Toastmasters

I’m sure I’ll be talking a lot about Toastmasters here at Presentation Dynamics. This blog is not affiliated with Toastmasters in any official capacity, but that’s where I have learned most of what I know about speaking. It may not be the best or the fastest way to improve your skills as a public speaker, but it’s certainly got to be the most cost effective.

Everyone comes in to the club at different levels of talent and experience and with different goals. Some do it for fun, which for many people sounds comparable to going to the dentist for a fun root canal. Others need to improve their presentation skills for their jobs. Some of us are even making speaking our careers.

There are no formal lessons taught at a Toastmasters meeting. We learn by standing up and giving bad speeches, at first. We learn by watching others give speeches, both good and bad, by seeing what worked, and what didn’t, and then applying the lessons we’ve learned. We learn from official evaluations in the meetings and unofficial evaluations at the pub. We learn from books, magazine articles and speeches on YouTube. We learn the hard way, yet the improvement from speech to speech, especially for the newest members, is nothing short of remarkable.

It’s not all sunshine, of course. Meetings can be tedious and some speakers are painful to watch and even more painful to listen to, especially at first. But with the right kind of encouragement, they get better.

Toastmasters International is a bureaucracy, with all of the rigid, dogmatic rules of any other hidebound organization. But as long as Caesar is given his due, the format allows for enough diversity of style, subject and interest to satisfy the needs of almost anyone.

There are other ways to learn public speaking, some of them very good, but I’d argue none that offer the value of a Toastmasters Club. And Toastmasters is almost everywhere. If you’re curious, go to the Toastmasters International website and click on the “Find a Club” button.

Visitors are always welcome.