"My mother is a master of toast!" I overheard my 8 year old son brag to his best buddy, David, who lives next door.
David looked up in confusion, then his eyes twinkled, never one to be shown up, he replied, "Well, my mom makes a pretty good bagel – with cream cheese!"
This leads me to believe that Toastmasters is not a familiar word in the third grade. Toastmasters may not be a familiar word to you either, but after this evening, it will be, and I hope that you will consider joining us as we work together to improve our communication and leadership skills.
Because that is what Toastmasters is all about – personal growth and improvement in an atmosphere of mutual support and positive assessment.
Because you'll never know when you'll need to make a formal presentation, lead a meeting, or speak off the cuff, three of the communications skills Toastmasters helps you learn how to handle with aplomb.
Why just this past year those very same communications skills, presenting, leading, and spontaneous speaking have served me at work and at home.
I am a technical writer by day (I write computer manuals) – and you are thinking of the silent nerdy type, closeted away with her computer, and you'd be right – a lot of the time. But, because of my vast knowledge of the software I write about, I was asked to make a presentation to the Sales and Marketing Departments about the technological side of our software. Yep, I was thinking, just what the sales guys want to hear about – databases, scripting, base 7 encoding…yawn. I put my Toastmasters knowledge to work and used my voice and hand gestures to get and keep their attention. I used pausing, timing, organization, and the golden rule of three – tell um what you're going to tell um, tell um, and tell um what you told um. I have been invited back again to speak to sales, and I have been invited to work with clients. (there has got to be a raise in there somewhere) If you'd like to learn about these things – join our group tonight.
Another recent success I had at work was leading a meeting to brain storm and organize the re-write of a 350 page manual. Everyone agreed that this manual was terrible, but every meeting we had to address the re-write broke down, so the job never got done. I took control over the last meeting and kept things on track. I kept the group focused on the task, I used a flip chart and a white board to write down all the ideas, and in 2 hours we had an entire outline finished. If you'd like to learn how to keep a meeting moving in your direction, join our group tonight.
Perhaps the most valuable and personally rewarding skill I have learned in Toastmasters is how to speak off the cuff. During every meeting, we have opportunities to practice this – from Table Topics (short 1-2 minute speeches on anything from fashion trends to politics) to evaluating one another's speeches. If it were not for my experience with Table Topics, I would never have been able to field the question "Mom, just how do people NOT have babies?"(asked by the same 8 year old) So if you'd like a chance to learn how to respond to questions like that, or perhaps the simpler, where do babies come from, join our group tonight.
Our toastmasters club is made up of people from every walk of life who have an interest in personal growth by improving their communication and leaderships skills. These important skills serve us at work, at home, and in our communities by making us more affective employees, family members and volunteers. The Greater Olney Toastmasters meets the first and third Tuesday of each month form 7:30 – 9:00 PM. Our meetings are open to guests, the only requirement is that you sign our guest book. Won't you join us next month.