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What is Toastmasters?
Whenever I inform or invite my friends about the Toastmasters meeting they say what the hell is this? probably with Toastmaster, this comes to their mind –
But then I explain then what exactly Toastmasters is.
Google has this meaning –
And here you get it, Toastmasters International is a Non-Profit Organization, it was founded by Ralph C. Smedley on October 22, 1924, In California. Now it is headquartered in Eaglewood, Colorado, USA.
As of June 2018, it has a global presence in 143 countries with more than 16,600 clubs. Here you can see Toastmaster’s territory. (Source – Toastmasters International)
Here are a few other stats of over 357,000 Toastmasters members.
How did I become a Toastmasters Member?
It was November 2016 I had just arrived in the USA from India. New country, new city, and new people, I didn’t have many friends other than a few colleagues. Being a non-native English speaker, I was having difficulties understanding the American accent.
Then my boss suggested me to look for a Toastmasters club. I found one in less than 10 minutes walk and their meeting time was 12-1 every Wednesday. My boss gave permission to attend that and when I visited, I was amazed to see a warm welcome for me. It feels that they were waiting for me, they were all strangers but they never let me feel that. Later I realized that Toastmasters is the only place on the planet, which receives its guests so open-heartedly. Without having a second thought, I took membership and since then I never missed a single meeting. I have been to 4 different states, 4 cities in the USA but my first attempt is to get a club suitable for timing and I have succeeded almost all the time.
How are Toastmasters Meetings Organized?
Toastmasters club meetings are divided into 3 segments
1. Prepared speech
In every meeting, there are few scheduled speeches that help speakers to get rid of hesitation, speaking fear, making eye contact with the audience and many more to become a better public speaker.
All speeches have to follow, manuals/projects provided by Toastmasters. They are well designed and very standard to help. A member has a lot of choices to choose his/her area of improvement and follow the established pathways.
2. Impromptu speaking
This segment of the meeting, known as Table topics, where Table Topics Master will ask members some random questions and gives everyone speaking opportunity in public and overcome the speaking fear.
3. Evaluation
In this last section of the meeting, we get an evaluation for all speakers on the following points
- Feedback about the speech on certain parameters as per manual/project
- Suggestions to improve the speaking style
- Grammatical mistakes
- Timing of response or speech
- Crutch words in speeches
- Overall meeting review and areas to improve
Meeting Roles
Now that we have seen the meeting sections, let us have a quick peek in to meeting roles because they are responsible for smooth execution of whole meeting –
| Meeting Role | Responsibilities |
| Toastmaster of the Day | Owner of regular meeting |
| Grammarian | Tracks Grammar usage |
| Joke Master | Says Joke of the Day |
| Ah Counter | Count filler words for each respondent |
| Timer | Tracks time for each responses |
| Speaker | Prepare speech as per manual |
| Table Topics Master | Comes prepared with random questions |
| Ballot Counter | Counts the voting for different roles |
| General Evaluator | Evaluates the whole meeting |
| Evaluator | Evaluates the prepared speaker |
Educational Plan of Toastmasters
Educational Plan of Toastmasters are called Pathways.
A Total of 11 pathways are available as of now, with this summary. They have multiple projects to sharpen the target skills –
| Dynamic Leadership: | Build strategic leadership and conflict resolution skills |
| Effective Coaching: | Build interpersonal communication, leadership and coaching skills |
| Engaging Humor: | Build your skills as a humorous and engaging public speaker. |
| Innovative Planning: | Build creative project management and communication skills |
| Leadership Development: | Build communication and leadership skills |
| Motivational Strategies: | Build motivational leadership and communication skills |
| Persuasive Influence: | Build skills to lead in complex situations |
| Presentation Mastery: | Build public speaking skills |
| Strategic Relationships: | Build networking, leadership and communication skills |
| Team Collaboration: | Build collaborative leadership skills |
| Visionary Communication: | Build innovative communication and leadership skills |
What are the benefits of Toastmasters?
Toastmaster gets many benefits, a few are listed below –
- Public Speaker – You prepare your speech based on the guidelines and theme of your project. You will get an evaluator for constructive feedback. Feedbacks are so friendly that you will never be demotivated, rather your next speech will get better. Feedback will consist of eye contact, body language, vocal variety, transition, and many more things.
- Impromptu speaking – In Table Topics segment of the meeting, you will get a chance to speak for 1-2 minutes on random topics.
- Good Network – You will meet new people beyond your friend group, colleagues and college.
- Constructive Feedback – Given Feedbacks in Toastmasters are never to demotivate you, they are very gentle and helps you to improve in coming speeches and motivate you to speak more and more.
- Delegation of work – I see this problem with many leadership positions as they don’t trust their assistants. In Toastmasters, there are many projects, you do with the team, delegate your tasks, and get everything done. In the worst-case scenario, if it is not done, there is no revenue loss like the corporate world, so it helps us to apply the knowledge and confidence into the corporate world.
- Performing roles – There are many roles that are very specific and well defined. You learn how to give feedback, how to conduct a meeting, and many more responsibilities at the club level or even at a higher level in Toastmasters.
- Disciplined Speaker – For a speaker, there is a lower and upper time limit for speaking, and violators are disqualified, no penalty though.
- and a lot more as listed here in these two articles (Benefits of Toastmasters Part #1 and Part #2) based on my personal account.
How is Toastmasters organized?
Complete Toastmasters world is divided into 5 parts
- Region
- District
- Division
- Area
- Club
You can find your region and club from this map.
So Club is the smallest unit of this Toastmasters Organization. Every club has the following officers to perform several tasks
- President – This is the topmost officer of the club, supervises all the operations.
- Vice President (Education) – Guides and helps members to achieve their educational goals.
- Vice President (Membership) – Plans to get more members.
- Vice President (Public Relations) – Plans marketing strategies awareness about club using and social media and other campaigns
- Secretary – Keeps a record of the meetings, Club executive meetings and activities of the Club.
- Treasurer – Collects dues and pays dues to Toastmasters International, and maintains records
- Sergeant At Arms – Prepares the meeting room, manages logistics for the meeting.
- Immediate Past President – Supports club officers.
On the same line, roles are distributed on the district level as well.
Fee –
USD 45 for 6 months. Some clubs may charge additional club fees for meeting space and other logistics.
How to find a club?
Since you are well familiar with Toastmasters, time to visit them and experience. Locate your club from here and visit the club.
Remember, you can attend as a guest (for free) any club as many times you want, no obligation to take the membership. These two articles summarize my experience with Toastmasters and benefits, read and see how did it help you or how can it help you?
