A Toastmasters Experience

I attended my first ever Toastmasters last night.

Toastmasters is a non-profit organization devoted to developing public speaking and leadership skills through practice and feedback at local clubs. You can Google and find local clubs to visit and sign up.

The meeting started with two persons sharing jokes of the day, followed by another person shared the word of the day, "prospective", which we were to use as much as possible in our speech during the meeting.

The next activity was "Round Robin", where a "Round Robin Master" chose one topic and each person stands up to speak for approximately 15 seconds, and the topic of the day was "What is your favorite movie and why?". My favorite movie, I said, was Ocean's Eleven, because it had a good cast, a tight story, and a good mix of action and humor.

"Table Topics" is an activity where a few persons are called up to make a 60-90-second impromptu speech about a topic they are assigned on the spot. The purpose is "thinking on your feet" training, there is no reason why a person can't think as well when they're standing as when they're seated. The theme for the night was things that you regret to have done, or that you regret to have not done yet and would like to do soon. I volunteered at the start of the meeting, so I went up for Table Topics and was assigned the topic of "money". I thought I spoke alright, but was swaying my body and not in a balanced stance (I think I was leaning to my left).

There was evaluation for Table Topics speakers after all six of us had finished (everyone had a different topic on the same theme). I was disappointed to hear too much praise and not enough criticism or feedback. In my opinion, it is the criticism and feedback that will help me improve the most.

After table topics, there were four prepared speeches (5-7 minutes each), followed by evaluations (2-3 minutes). My evaluations of the speeches were that most of them had significant rooms for improvements, but the official evaluations of the speeches contained lots of praise and only a little bit of feedback. If I had given the speech, I would have liked more feedback.

The meeting closed with general evaluation of the meeting, club business, and handing out award certificates to the night's winners for each activity (there was voting after each activity).

My feeling is that Toastmasters is for people who really fear speaking in public and need a very supportive environment to get enough courage to speak.

I believe I am a relatively competent, though far from perfect, at public speaking. My aim is to become a better communicator, though not necessarily a great orator. My role models are Warren Buffett and Richard Feynman, who are great "explainers" of the complex world of finance and physics. They give me the feeling of a sincere, authentic communicator, as opposed to Barack Obama's smooth but mechanical teleprompter-based performance.

Toastmasters is, no doubt, a good place to practice public speaking. But if you want to make significant improvements in a short time, you will probably be better off recording yourself with a camera and replaying to spot things you would like to improve. That said, if you want a structured and supportive environment to improve your public speaking skills, then Toastmasters is the place to be.