About Toastmasters

When you join a Toastmasters Club, you are on your way to improving your self-confidence, your leadership acumen, your speaking effectiveness, and equally important your listening skills. Chris Mattews, well-known author and journalist who hosts MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and The Chris Matthews Show talks about Toastmasters and the correlation between leadership and effective speaking.

     Forbes ranked Toastmasters #5 in the top 10 things to do if you have just lost your job. Don’t wait until you lose your job; Toastmasters can help you grow in your career. Do you have doubts? Read how Toastmasters has helped other successful people from the Governor of Hawaii to business leaders to people just like you.

Better communication is almost always what elevates an average employee to an influential key contributor. Do you ever compare yourself to others and ask what they have that you don’t? It’s usually that they are a better communicator giving them the confidence to network and build relationships more effectively.

Toastmasters Can Help You

• Respond to impromptu questions as if you planned to be asked.
• Give effective constructive feedback motivating others to take action.
• Deliver prepared speeches and leave a lasting impression.

Best Value and Affordable

• Approximately $7 per month to join; seriously many of us spend more for coffee each month
• No seminar on the market costs so little while delivering so much

Want to Make 2012 a Better Year? It’s Easy to Join; Here’s How:

    Here in District 84 we encourage you to visit one of our nearly 200 clubs. To find a club near you, simply click on Find a Club and enter your zip code or city. Visit the club with no pressure to join. We recommend you visit several clubs before you decide which to join. Join one for just 6 months and see the difference Toastmasters can make as your skills and self confidence grow. Will you become a better speaker? That's a given. Will you learn about leadership and have an opportunity to lead? That is what Toastmasters is all about! Will you have fun? If you aren't having fun, you're doing it wrong!

     Along with with our regular meetings, Toastmasters offers Conferences and Conventions, at glamorous locations. These events may involve speech contests (humorous included), the occasional costume ball, as well as opportunities for the men to deck out in tuxedo and the ladies to glow in their gorgeous evening gowns. You will hear and have the opportunity to give speeches that can have you roaring with laughter or bring you to tears. Best of all, you'll have the opportunity to forge new and lasting friendships as you become part of the Toastmasters family! The path to a better 2012 begins with you! Let Toastmasters help position you for your next level of success.       

How Toastmasters works:

At Toastmasters, members learn by speaking to groups and working with others in a supportive environment. A typical Toastmasters club is made up of 20 to 30 people who meet once a week for about an hour. Each meeting gives everyone an opportunity to practice:

• Conducting meetings. Meetings usually begin with a short business session which helps members learn basic meeting procedures.

• Giving impromptu speeches. Members present one-to two-minute impromptu speeches on assigned topics.

• Presenting prepared speeches. Three or more members present speeches based on projects from the Toastmasters International Communication and Leadership Program manuals. Projects cover such topics as speech organization, voice, language, gestures, and persuasion.

• Offering constructive evaluation. Every prepared speaker is assigned an evaluator who points out speech strengths and offers suggestions for improvement.

The Tools You Use:

Upon joining a Toastmasters club, each new member receives a variety of manuals and resources on speaking. Members also have access to other books as well as audio and video cassettes on speaking and leading. They also receive the award-winning The Toastmaster, a monthly magazine that offers the latest insights on speaking and leadership techniques.

Toastmasters and Leadership:

Leadership cannot be learned in a day. It takes practice. In Toastmasters members build leadership skills by organizing and conducting meetings and motivating others to help them. Club leadership roles and a leadership development program also offer opportunities to learn and practice. Just as Toastmasters members learn to speak simply by speaking, they learn leadership by leading.

Company Benefits:

A company's success also depends on communication. Employees face an endless exchange of ideas, messages, and information as they deal with one another and with customers day after day. How well they communicate can determine whether a company quickly grows into an industry leader or joins thousands of other businesses mired in mediocrity.
Toastmasters provides the tools that enable employees to become effective communicators and leaders all at a very low cost. Toastmasters training helps employees:

• give better sales presentations
• hone their management skills
• work better with fellow employees
• effectively develop and present ideas
• offer constructive criticism
• accept criticism more objectively

Toastmasters produces results. Around the world more than three million men and women of all ages and occupations have benefited from Toastmasters training, and more than one thousand corporations, community groups, universities, associations, and government agencies now use Toastmasters training.

Community Benefits:

Toastmasters has helped many members in their community service activities. Using the speaking and leadership skills developed in Toastmasters, people have become more active in business, churches, and service and charity organizations. Toastmasters members are able to organize activities, conduct meetings, and speak in public as their organization's representative. Some even become active in local, state or national government.

About Toastmasters International:

Toastmasters International is a non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership. The first Toastmasters club was established on October 22, 1924, in Santa Ana, California, by Dr. Ralph C. Smedley, who conceived and developed the idea of helping others to speak more effectively. More clubs were formed, and Toastmasters International was incorporated under California law on December 19, 1932.
Toastmasters International's business and services are administered by its World Headquarters, located in Rancho Santa Margarita, California. It employs no paid promoters or instructors. It has no salaried staff except the Executive Director and World Headquarters staff, who provide services to the clubs and Districts.