Jerry Seinfeld in his book, "Seinlanguage," states that people are more afraid of Public Speaking than they are of dying. So at a funeral people would rather be in the casket than giving the Eulogy.
Toastmasters
I, Publius Jr, have been a member of Wordsmiths Toastmasters since April 2, 2007 and I've given close to 200 prepared speeches in the time I've been in it. I've planned and executed countless meetings, given countless oral speech evaluations of other speakers, and have served in the following meeting leadership roles countless times: Speech Evaluator, Grammarian, Ah Counter, Table Topics Leader, Table Topics Evaluator, Timer, General Evaluator, and Toastmaster or Emcee. I've Chaired Speech Contests, and I created an Annual Wordsmiths Poetry Contest from 2009-2019, and started up after Covid in 2023 to the present.
I've served in every Club Officer role: President, VP of Education, VP of Membership, VP of Public Relations, Treasurer, Secretary, and Sgt-at-Arms, as well as Area 15 Governor.
Toastmasters' Beginnings
Toastmasters was created by a man employed by the YMCA named Ralph Smedley beginning in the early 20th century. He failed many times in the start up of Toastmasters and finally catching success at his first meeting of the organization at the Santa Ana California YMCA. Toastmasters is now an International Organization that changes all of it's leadership positions every year and yet the organization hasn't collapsed. October 22, 2024 is it's 100th anniversary.
Toastmasters Isn't Just about Communicating Better
Meetings have to be planned, coordinated, and executed. Members just can't go to a room and give speeches without any structure nor any positive feedback on what they have done. So each meeting has a crew of people who have meeting leadership roles:
Toastmaster (Master of Ceremonies, plans and coordinates a meeting, generates an agenda for the meeting)
General Evaluator (Evaluator of the Meeting as a whole, the Speech Evaluators, the Table Topics Master, and the Toastmaster)
Oral Speech Evaluators (giving positive feedback on what they observed about the assigned speaker)
Grammarian (counts the Word of the Day Usage, grammatical missteps, and Picturesque speech)
Ah Counter (counts filler words like ah, um, er, so, you know, double starts)
Table Topics Leader (asks questions then calls on people who don't have a role in the meeting for a 1-2 minute response)
Table Topics Evaluator (gives positive feedback to the Table Topics Speakers)
Timer (records how long a speaker speaks for, and gives visual cues to speakers to know how much time they have left to their speech. Speakers request a certain amount of time for their speech)
Through these meeting leadership roles members learn what is expected of them in each role and they also know what other meeting leadership roles require.
Beyond meeting leadership roles there are Club Officer roles as well as Officer roles at the Area, Division, and District levels.
Each year Officers of clubs have to attend 2 Training sessions, one in the late Summer to Early Fall, and the second from Winter to early Spring. Officers above the Club level go to training every other month.
SpeechCraft
Clubs sometimes perform what is called SpeechCraft which is a program that runs 4, 6, or 8 weeks (1 time per week) for non-members run by Toastmasters Members. All of what I've mentioned about what Toastmasters is about above, non-members will experience. Clubs perform this for gaining new members, and also for helping members complete their Distinguished Toastmasters program.
Learning how to make a prepared speech, answering impromptu questions in a 1-2 minute time span, planning and coordinating a meeting, giving positive feedback, and learning to listen to others is a perfect program for Candidates for Public Office.
Table Topics is perfect for training candidates to answer Debate/Forum questions, and helping candidates to prepare stump speeches on a handful of topics aligns with learning to make prepared speeches.
So I'm going to do a SpeechCraft for Candidates. It will be on Zoom, as the current Toastmasters Education Program requires it and there will be room for 5 candidates per Toastmaster member leading it. I have a non-affiliated Toastmasters club that I'm trying to charter called Republic Club Toastmasters. We meet on Saturdays from 9:30 am to 11:00 am on Zoom with a friend of mine, John Twisk.
Republic Club Toastmasters
Former MNGOP Chair Tony Sutton thought having a MNGOP Toastmasters Club was a good idea in 2011, his staff didn't. Though they didn't understand that a club is run by it's members. I tried to start one up with the St Paul Republican City Committee (SPRCC) and they too said they didn't want to run one. So I decided to start up a Conservative Membership Only Club that would never be affiliated with a Political Party because they'll want to control it to death. I could promote it through the website which is also not affiliated saintpaulrepublicans.us, and link the new club to it.
I call this club, The Republic Club Toastmasters. The name is because we hear that our country is a democracy and this is erroneous and I thought people need to learn what a Republic is.
My friend, John Twisk, who is my fellow club member said we wouldn't have to meet on Saturday for the SpeechCraft, but at a more convenient time for Candidates and ourselves.
Here's a video about SpeechCraft