Toastmasters: Get your speak on....

A few months ago I joined a Toastmasters club that meets upstairs in my building every Wednesday at noon. This has been a long time coming as I have been meaning to join Toastmasters for at least three years.
 
I intially learned about Toastmasters when I was in my last job. Although we were located here in Raleigh, we were considered headquarters staff. So I would receive all these emails from Riverdale, MD and some of them would come from the Toastmasters group located there. When I looked into the organization, I was intrigued. I mean, who couldn't use help becoming a better speaker?
 
By now, some of you are wondering, "So what is is Toastmasters?". Toastmasters International (TI) is an organization that operates clubs worldwide ( I did a search and there are ~200 in NC alone). Toastmasters helps its members improve their communication, public speaking and leadership skills.
 
So how does Toastmasters work?

When you begin Toastmasters, you have two tracks, the communicator track and the leadership track. There are 10 projects in each track. The leadership track is pretty easy as long as you participate in roles at the club. The communicator track is a bit more difficult, since that is related to the speeches that you are supposed to do.

 

For example, the first project/speech is the icebreaker. This is a speech that is pretty simple since you just share something about yourself. Each speech has certain skills you are supposed to address and they all have proscribed time limits. The icebreaker speech is 4-6 mins. Each speech is timed and there is someone at each meeting that volunteers to be timekeeper. For my icebreaker speech the timekeeper would hold up a green card when I was at 4 mins, a yellow card at 5 mins, and a red at 6 mins ....I never got to 6 mins though. My speech was 5 mins 22secs.

 
At the meeting, someone also volunteers to evaluate your speech and yet another person who volunteers to be the grammarian (counts your ahs, ums, and any other filler words). You see, that is really what Toastmasters is about, becoming better. And the only way you can do that is with constructive and open criticism. The criticism is very gentle though and done in a supportive and loving environment. There is not anyone who would cut you down or be really mean.

The club I am in is super nice and like to have so much fun. I don't think any of the clubs have a dress code, at least mine does not. I just wear whatever I wear to work.

So back to my speeches. My first one was an icebreaker. I titled it "Confessions of a Know it all". I wanted it to be more than me sitting up there and saying where I was from and what school I went to. I ended up giving examples of things I said I would never do (because that's what know it alls do). Everything I said I would not do as it relates to pets and babies, I ended up doing. So I said I was a recovering "know it all". Surprisingly I got quite a few laughs and since my humor usually does not go over well in my speeches, I counted it as a plus.

My next speech project is "Organize it" where you have to have an opening, three main points and a conclusion. My title for this next speech will be "No laughing Matter" and I will talk about stuttering. I tend to stutter so this will be a topic that hits close to home with me. I will let you know how it turns out.