What Is Toastmasters?
Toastmasters is a proven way to improve your speaking & leadership skills.
By participating in a fun, engaging Toastmasters club like Raintree, you will become a better speaker, gain crucial leadership experience and achieve more success in whatever path of life you’ve chosen.
- Deliver great presentations
- Easily lead teams and conduct meetings
- Give and receive constructive evaluations
- Be a better listener
From one club started in 1924 at the YMCA in Santa Ana, California, Toastmasters has grown to become the world’s leading organization helping people conquer their pre-speech jitters. Since that first club was organized by Dr. Ralph C. Smedley, nearly four million men and women have enjoyed the benefits of Toastmasters membership. The nonprofit organization now has approximately 211,000 members in 10,500 clubs in 90 countries.
How Does It Work?
A Toastmasters club is a “learn-by-doing” workshop in which men and women hone their skills in a comfortable, friendly atmosphere. A typical club has 20 to 40 members who meet weekly or biweekly to learn and practice public speaking techniques. The average club meeting lasts approximately one hour. Membership is affordable; total annual fees are around S$150.
Those joining a Toastmasters club learn communication skills by working in the Communication Program manual, a series of 10 speaking assignments designed to instill a basic foundation in public speaking.
When finished with the first speech manual, members can select from among 15 advanced manuals to develop speaking skills that are geared to specific interests. They are:
- Public Relations,
- Specialty Speeches,
- The Entertaining Speaker,
- Speaking to Inform,
- The Discussion Leader,
- Speeches by Management,
- The Professional Speaker,
- Persuasive Speaking,
- Technical Presentations,
- Communicating on Television,
- Storytelling,
- Interpretive Reading,
- Interpersonal Communication,
- Special Occasion Speeches and
- Humorously Speaking.
Members also develop and practice leadership skills by working in the Competent Leadership manual, the High Performance Leadership Program as well as serving as leaders at various organizational levels.
There is no instructor in a Toastmasters club. Instead, members evaluate one another’s oral presentations and leadersip skills. This evaluation process is an integral component of the overall educational program. Toastmasters members also give impromptu talks on assigned topics, conduct meetings, serve as officers in various leadership roles and learn parliamentary procedure.
The effectiveness of this simple learning formula is evidenced by the thousands of corporations that sponsor in-house Toastmasters clubs. These clubs serve as public-speaking and leadership training workshops for employees. Every year, more and more business and government organizations are discovering that Toastmasters is the most effective, cost-efficient means of satisfying their communication training needs. Toastmasters clubs can be found in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as in a variety of community organizations, prisons, universities, hospitals, military bases and churches.
