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Toastmasters
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"Toastmasters International is the leading movement devoted to making effective oral communication a worldwide reality. Through its member Clubs, Toastmasters International helps men and women learn the arts of speaking, listening, and thinking—vital skills that promote self-actualization, enhance leadership potential, foster human understanding, and contribute to the betterment of humankind. It is basic to the mission that Toastermasters International continually expand its worldwide network of Clubs, thereby offering ever-greater numbers of people the opportunity to benefit from its programs." |
More practically, Toastmasters is an international set of clubs, whose purpose is to enable the members to improve their public speaking and presentation skills.
My club meets the first and third Thursdays of the month at 7:30 am. Each meeting has three main components:
- Table Tops: Volunteers are are are asked to speak briefly on a top regarding the day's theme. They have 3 minutes, and should use one of the two theme words for the day. This is a chance to exercise one's extemporaneous speaking skills (that is - learning to wing it).
- Prepared Speeches: These are the heart of the meetings. Three prepared speeches are given by members, usually about 5-10 min long. The themes are from the various training manuals, but the specific tops are up to the imagination and tastes of the presenter. Each presentation is evaluated by the audience on evaluation forms. The speech is also timed. These two components provide the club members critical feedback for improvement.
- Evaluations: It gets better! The speeches are also evaluated orally before the group by a pre-selected evaluator. They prepare their remarks during the presentation, finalizing them as they are given. Of course, the evaluators are evaluated by the club members (on special forms, naturally). This helps improve our skills as effective evaluators.
Much of the speech-giving is physical technique (voice tone and pitch, gestures, movements about the podium). You really have to see them to get the full effect. But since I can't afford to provide online video of my presentations, you'll have to be content with merely reading the outlines of my speeches. But if you're in Toastmasters yourself, or something similar, I hope these help spark some ideas for your own presentations.