|
 |
|
1. What is Toastmasters?
Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational corporation headquartered in
Rancho Santa Margarita, California. Its mission is to improve communication and leadership
skills of its members and in general. Mainly, this works out to 'improving public speaking
skills' but there is also a potent leadership and management aspect to the organization if
you aspire to reach that level.
2. Is this just a group for people in the USA or for people who speak English?
No. The organization includes approximately 180,000 members in 54 countries, including
Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States of
America. Toastmasters International publishes a complete set of materials in English
and basic materials in French, Spanish, and Japanese. As translators make themselves
available, more materials are translated.
3. How is Toastmasters organized?
All Toastmasters members belong to one or more clubs. Clubs consist of at least eight
members and may have forty or more. The recommended size for a club is twenty or
more. Clubs exist in communities around the world, especially in North America, and
it's a rare locality in the United States that doesn't have at least one Toastmasters club
within thirty minutes' driving time. There are, at present, over 8,000 clubs around
the world, and most of them are in the United States. There are many sorts of clubs:
community clubs, military clubs, company clubs, prison clubs, collegiate clubs, and so on.
At this time, the majority of the *new* clubs being chartered are 'company clubs', i.e.
clubs chartered at and meeting at businesses and organizations, in many cases open only to
employees or members of those organizations. Never fear, however; there are thousands of
community clubs already in existence as well.
4. Where can I find a club?
If you'd like to visit a club meeting, simply telephone Toastmasters
International World Headquarters at (714) 858- 8255 and ask for the locations of the clubs
near you. Alternately, drop a postcard to TI WHQ, P.O. Box 9052, Mission Viejo CA
92690 and ask for the local clubs' listings. You may be VERY surprised by how many clubs
there are in your area. Quite a few clubs don't get around to advertising in the
newspaper. Complete listings for all clubs in the world can be found at www.toastmasters.org
If you cannot access the World Wide Web, send email to tminfo@toastmasters.org and
ask; be sure to include your postal address so the information can be mailed to you.
5. Do I have to ask permission before attending a meeting of a club in my area?
Usually no.
If you're visiting a community club, it might not be a bad idea
to let them know you're coming so they can tell you any details like what time members
arrive to eat and what time members who don't come to eat arrive, but community clubs are
almost always open to all and they'll be delighted to have you come to the meeting. Clubs
that meet at companies and organizations, on military bases, or in prisons are often, but
not always, restricted to members or employees of the sponsoring body. These clubs are
happy to have guests but you sometimes need to call ahead to get through security or to
find out specifically where the club meets. Unlike some other organizations, where one
must have a sponsoring member who invites you to the meeting and introduces you to
the group, Toastmasters welcomes all guests. If the club is open to membership from
the community, you will usually be offered a membership application at the end of the
meeting.
6. Is Toastmasters a social or drinking organization in some regard?
The name "Toastmasters" is a holdover from the founding of the organization, when one of the main types of public speaking a member of society
would engage in was after-dinner speaking, a.k.a. toastmastering. It is rare that formal
drinking and toasts take place, and these are usually at major banquets or conferences. In
general, though, you'll find two types of clubs: those that have a meal with their
meetings and those that don't. Clubs that have a meal with their meeting may charge their
members for the meals in advance and pay the restaurant in one lump sum or may have
members order off the menu. Since breakfast and lunch clubs are popular with the business
community, you can often kill two birds with one stone by joining Toastmasters: educating
yourself and having a meal with business associates. You'll also find some clubs that get
meeting space by having dinner before their meetings -- and half the members wait until
dinner is over to arrive. There's infinite variety to it all. This is one good reason to
call in advance. Many clubs do *not* have meals with their meetings, though. Quite a
few clubs meet after dinnertime in a public meeting room at a bank or library or at a
church, have their meeting, and go home.
7. What happens at a meeting?
The format varies slightly from club to club, but the basics include:
- the business meeting (usually very brief)
- introduction of the Toastmaster of the Meeting, who presides over the program that day
and explains the meeting as it goes along
- prepared speeches from members (of which more below)
- impromptu speeches from members (also known as Table Topics, of which more below)
- oral evaluations of the prepared speeches (of which more below)
- reports from other evaluation personnel, such as speech timer, grammarian,
"ah" counter, wordmaster, and General Evaluator.
- Meetings last anywhere from one hour (especially at lunch or breakfast) to three hours
(if the club meets infrequently or has long-winded speakers).
8. What's a "prepared speech"?
When you join Toastmasters (see the "Membership" FAQ) you receive a basic
speaking manual with ten speech projects. Each project calls on you to prepare a
speech on a subject of your own choosing but using certain speaking principles. Each
manual project lists the objectives for that speech and includes a written checklist for
your evaluator to use when evaluating the speech. Thus, if you're scheduled to speak at a
meeting, you generally pull out your manual a week or two in advance and put together a
speech on whatever you like but paying attention to your goals and objectives for that
speech. Then, when you go to the meeting, you hand your manual to your evaluator and
that person makes written comments on the checklist while you speak. At the end of the
meeting, that person (your evaluator) will rise to give oral commentary as well. The
purpose of the extensive preparation and commentary is to show you what you're doing well,
what you need to work on, and driving these lessons home so you're constantly improving.
9. What speech projects are there for me to work on?
In the basic ("Communication and Leadership" manual), there are ten speech
projects:
- Icebreaker - 4 to 6 minutes - getting over nervousness by introducing yourself to
the club.
- Be In Earnest - 5 to 7 minutes - continue to get over nervousness by speaking about
something you believe deeply in.
- Organize Your Speech - 5 to 7 minutes - work on giving a well-organized speech.
- Show What You Mean - 5 to 7 minutes - not a "Show and Tell" speech, this
project calls on you to work with gestures and body language during your speech.
Unfortunately, many members somehow confuse the issue and show up with a bag full of props
that they use in a "Show and Tell" style speech. Don't do that.
- Vocal Variety - 5 to 7 minutes - work on rate of delivery, volume, speed, pitch,
emphasis, etc.
- Work with Words - 5 to 7 minutes - work on proper word choice, avoiding
jargon and generalizations, etc.
- Apply Your Skills - 5 to 7 minutes - go back and practice everything you've learned
up to this point.
- Be Persuasive - 6 to 8 minutes - give a persuasive speech n a controversial issue.
- Speak With Knowledge - 7 minutes, plus or minus 30 seconds - research an issue,
write a speech, and then *read* that speech to the audience (as opposed to using notecards
or notes or whatever you used for the previous eight speeches)... and have it
well-rehearsed, so it doesn't run long or end too soon.
- Inspire Your Audience - 8 to 10 minutes - The final speech in the manual calls on
you to move and inspire your audience in a well-presented and well-prepared speech. As you
can see, all ten projects above are wide-open for you to choose whatever topic you like.
Even if you pick a controversial subject, most Toastmasters audiences will evaluate you on
how well you presented your subject, not on whether they agreed with you or not. For
further information about the speaking program, see the "Educational Advancement
FAQ."
10. What are "Table Topics"?
Table Topics are fun! Basically, it calls on you, the guest or
member, to present a one to two minute impromptu speech on a subject not known to you
until the moment you get up to speak! A member of the club assigned to be Topicsmaster
will prepare a few impromptu topics and call on members (or guests, if they've given
assent in advance to being called on) to stand up and speak on the topic.
Topics might include current events (e.g. "What would you do about Haitian boat
people if you were President?") or philoso- phy ("If you had no shoes and met a
man who had no feet, how would you feel?") or the wacky ("Reach into this bag.
Pull an item out. Tell us about it.").
11. What is Evaluation?
The Evaluation program is the third of the three main parts to the meeting. All
prepared speakers, as noted above, should have their speaking manuals with them and should
have passed them on to the evaluators beforehand. During the speech, and after, each
person's evaluator should make written notes and furthermore, plan what to say during the
two to three minute oral evaluation. Evaluation is tough to do well because it requires an
evaluator to do more than say "here's what you did wrong." A good evaluator will
say "here's what you did well, and here's why doing that was good, and here are some
things you might want to work on for your next speech, and here's how you might work on
them." It's important to remember that the evaluator is just one point of view,
although one that has focused in on your speech closely. Other members of the
audience can and should give you written or spoken comments on aspects of your speech they
feel important.
12. What's all this emphasis on time limits?
As noted above, speeches have time limits, Table Topics have time limits (1-2 minutes,
usually) and evaluations have time limits (2-3 minutes, usually). This is in order to
drive home the point that a good speaker makes effective use of the time allotted and does
not keep going and going and going until the audience is bored. In the real world, quite
often there are practical limits on how long a meeting can or should go; by setting time
limits on speeches and presentations, participants learn brevity and time management and
the club meeting itself can be expected to end on schedule.
Time limits are rarely enforced to the letter. In only a few situations will you find
yourself cut off if you go too long, and that's up to the individual club. Most clubs
don't cut speakers off if they go overtime. It is common for clubs to use a set of
timing lights to warn the speakers of the advance of time. All speeches and presentations
have a time limit expressed as an interval, e.g. 5 to 7 minutes. A green light would be
shown at 5 minutes, amber at 6, and red at 7. In Table Topics, the lights would go 1, 1.5,
and 2 minutes respectively. When the green light comes on, you've at least spoken enough,
though you need not finish right away, and when the yellow light comes on, you should
begin wrapping up. If you're not done by the time the red light comes on, you should
finish as soon as possible without mangling the ending of your speech.
The only times you're actually *penalized* for going over or under time is in speaking
competition; in speech contests (see the "Contests FAQ") you must remain within
the interval or be disqualified. Some clubs hold an audience vote for "best
speaker," "best topic speaker," and "best evaluator" during the
meeting and it's a practice in some clubs to disqualify people who go over or under time
from these meeting awards. Check with the particular club to see what they do.
13. Why all this structure to the meeting?
Meetings generally are not complicated
once you get used to the timing lights in the back and the different roles members of the
group play. Since the average club is expected to have 20 or more members, you need
a lot of roles for people to play in order to involve everyone. And, since meeting
assignments vary from meeting to meeting, everyone gets practice doing everything over the
course of several meetings. One meeting, you'll be assigned to give a speech; the next,
you might be timer; the next, you might be the Toastmaster of the Meeting, running the
whole show. It keeps you flexible and it keeps you from having to prepare a speech EVERY
meeting, which would get old quickly.
14. I'm scared to death of speaking! Why should I look into Toastmasters?
EVERYONE is afraid of speaking. In poll after poll, "public speaking" comes
up as more feared than "death." Public speaking is the nation's #1 fear. You are
no different. Even if you think you're really good at speaking, there will come times when
your heart stops and your palms sweat and you freeze before an audience. Toastmasters can
help with that. Remember that EVERYONE in a Toastmasters club is there because at some
point they realized they needed help communicating and speaking before audiences. Almost
everyone will remember how wretched they felt when they gave their first speech. You may
be startled to find out how supportive a Toastmasters club really can be. [The author of
this FAQ recruited a friend to Toastmasters who was so overwrought and nervous that she
sobbed as if her heart was broken after her first speech. Ditto for the second. Some
tears after the third. Eventually she realized that we weren't going to eat her alive and
she came to enjoy it. By the time she earned her CTM, she consistently won "best
speaker" votes at our meetings.]
If you're aware how nervous you are but aren't convinced that you should do anything
about it, stop and think what skill is more important than any other when it comes to
getting and keeping a good job? Think you're already an excellent speaker? People who
think they're really good sometimes come into Toastmasters and find out how unstructured
and sloppy they really are. Being comfortable doesn't mean that you're actually GOOD. Even
if you ARE good, you can always get better. Toastmasters can give you a lot of skills and
keep good speakers improving. If you still don't know whether you'd like Toastmasters, why
not visit a meeting? If you still don't think it's your cup of tea, we'll still be happy
you came by.
15. How is Toastmasters more beneficial than other forms of speaking improvement?
College and high school courses in public speaking usually involve the students sitting
through dozens of lectures followed by one or two speaking opportunities. When the
speeches are over, you get a grade. Often, you get graded on what you did wrong. This
isn't a way to build reassurance and motivation. Then too, you rarely get much of a chance
to practice by doing. You get up at the end of the semester, give your speech, and sit
down. Toastmasters is constant reinforcement and constant improvement. You learn by doing,
not by sitting there while someone lectures for hours. For-profit courses such as Dale
Carnegie can be very good for their participants. They also cost a lot and when they're
over, they're over. Toastmasters costs $36 per year (plusclub dues, if any) and it can
last a lifetime.
16. Where should I go for further information?
See the Membership FAQ, the Educational Advancement FAQ, the Leadership and
Organization FAQ, and the Speech Contests FAQ. Ask questions in
alt.org.toastmasters.
Write the poster of this FAQ. Call Toastmasters International at 1-714-858-8255.
Write Toastmasters International at P.O. Box 9052, Mission Viejo, California, 92690-7052.
|
|
