Toastmasters

[Jesper]

Does anybody here have experience with Toastmasters? What did you get out of it?

I am not yet a member of Toastmasters, but I'm interested in it and I'll go to a meeting of a Toastmasters club next week.

This week (last Tuesday) I did my first presentation at a conference. It went great. I was prepared well. The conference organizers matched me up with a mentor months ago who gave me some useful tips for preparing the presentation. The best tip he gave me is to record myself on video. I did this 8 or 9 times in the weeks before the conference. It really helped me to get the presentation into my head and when it was time to do it for real, I felt I was completely ready for it and not nervous at all.

[Rares]

Hy @Jasper

Toastmasters is awesome

Why is that you probably wonder. well I`ll tell you my point of view.

In 6 months I learn a lot about public speaking and leadership. And I learn by doing it. That its very important for my development

1. You learn how to speak in public:

    a. it is a very friendly environment and  you will be encouraged to speak in front of people

    b. You will learn how to organize your speech so you have an impact with your presentations

    c. it will encourage you to develop your natural abilities (not like other clubs which teach you to speak like a robot) someone its a good         storytelling,  someone its funny, someone can inspire, someone can inform...you`ll find your way

    d. there is no pressure. you can do your speech when you want and how you want. You just follow the lesson rules and there you have it

2. You will learn about leadership and how to evaluate.  This will help you a lot in your day to day  life

3. You will meet people with same passions as you. Good quality people. You can just build a social circles or you can find a partner for a business (as i did).

4. Its cheap. In my country its like 10$/month (or something like that)
 

This is my opinion. The club from my city its fu*king awesome.

Great people and great learning environment  

I hope yours its the same. Share

 

 

 

[Jesper]

Thanks @Rares . I'm going to a Toastmasters meeting of a local club next Tuesday as a guest.

[FinnishJon]

I'm doing my icebreaker speech next Thursday... I really feel passionate about this work.  It seems to be a great way to develop yourself.

[abrakamowse]

Do you have to pay some membership? How does it works?

[Jesper]

@abrakamowse  Toastmasters is a woldwide organisation, and it's already quite old - it was started in 1924. There are about 15,000 Toastmasters clubs all around the world. Here in my home city (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) there are two clubs, an English speaking and a Dutch speaking club.

It is not expensive at all, the club I went to costs € 90 (about US$ 100) per year. They have two meetings per month.

I went to a meeting as a guest last Tuesday. There were about 20 people, including 5 or 6 guests. The club has a number of workbooks, and each member works through those books in their own pace. In each book, there are a number of speeches that you have to do. For each speech, the focus lies on a specific aspect - for example there was someone who held an inspirational speech, and someone who held a storytelling speech.

There's also "table topics", where everybody can join in and hold a short (1 - 2 minutes) improvised speech about some topic.

The meeting was very structured: a number of members had different roles, for example to watch the time, to watch for stopwords, to watch for language and grammar. Each of them would give an evaluation of those aspects after a speech.

It was very interesting and I can see that you can learn a lot about public speaking and leadership.

Edited March 12, 2016 by Jesper

[abrakamowse]

Cool @Jesper  thanks for the info, I'm gonna try it. I am in New Jersey but I found one in New York. Sounds cool.

[Jesper]

I just found that Leo has a video where he talks about Toastmasters:

Fear Of Public Speaking - The One Key To Overcoming It Forever

[abrakamowse]

@Jesper  thanks! I will add it to my "must watch" list on youtube!

[MRUSociables]

Toastmasters = bang for your buck.

Surrounding yourself with growth oriented people, challenging yourself and leadership? If those are your values then GO!