As a Grammarian, your job is to monitor the language and grammar usage throughout the meeting. You also get the fun job of bringing the Word of the Day!
Continue reading “What is Grammar, anyway?”
Invocation & Pledge AKA Starting the Meeting
Woohoo! You signed up to start the meeting. While this is a small role, it is pretty important. The Invocation and Pledge section of the meeting has two purposes.
Continue reading “Invocation & Pledge AKA Starting the Meeting”Meeting Role Tutorials
If you signed up for a meeting role and want to double check how to do it, you’ve come to the right place! As Toastmasters, we have lots of different roles to fulfill in each meeting. Toastmasters International has a great resource explaining each role: A Toastmaster Wears Many Hats. Below is a list of each meeting role and resources specific to that role. Hope this helps!
Continue reading “Meeting Role Tutorials”Your Toastmaster Debut
Copied from Medium with permission from the author (myself), and altered to fit a virtual meeting format.
Congratulations! You signed up to be Toastmaster for your very first time! Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it looks. With just a little preparation and a whole lot of fun, your Toastmaster debut can go smoothly. (If this isn’t your first time, these tips may still help).
Continue reading “Your Toastmaster Debut”How to.. uh.. be an.. um.. Ah Counter
Copied from Medium with permission from the author (myself), and altered to fit a virtual meeting format.
That title is hard to read, right? When people use those same filler words (“um”, “uh”, etc) in a speech, it can be distracting and hard to understand their content. This is why the role of Ah Counter in Toastmasters is so important.
Continue reading “How to.. uh.. be an.. um.. Ah Counter”My Why – Kseinya
By Kseinya Reyes
I originally joined to get more comfortable speaking up in meetings at work, but it’s become so much more than that. Toastmasters gave me the confidence to not only speak in these roles, but also to lead the meetings comfortably. I even got promoted! Toastmasters of course gets full credit. There have been surprising benefits that have bled over into my personal life as well, I’ve gone back to school for my masters degree and have used the skills learned in Toastmasters for multiple classes. On a more silly note, after a year of Toastmasters I had gained the confidence to compete in a coding competition. My second time competing, I won! Toastmasters has been invaluable to me. While I can’t say I’m a professional speaker by any means, I’m miles better than the red-faced stuttering ball of nerves I used to be.
My Why – Richard
My Why – Jacque
By Jacque Leonard, DTM
I joined Liberty Lakers Toastmasters Club #399 in April 2005. Initially, I joined because I was in a sales organization trying to coach my sales team on how to do the business. As I got to know them, it was not uncommon for several of them to come to me and say, “Jacque, when I first met you, you intimidated me.” I would then ask them what I was doing or saying that intimidated them. Their answer was something like, “I don’t know exactly, but I’m glad that you don’t intimidate me anymore.”
When I mentioned these strange conversations to my mentor, he suggested that I join Toastmasters. Soon after I joined, I was assigned a mentor. After working with me for a few months, she told me that there were two things she saw that could be off-putting to some. One was a posture that I frequently demonstrated. The other vocabulary choices I frequently used. She helped me identify times that she observed these behaviors and begin to consciously change them. I could have fixed the problem and left; however, I discovered the world of speech competitions and became interested in competing.
When I began working as a contract trainer, honing my skills, especially in the need to incorporate humor into my presentations, became more crucial to my success. My continued participation in Toastmasters became a steppingstone to my success as a trainer.
My Why – Jennifer
By Jennifer Ferrero, DTM
My first Toastmasters speech was entitled, “I did it my way,” and was based upon the famous Frank Sinatra song.
Did you know that Sinatra never liked that song, yet it was one of his most popular?
Continue reading “My Why – Jennifer”