is almost free to be a member since all the positions are volunteered by members of the club (You may have to pay nominal fee for the manuals etc). If you are interested in improving public speaking visit the website www.toastmasters.org for more information.
No comments:
Post a Comment