Do you break out into a cold sweat at the thought of giving a speech? Imagine how it would feel to be released from that fear. How would your life be different if you had the confidence to answer a question posed to you in a meeting spontaneously, calmly, thoroughly, and with enthusiastic conviction? There is great power in freedom from fear.
Toastmasters International is an organization empowering hundreds of thousands of people with education and experience to speak in public in spite of fear. Since the first meeting of Toastmasters was held at a YMCA in Santa Ana, California, in 1924, it has grown to more than 211,000 members in 10,500 clubs, located in 90 countries. It so happens that we have our very own club, the Jibboom Street Toastmasters, in Truckee. Meetings are held 7:30 a.m., on Wednesdays, in the boardroom of the Truckee Tahoe Airport. Toastmaster veteran, Sarah Green, told me the Jibboom Street club is a ‘great, informal group. It fits Truckee well. [It’s] not stuffy.’
Meetings stick to a well-timed format beginning with a welcoming introduction and someone telling a joke. Next, during ‘Table Topics,’ each member has an opportunity to speak extemporaneously, or on their toes, for one to two minutes on a subject of the Topic Master’s choosing. The subjects are engaging things to which a speaker can personally relate and speak about, contributing his or her own personality and experience. Ironically, the first ‘Table Topics’ speaker I heard started off her talk, ‘What I want for Christmas,’ with ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ The room, as it did several times, exploded with laughter. The good kind. There is a great sense of camaraderie and support.
Every member in attendance has an active roll in the group. One member volunteers to be the ‘Ah’ Counter; the person in charge of keeping a running count of how many times the speaker throws in filler words such as ‘ah’ and ‘um.’ The ‘Grammarian’ listens for ‘like,’ ‘kinda,’ ‘you know’ and ‘and,’ an over-used conjunctive filler. There is a timer who handles a stop-light contraption used to signal the speaker on their timing, and a vote counter who tallies individual votes for the best ‘Table Topic’ speaker based on how well that person met his or her objectives. Every member participates as an attentive listener and has a responsibility to fellow Toastmasters to respond with supportive, constructive critiques. Sarah happened to be the main speaker on the day I visited, and chose, for the first speech requirement in an Interpretive Reading Manual, to read, ‘The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.’
‘A lot of people would rather die’ than speak in front of a crowd of people, said Jibboom Street Toastmasters President, Lydia Sparksworthy. I didn’t get the impression that the Toastmasters felt they were on their way to their own lynching when they got up to speak. They may have been nervous, which is completely natural, but their (projected) confidence and enthusiasm was inspiring and contagious. I was impressed after just a couple of minutes in attendance at my first meeting thinking, ‘Wow! They are so clever. This is fun. I want to do this!’ It is a real pleasure to hear people using language to its greatest advantage.
When I listen to someone speak, I want them to use the correct words to communicate their ideas and to succeed with their speech. I don’t want to see them get tongue-tied or loose their train of thought. Lydia added to my observation saying, ‘We want them to do the best they can and to be worthy of our attention.’ She said a good speech is about intention, thinking about what one says, being inclusive, gracious and funny, but never at another’s expense. She talked about the importance of saying what you truly feel and having your words understood. The goal is not to bamboozle an audience with big words, but to communicate ideas effectively. I was impressed by how smoothly speakers inserted the ‘word of the day’ suggested by the ‘Topic Master.’
Lydia joined Toastmasters five years ago to improve her public speaking skills. In her career as manager of the Bookshelf at Hooligan Rocks she is often in a position to introduce authors to an audience. She found the more she admired the person she was honoring, the more her presentation suffered. She is now able to ‘speak on the fly’ more confidently. The leadership skills she has learned have been a bonus as well. She now has the ability to create cohesive groups, to lead in a way so that no single person is dominating. Sarah, who is the Coordinator for Community Collaborative of Tahoe Truckee, joined to develop her public speaking and leadership skills in order to better facilitate the groups she serves. New member Christine Hueber joined to hone her presentation skills, and she added that the early morning Toastmasters meetings are ‘very cool because you’re in and out. You practice and move on.’
Esther Mandeno, who has her own consulting business, said she was ‘Very, very nervous’ about public speaking before she joined Toastmasters. Now, she jokes she’s ‘still very nervous, but more comfortable. I’m used to it now.’
And, a final success story: in the beginning, Dorothy Revai’s speeches were full of ‘ums,’ keeping the Ah counter busy. But in Dorothy’s first speech of the New Year, thanks to the practice she gets as a Toastmaster, she didn’t have a single one!
The Jibboom Street Toastmasters would like to express their sincere GRATITUDE (the word of the day) to the Truckee Tahoe Airport for allowing them to use the very comfortable boardroom for their meeting space.
To learn more about Toastmasters International visit toastmasters.org.
For Information on Jibboom Street Toastmasters call Lydia at 582-4075.
