ToastMasters Club: The Art of Speaking

Today, we were allowed to sit in on one of DDOT's biweekly Toastmasters meetings. For those who don't know, Toastmasters is a program of communication and leadership activities designed to help men and women learn the arts of speaking, listening, and thinking. There are three basic parts to the Toastmasters meeting: the prepared speeches, Table Topics, and evaluations. Here at DDOT, employees from different departments partake in these meetings and every participant has a different task. In the prepared speaking portion of the meeting, several Toastmasters will give a prepared presentation or speech before the group. Speeches are timed and focused on a specific topic. "Table Topics" is a speaking exercise where the speaker speaks "off the cuff"; that is, the speaker responds to a question or topic that is not known beforehand. The Table Topics Master presents the topic, calls on an individual, and then that individual has 1 to 2 minutes to respond. The evaluation session is where feedback is provided to all members, including the speakers. The evaluation session is headed by a General Evaluator, who calls on individual speech evaluators to give a 2- to 3-minute evaluation of an earlier presentation. After the speeches, table topics, and evaluations have been completed, the General Evaluator calls for the helper reports which are completed by the gramarian, the ah-counter, and the time keeper. Each helper stands before the group and present their reports. Toastmasters are not sessions for criticism, but rather sessions of succession the idea is to improve and help others improve where improvement is necessary.