A Toast to the ToastMasters...

For a long time, I had been thinking of doing something additional to my routine job. Thought I should join some classes etc., but somehow it never happened. A short discussion with one of my friends from office and we realized that both of us had similar interests in this regard. A few days later he told me about this ToastMasters club. Let me give you a brief introduction to this club...

Bangalore Toastmasters Club is a member Club of Toastmasters International. "Toastmasters International empowers people to achieve their full potential and realize their dreams. Through our member clubs, people throughout the world can improve their communication and leadership skills, and find the courage to change."
(Just a copy paste from their site. :) ) There are several wings of the International Toastmasters club in bangalore. We were the guests of Bangalore ToastMasters club which meets every Friday from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. It is a place that helps an individual to improve their communication and leadership skills. Any person interested can attend the club meetings as a guest. In order to become a member, one has to attend 3 meetings and then the existing club members( or the toastmasters; as they call themselves) vote whether you should be in or out.. :)

With this brief insight about toastmasters we left from office to attend our first toastmasters meeting as a guest. The venue for the meeting was St. Josephs college of Commerce. That’s on Brigade roads. Getting to the place was also simple as our office bus stops just next to the college.

As we entered the college premises, we saw some quite senior looking people. Thought that they could be members of the club as I had been through the member list on the website and had realized that most of the club members were quite senior, and yes I was right( as usual :) ). One of the gentleman there, introduced himself and we too did our part of the introduction. He walked with us to the meeting room, which was on the first floor, giving us some insights about himself and the club. We learnt that he had already been the secretary of the club and today was a special meet where all the ex-secretaries of the club had assembled. While walking, we also exchanged hands with other toastmasters. The meeting room was half occupied and consisted of people who seemed very happy and excited about meeting each other.

The meeting started at sharp 6:30 p.m.. The first talk was by a lady and I really cannot explain how beautifully she gave a splendid start to the meeting and got everyone involved. Hers was just an introductory kind of a thing and she wasn’t really among one of the speakers for the day. Next the secretary of the club came forward who informed everyone about the schedule for the days meet. The whole session was divided into 2 parts: During the first session, the 3 speakers of the day delivered their speeches. Each speaker was assigned a reviewer who would review the talk and give the feedback during the second session. Along with the reviewers for each speaker, there was also a grammarian for the entire session, another member was assigned the task of keeping track of the time and yet another member to track the 'aah's and 'I mean's and the likes. All the topics were non technical (they had to be as the members are from different backgrounds)
The content of all the speeches was really well formatted with good amount of humor in order to keep the listener involved. The second session was more of review of the first session and impromptu speaking. The topics given at the impromptu session were well selected and some of the members indeed did an excellent job. After the impromptu, the reviewers came forward and gave a detailed review about the speakers’ performance. The Grammarian especially was just too good. She actually pointed out each n every, even the most slightest grammatical error committed by any one during the entire 2 hour meet. She was just too perfect at it. I would really love to be as perfect as her at English. :)
Another toastmaster worth mentioning was the chief speaker of the day, who has also been the club secretary. The way he presented himself, the perfect use of vocabulary, and the voice modulation ..aah.. he was too perfect. Oh sorry! I don’t think I can say perfect as the grammarian found a little flaw in his talk too. :) After the speaking and the review session, there was a small ceremony where the new joiners of the club had to pledge. Got to witness an extremly well conducted session. Only part of the meeting which I didn’t enjoy was the break, Well the reason being the over-sized pastry of which I wasn’t able to finish even one-fourth.:(

The meeting came to an end around 8:45, and we left from there.. both of us with our own reviews about the speakers, the meeting and the club as a whole. Over all I found the meeting good and experienced some really good examples of effective speaking. The thought process is still on whether I should or not join the club. Of course, it’s also left to the ToastMasters... whether they vote me in or out. :D