My first day in Toastmaster’s Club!

When I was in India, I didn’t know that there is some club called Toastmaster’s International Club. It is a Communication and Leadership Program and is devoted to making effective oral communication a worldwide reality.
Through its member clubs, Toastmaster International helps men and women learn the art of speaking, listening, and thinking-vital skills that promote self actualization, enhance leadership potential, foster human understanding and contribute to the betterment of mankind.
I have always been a very introvert kind of person, but I never knew that I also have fear of public speaking. The first time I realized on my first day of the meeting. There is a saying that human’s second most fear (first being the fear of death) is of public speaking, and for some people public speaking is far scarier than death. This is true.
In any meeting two people give the prepared speech and other members speak on table topics. Table topics are actually impromptu speaking. Any member will be picked randomly by the table topic master and asked to speak on that topic for the maximum of two minutes. In every meeting there different member will specified for different roles, such as a :-

1) grammarian,
2) “ah,”um”,and filler words counter,
3) Word of the day (there will be given a word and must be use by the impromptu Speakers)
4) Speech evaluator (evaluates the speech of speakers)
5) General evaluator (evaluator of the whole meeting)
6) Table topic master (gives the topic for impromptu speech)
7) Timer (keeps track of the time)

Topics for impromptu speaking can be about any thing. For example: - Why do clocks run clockwise? You are a finalist for a position you have always desired. What quality makes you best at this position than anyone else? Please explain why there are 18 holes on a golf course, instead of 15 or 20? My portrait of a perfect day would look like............. If you were able to live any place in the world, where would you choose?

So you have to go to the stage and speak for at least 2 minutes, and you’ll feel like those two minutes are the longest period of your life if you are not an inborn public speaker. When I was called, I was shivering with self consciousness and was thinking that, I would not be able to utter a peep. But some how I managed to speak for 1 minute and 56 seconds. That was a great achievement for me.
But in fact after that meeting and standing up in front of people staring at me ,brought me some confidence and self uplifting feeling inside me.
First prepared speech for any member is called Ice-Breaker speech, in which you have to talk about your self for at least 5 minutes. It will be like introducing your self .I have already started my preparation for it.

I think this is the best way to get rid of the fear of public speaking. And at the same time it also gives you an incentive to learn new words, learn how to express your self in a better way, learn how to become articulate. And above all it is a learning experience and at the same time having fun. It is like having your cake and eating eat it too.



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