What is Toastmasters?
Toastmasters is a non-profit educational organization that empowers individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders. There are more than 15,900 clubs in 142 countries worldwide.
Toastmasters members are meeting in club format, taking different roles during the meeting and using the Toastmasters Pathways education material in order to develop themselves and help other to grow. Clubs provide a friendly and supportive environment for members and welcome visitors.
Toastmasters offers an excellent educational program to improve communication and leadership skills. The newest educational program is called Pathways.
Pathways have currently 11 different paths to choose from:
- Dynamic Leadership
- Effective Coaching
- Engaging Humor
- Innovative Planning
- Leadership Development
- Motivational Strategies
- Persuasive Influence
- Presentation Mastery
- Strategic Relationships
- Team Collaboration
- Visionary Communication
How does it work?
Each path consists of five levels, and each level consists of a handful of projects. Projects usually consist of speech, and can also include practicing a new skill, such as managing social media or using presentation software.
The first level teaches the basics you need to get started, beginning with a simple introductory speech, called the icebreaker, followed by learning about giving and receiving evaluations, and the basics of organizing your speech.
From Level 2 the paths start to diverge based on the path you take, and level 3 and onwards you have to do one project strictly connected to your chosen path, and can do several elective projects based on your preference. For instance, if you choose the path “Motivational Strategies”, you have to do a project about emotional intelligence at level 3, about motivating your team at level 4, and team building at level 5. Whereas if you choose the path called Leadership development, you will learn about planning at Level 3, Team leading at level 4, and Event management at level 5.
Pathways projects may be completed within a toastmasters club, but can also be done outside of toastmasters, in fact, you are encouraged to do toastmasters projects outside of the club whenever you can, as long as you can get an evaluation from a fellow toastmaster. These projects are designed to teach you skills you can apply in your work life.
Once you have completed al 5 levels, you get a certificate of proficiency for your path, and you get to start a new one over, teaching different skills.
How does a Toastmasters meeting look like?
Toastmasters clubs usually organize their club meetings once a week. A Toastmasters meeting is made up of three major sections:
- Prepared speeches, which members prepare based on their projects,
- Table Topics, which are 1-2 minute improvised speeches, and
- Evaluations, when the prepared speakers get evaluations from fellow members, closed by a general evaluation of the meeting.
During the meeting there are several major and supporting roles to be filled.
Major Roles
Toastmaster
The Toastmaster is the person who leads the meeting. A Toastmaster has to start the meeting with a warm up question, and then proceed to lead the meeting through its three phases, finally closes the meeting. This is a great role for those who want to practice leading meetings.
Prepared Speaker
The prepared speaker is someone who prepared a speech based on a Pathways project or a speech unrelated to any project. This role help you learn to prepare speeches and presentations for your professional life or simply for entertainment.
Table Topic Master
The table topic master is the person responsible for leading the improvised speech portion of the meeting. A table topic master should prepare 5-10 simple, but engaging topics to help members practice their improvised speaking skill. This is a very creative role, and helps the members learn to address unusual situations.
General Evaluator
Supporting Roles
Evaluator
An evaluator gives feedback to a prepared speaker at the end of the meeting in 2-3 minutes. This is a great role to practice giving supportive, and useful feedback to each other, which is one of the major benefits of attending Toastmasters.
Table Topics Speaker
The table topic speaker can deliver an improvised speech based on a topic given by the table topic master. This role helps you practice giving coherent, well rounded answers to any question you may receive in your professional life.
Timekeeper
The Timer, or Timekeeper measures and records the time used by the speakers, table topic speakers and evaluators, to help us stay on track with time and finish the meeting on time. This is a very helpful supportive role that helps us practice managing our allotted time effectively.
Grammarian
The Grammarian is a person who pays attention to good, and not so good uses of English, and gives feedback to us, helping us improve our spoken grammar. They also pick the word of the day, which members can use during the meeting, and helps us increase our vocabulary.
Ah-counter
The ah-counter helps the speakers improve by counting and signalling ahs, ums and filler words. This is a great way to help people lear to speak more clearly, and is a great way to practice active listening.
Ballot counter
The ballot counter or vote counter is a person who counts votes after the prepared speeches, table topics, and evaluations. At the end of the meeting, they announce who was that meetings best speaker, best table topic speaker, and best evaluator.