Whether you’re a professional, student, stay-at-home parent, or retiree, Toastmasters is the best way to improve your communication skills. Toastmasters can help you lose the fear of public speaking and learn skills that will help you be more successful in whatever path you’ve chosen. You’ll be a better listener. You’ll easily lead teams and conduct meetings. You’ll comfortably give and receive constructive evaluation. You already have some or all of these skills. In Toastmasters, you will enhance them.
How Toastmasters Works
At Toastmasters, members learn by speaking to groups and working with others in a supportive environment. A typical Toastmasters club is made up of 15 to 25 people who meet once a week for about an hour. Each meeting gives everyone an opportunity to practice:
- Conducting meetings. Meetings usually begin with a short business session which helps members learn basic meeting procedures.
- Giving impromptu speeches. Members present one- to two-minute impromptu speeches on assigned topics.
- Presenting prepared speeches. Members present speeches based on projects from the Toastmasters International Pathways curriculum. Projects cover such skills as speech organization, vocal variety, body language, and persuasion.
- Offering constructive evaluation. Every prepared speaker is assigned an evaluator who points out speech strengths and offers suggestions for improvement. Members learn how to diplomatically give and receive constructive criticism.
The Tools You Use
Upon joining a Toastmasters club, each new member selects a Pathways path, according to the member’s desired focus. All paths start with basic speaking and leadership skills and progress into such areas as Dynamic Leadership, Visionary Communication, and Engaging Humor. They also receive the award-winning Toastmaster, a monthly magazine that offers the latest insights on speaking and leadership techniques, as well as the weekly District 23 newsletter, Tmail. Additional paths are available for $20 each, and members can choose to work in multiple paths or to complete one at a time.
Toastmasters and Leadership
Leadership cannot be learned in a day. It takes practice. In Toastmasters, members build leadership skills by organizing and conducting meetings and motivating others to help them. Club leadership roles and opportunities to serve at the district level also offer opportunities to learn and practice. Just as Toastmasters members learn to speak simply by speaking, they learn leadership by leading. Every Pathways path includes projects designed to improve both speaking and leadership skills.
Company Benefits
A company’s success also depends on communication. Employees face an endless exchange of ideas, messages, and information as they deal with one another and with customers day after day. How well they communicate can determine whether a company quickly grows into an industry leader or joins thousands of other businesses mired in mediocrity.
Toastmasters provides the tools that enable employees to become effective communicators and leaders all at a very low cost. Toastmasters training helps employees:
- give better sales presentations
- hone their management skills
- work better with fellow employees
- effectively develop and present ideas
- offer constructive criticism
- accept criticism more objectively
Toastmasters produces results. Around the world, more than 3 million men and women of all ages and occupations have benefited from Toastmasters training, and more than 1,000 corporations, community groups, universities, associations, and government agencies now use Toastmasters training.
Community Benefits
Toastmasters has helped many members in their community-service activities. Using the speaking and leadership skills developed in Toastmasters, people have become more active in business, churches, and service and charity organizations. Toastmasters members are able to organize activities, conduct meetings, and speak in public as their organizations’ representatives. Some even become active in local, state or national government.
About Toastmasters International
Toastmasters International is a nonprofit organization governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership. Toastmasters International’s business and services are administered by its World Headquarters, located in Englewood, Colorado. It employs no paid promoters or instructors. It has no salaried staff except the Executive Director and World Headquarters staff, who provide services to the clubs and Districts.
About District 23
District 23 consists of the entire state of New Mexico, West Texas, and the Panhandle of Oklahoma. There are more than 70 Toastmasters clubs and nearly 1,000 members in the District. We have many specialty clubs, including Spanish-speaking, humorous, Christian, corporate, and advanced.
Please contact us to find out more about what Toastmasters can do for you!
