[...] To mark the 85th anniversary of the world’s leading organization devoted to communications, we recently asked Six Minutes readers to share their stories of growth through Toastmasters. [...]

From 1977 to 1980 I was in USA, Washington DC and member of the TM group there: I still have my manuals. What I find interesting is that from that time, the tasks and manuals did not change: almost at all! They were great then (and permitted me to teach at university soon after that for a while and speak in public in confidence ever since) and they are great now!

I’d like to encourage current Toastmasters and future Toastmasters alike to visit the Toastmasters wiki (toastmasters.wikia.com) to see all the information that fellow Toastmasters have assembled. The site can help give you a deeper understanding about the Toastmasters experience and support you in your progress through the program.

If I could give one piece of advice to someone interested in joining Toastmasters, I would say, “Take your time, and remember to breathe.” It took me several meetings to get up the nerve to schedule my first speech, but while watching my fellow Toastmasters I was able to glean a lot of tips and tricks and incorporate them into my icebreaker. As far as the breathing thing, I’m on speech #8 in the first manual and I think I’m finally beginning to conquer the breathlessness I was plagued with for the first five speeches!

If you’re ever visiting the big island of Hawaii, please don’t hesitate to visit one of our meetings. We’d love to share our aloha with you!

I joined TM to overcome my profound fear of public speaking. Now I speak regularly, every chance I get and I am sought out for public speaking advice and coaching opportunities. TM is a fantastic laboratory to learn, practice and refine your public speaking skills. You get tremendous support from a TM club and everyone is there for a similar reason….to become a better speaker, listener and leader. I can’t say enough about the benefit of TM. I am one of the people who’s life has been changed by my participation in TM. I will be a student of public speaking forever and TM is the vehicle to take my speaking capabilities to levels I never thought were possible.

When you develop strong public speaking skills, that same skill infects your whole realm of written and verbal communication from casual to impromptu to formal opportunities. You develop a refined communication style which shows well regardless of the audience. This skill creates opportunities that may not have been evident or available without the skill to communicate effectively. I would encourage anyone to consider joining TM if they have a desire to improve their public speaking and leadership skill regardless of their current skill level or station in life.

Three years later, I don’t have that job anymore but I have experienced a total 180 degree reversal in my attitude towards public speaking. I actually _look forward to_ and even _seek out_ speaking opportunities.

My favorite “thank god for Toastamasters” moment: About a year ago, I attended the presidential caucuses here in Washington state. I arrived to find an school gymnasium packed–literally standing room only–with what must have been 800 or more people. Before the main process of caucusing began, the moderator called for a show of hands for anybody who wanted to speak on behalf of one candidate or the other.

I raised my hand. “He’ll never call on me anyway,” I reckoned.

He called on me. There was only time for two speakers for each candidate, and I was the last of the four. So as I fought my way through the crowd to get to the microphone, I was thinking “this is fine. This is just table topics. I’m good at table topics.” And I’ve got the pretty white ribbons to prove it.

In fact, it was even easier than table topics, because I knew the subject I would be speaking on a few minutes in advance, and I had time to listen to what the other people were saying so that I could a) not repeat the same talking points, and b) rebut anything I felt needed to be rebutted.

In the end, I did my sixty seconds at the microphone in front of 800 people (most people I’ve ever spoken in front of), and I did great. I got my message across. I didn’t fritter away half my time with ahs and ums. And I got to walk back to my spot on the gymnasium afterwards proud of myself for what I had accomplished.

At one level, Toastmasters helps you to improve your public speaking. You covered that very well.

At another level, the weekly Toastmasters meetings teach you basic management skills on how to organize a team and run an efficient meeting. Things happen at every meeting and they have to be dealt with by the Toastmaster – that’s management training.

Finally, every Toastmaster club has elected officials who run the club. This is modern leadership training. Nobody works for anyone, nobody gets paid. This means that in order to get people to do things, you have to learn to lead them towards a goal.

Not bad for < $50 every six months!