After a 23-year absence, I have re-joined Toastmasters (TM). My sister’s online group — Ag-Lib TM Club #6434 — asked me to join. I am a bit of a shut-in these days, so I knew I needed the talking practice. I had no reason to say “no.”
With a more mature outlook on life, I am more able to see this organization’s ability to shape individuals and society.
I first joined TM in 1988. My motivation was to be a politician, and I needed more skills with public speaking. I got something more valuable.
“Tongue-tied” would have been a good adjective for me. I just could not easily find the words I was looking for. And I didn’t realize I had this disability. After six months, I realized that I was much more fluent in everyday speech.
The formal TM meetings were making my brain-to-mouth muscle/nerve systems work a lot better. In other words, my articulation improved. Friends were commenting that I was not taking so long to say whatever I was trying to say. And I was saying things more clearly. I became more socially enjoyable to be around.
Structure of a Toastmasters Meeting
TM meetings have four parts.
Business Meeting: If the club has some relevant business, such as dues or location, the members decide in this part of the meeting. They use parliamentary procedures to reach their decision. If there is no relevant business, then a member will introduce a frivolous motion, like “Let’s all wear green hats at the next meeting.” In these motions, experienced TM members enjoy throwing in advanced procedures into the meeting to “stump the chair.” For me, it was fun to juggle all these motions. And with this training, I became a better player in the back rooms of my political party.
Prepared Speeches: Members prepare speeches of five to 10 minutes, practice it at home, then present in front of a live, supportive audience. As members make more of these speeches, we see their public speaking skills improving.
Table Topics: Members are given a topic for which they have had no preparation. Their objective is to speak wisely on that topic for one to two minutes. This is hard!
Evaluation: The last part of the meeting is the evaluation. The prepared speeches are evaluated by another member, who highlights the good aspects of the speech and gives suggestions for improvement. Table topics and other parts of the meeting are similarly evaluated by another evaluator. There are at least three evaluators at every TM meeting.
The TM Tasks
A TM meeting is designed for someone to always be talking to a live audience. So, for a 90-minute meeting with 10 members, each member will get (on average) nine minutes of public speaking practice.
Some of this time will come from their prepared speeches and table topics. The rest comes from their official role in a TM meeting task. I have already mentioned some of these roles: chair of the business meeting and various “evaluators.” Here are a few other roles:
1) Toastmaster: this person sets up the meeting by assigning roles before the meeting and moving the meeting along, section-by-section. This person does the most talking in the TM meeting, and much of that talking is of an ad-hoc nature.
2) Table Topic Master: This person sets up the table topics and proffers them to other members during the meeting.
3) Timer: This person keeps track of times. The prepared speeches and table topics have a time limit — and that limit is signified with a timing device. As well, the timer will be the “enforcer” when parts of the meeting get too long. The timer will give a brief report at the end of the meeting.
4) Other tasks: Jokemaster, Grammarian, Ah-counter, Toast of the Day, Quizmaster, etc. Each club will have their own preferences. Each position gets a little time to speak.
Most of these positions are not passive. They require the members to be active with listening and making notes as the meeting progresses. For example, the timer is always busy keeping track of the time. So these roles — when not speaking — are still on the active side of participation. So during TM meetings, most TM brains are engaged, preparing for their next part in the meeting.
The roles change each meeting. So each member should expect to assume each role a few times in a year.
Other Life Lessons
But there’s something more than public speaking that TM provides for its members. Here is my list:
1. Giving and receiving constructive criticism.
2. Mentoring and being mentored.
3. Being accepting of people with lower skills, especially in their learning stage.
4. Building a plan (to conduct the meeting) and following that plan.
5. Adjusting the plan when the plan does not work out. TM meetings often require quick adjustments to make the meeting turn out well.
6. Getting practice with stressful situations, but not having real-world consequences for how well the stress was managed.
7. Introspection: We talk about how the next meeting can go a little better.
8. Learning about parliamentary procedures, which trains us for meetings in the community and business.
9. Administrative roles in a TM club prepare people to take on similar community roles outside the clubs. The issues facing the TM clubs are small compared to the real world, but the experience earned in TM helps shape the real world.
10. Associating with other people on a similar life path. Great friendships have been formed at TM meetings.
In other words, Toastmasters is well designed for self-improvement, in more ways than just public speaking. We can take all our TM learnings into the real world.
And with that individual self-improvement, TM also indirectly provides self-improvement for communities.
I regard Toastmasters in the top five places for people to improve themselves. Two years of TM is much better than a bookshelf full of self-help books.
If you have a few hours of “less productive time,” join a TM club to improve your life skills.
And don’t wait until you really need these skills.
Published on Medium 2024
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