Member-only story
In Praise of Toastmasters
Boosting public speaking and leadership skills
I was a Toastmaster from 1996 to 2022, with a lapse during my Peace Corps service from 2003 to 2005 because there was no local club in Mauritania, where I was serving.
The double learning tracks of Toastmasters
There are two goals for membership in Toastmasters. One is the obvious one that is implied in the very name of the organization itself: to improve public speaking skills.
Members have an opportunity to work on this skill at every meeting, where most clubs practice the principle that every member has an opportunity to speak.
Speaking opportunities abound at every meeting. In addition to being able to present a prepared speech, members can take the opportunity to offer a speech evaluation of any of the prepared speeches. They can also participate in the Table Topics session, at which members are called on to offer a spontaneous response to a topic or question.
I found, during my years of membership that the regular evaluations of speakers help me to keep track of what Toastmasters refer to as “filler words” in our daily speech: “um,” “uh,” “actually,” “like,” etc, so that I can eliminate them from my speech.
The valuable skill other than speaking lies in the many opportunities to develop leadership skills by becoming a club officer. During my Toastmasters years, I served as club treasurer, vice president [of] education, and, in my last year, club president.
In leadership opportunities outside of my own club, I served as an area director, during which I visited other clubs in my area. I also served, during two different six-month periods, as a mentor to new clubs that were being started in our district.
Portability
Being a Toastmaster is a portable hobby that can easily be transported all over the world, wherever there are clubs. And there are plenty of clubs!
During my years of membership as a Toastmaster, I visited clubs in India, Ghana, South Africa, France, Egypt, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Australia.
