Toastmaster

Toastmasters International (TI) is a nonprofit educational organization that operates clubs worldwide for the purpose of helping members improve their communication, public speaking and leadership skills. Through its thousands of member clubs, Toastmasters International offers a program of communication and leadership projects designed to help men and women learn the arts of speaking, listening, and thinking.

The organization grew out of a single club, Smedley Club Number 1, which would become the first Toastmasters club. It was founded by Ralph C. Smedley on October 22, 1924, at the YMCA in Santa Ana, California, United States. Toastmasters International was incorporated under California law on December 19, 1932. Throughout its history, Toastmasters has served over four million people, and today the organization serves over 260,000 members in 113 countries, through its over 12,800 member clubs.

A Toastmasters club adopts a "learn-by-doing" philosophy, wherein each member learns at a pace suitable to his or her developmental needs. The Toastmasters program is divided into two separate tracks, Communication and Leadership, with members progressing along each track by presenting speeches and taking on roles within their club, district, and Toastmasters International itself.

Toastmasters has grown from being an English-only organization to one that develops communication skills in several languages. There are now clubs in many languages, including Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), French, German, Japanese, Spanish, and Tamil, among others. The basic manual (the Competent Communication manual described below) can be purchased in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), French, German, Japanese and Spanish as well as in English.

The heart of the Toastmasters curriculum is the communication track, defined by the Competent Communication manual (formerly called Communication and Leadership Program) and a series of fifteen advanced manuals. The Competent Communication manual consists of ten speech projects, each building upon the other in skills and difficulty. The advanced manuals have five projects each, and each manual focuses on a particular aspect of communication (such as technical presentations, storytelling, or interpersonal communication).

For each project, the member prepares and delivers a speech in front of the club. Speakers are expected to keep their presentations within prescribed time limits. For most Competent Communication speeches, the limit is five to seven minutes. The Icebreaker (CC Manual, Project 1) is between 4-6 minutes. Advanced communication projects are generally ten to fifteen minutes, although some can be as long as half an hour. After the member has given the presentation, another Toastmaster will evaluate the presenter based on certain criteria for each project. The distinctive feature of Toastmasters is this continual evaluation. Each activity at a club is evaluated: speeches are evaluated both orally at the meeting and in the member's manual. In some clubs, even the evaluators are themselves evaluated at the end of the meeting by a "General Evaluator", also a club member. This near-immediate feedback provides the member with information on how he or she can improve his or her presentation skills for the next speech, and is intended to provide a positive experience for the speaker.

The oral evaluations are intended to also help the evaluator improve his or her ability to give constructive feedback to other Toastmasters. Learning to give feedback develops many skills, some of which include: effective listening; how to motivate, encourage and support other members; and how to develop and present a short evaluation with minimal preparation. Language is an important element of effective evaluation and so too is the structure. The structure of a Toastmaster Evaluation might be referred to as the "feedback sandwich," the "PIP" (praise, improve, praise) method, or the "CRC" (commend, recommend, commend) method.

Toastmasters also teaches leadership skills. This is motivated in part by the fact that Toastmasters International is staffed completely by volunteers (except for a staff of about 90 paid personnel at the World Headquarters). Even the board of directors is composed of volunteers, who still hold memberships in local clubs, and are not paid.

When a person joins a Toastmasters club, they are given a copy of the Competent Leadership manual, which contains ten projects which can be completed by serving in various meeting roles, as well as participating in and/or organizing club contests, membership campaigns, and PR campaigns in their club. This manual can be completed in as little as five to six months, although most members will take more time to complete its projects. Upon completion, a member can obtain his or her Competent Leader award (post-nominal CL).

After completing the Competent Leadership manual, members can go on toward the Advanced Leader awards, which are given in two levels, Bronze and Silver (with post-nominal ALB and ALS, respectively). The Bronze level requirements include serving a minimum of six months as a club officer, participating in the creation of a club success plan while in office, and attending officer training. As well, ALB candidates must have attained their Competent Communicator award, and conducted two educational programs from Toastmasters' The Successful Club Series and/or The Leadership Excellence Series. For AL Silver, the additional requirements of serving a year as a district officer, completing a High Performance Leadership program, and being a club sponsor, mentor, or coach are needed to attain that designation.

Toastmasters has developed a series of procedures and materials for training its members and officers in basic leadership skills. Many districts hold training sessions for officers, known as Toastmasters Leadership Institute (originally called Toastmasters University), twice a year for club officers and for any other members who wish to attend. Divisions within districts are also encouraged to run smaller training sessions for club officers, especially in larger districts where it may be difficult for all club officers to attend a TLI session. Toastmasters conferences, also twice a year in each district, provide other opportunities to learn or present on leadership skills.

Club meetings also give members the opportunity to learn parliamentary procedure and meeting etiquette that can be important in business and political settings. While some aspects of parliamentary procedure and etiquette are present throughout the meeting, the business portion of a club meeting allows for more in-depth experience. In addition, Toastmasters provides as part of the Success/Leadership seminar series a five-part program on parliamentary procedure.

Toastmasters provides a number of educational modules outside of the regular project-based curriculum that teach members on leadership skills. These include The Leadership Excellence Series which deals with individual leadership skills, and The Successful Club Series which are targeted at the club as a group. The Success/Leadership programs also exist, as a leadership counterpart to Success/Communication. Like Success/Communication, these programs can be presented inside or out of the club, to non-members.

Toastmasters awards its highest honor, Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), to members who have achieved both the Advanced Communication Gold and Advanced Leader Silver awards. To achieve the DTM typically takes five to eight years of dedicated service and leadership in at the local club, area, and division levels. DTM candidates must also perform more than 40 public presentations both inside the club and out in the community (as part of earning the prerequisite Competent Communicator and Advanced Communicator awards). Fewer than 12,000 of Toastmaster's 4 million past and present members have achieved the elite DTM status. Some dedicated Toastmasters members have achieved multiple DTM designations. Members who have earned their DTM are usually honored and presented with a medal at a district conference following their achievement.

The Distinguished Toastmaster title is not necessarily the end of the journey for most Toastmasters. Many Toastmasters will reenter the program and repeat it at least once more. Every iteration through the program affords the individual additional experience in either the chosen direction or a totally new direction at their discretion.

Every Toastmasters club meets on a regular basis, at least 12 times a year. Each club meets for one to two hours, depending on the club. Each meeting has a structured format, with various members participating in the different roles in the meetings. The meeting is run by a Toastmaster of the Day (TMOD or TME for Toastmaster of the Evening).

There are three basic parts to the Toastmasters meeting: the prepared speeches, Table Topics, and evaluations. In the prepared speaking portion of the meeting, several Toastmasters will give a prepared presentation or speech before the group. Speeches are usually designed to meet the requirements of one of the projects in the communication manuals. "Table Topics" is an extemporaneous 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 evaluators have finished giving their evaluations, the General Evaluator calls for the helper reports:

• There is a Grammarian who notes mispronunciations and mistakes in grammar, or word repetition (e.g. "I did ... I did"), sometimes called "double clutching." In some clubs, the Grammarian will also point out positive uses of language, including nice turns of phrase, clever formulations, and especially poetic or otherwise exceptional uses of language.
• An Ah-Counter keeps track of audible pauses such as "ah," "er," "um," "well," and "you know". These are also called embolalia, which are naturally occurring pauses or fillers in the flow of a speech. In some clubs, the role of the Grammarian and the Ah-Counter will be combined.
• The meeting's Timer reports how much time each speaker, table topics responder, and evaluator took to give his or her presentation. Then the General Evaluator, or Master Evaluator, gives his or her overall evaluation of the meeting and makes recommendations of ways to improve future meetings. Some clubs have Table Topics Evaluators who evaluate members' responses to the table topics; for those that do not, the General Evaluator frequently fills that role. In addition, some advanced clubs have a 'round robin' evaluation for the speakers. In addition to the designated evaluator giving an evaluation recorded in the member's manual, the other members around the room are asked for additional comments on the presentation.

There are sometimes other roles in the program, depending on the club. For example, there may be an Invocator who gives an invocation or inspirational opener; a Humor Master, Jokemaster, or Raconteur who tells a funny story or jokes; a Wordmaster or Lexicologist who presents a "word of the day" to help the members increase their vocabulary (with the intention that members use the word of the day in their presentations); a Listener(also called a Quizmaster) who asks questions after the presentations to make sure everyone was listening; and/or an Award Presenter, who presents awards at the end of the meeting. Some clubs also have an Educational Presentation in which a speaker presents an educational aspect of Toastmasters. In many clubs, members vote for the Best Speaker, Best Table Topics Speaker, and Best Evaluator of the meeting. This "Best [whatever]" usually gets a ribbon to keep or a traveling trophy to take with him or her until the next meeting, when he or she will have to present it to the next winner. There may also be a Vote Counter, who collects the attendants' votes for Table Topic Speaker, (Rehearsed) Speaker, Evaluator, and Program Manager. The Vote Counter may also collect written evaluations to be given to the persons who gave rehearsed speeches. German clubs have introduced the Pub Master which is responsible to reserve a table and lead the way to a restaurant or pub for an informal meeting after the toastmaster session.

The order of the program varies from club to club and country to country. Many noon-time clubs and other clubs that are constrained by time do their prepared speeches first, followed by Table Topics, followed by evaluations. This is the standard program for clubs in South Africa. Dinner clubs in the United States tend to do Table Topics first, and then everyone sits back and relaxes for the after-dinner prepared speeches. Alternatively, some clubs that are very time-conscious do prepared speeches first, then evaluations, saving Table Topics for last.

Beyond clubs and conferences, Toastmasters offers a number of programs available to non-members. These programs are run by Toastmasters members, often but not always for credit toward Toastmasters curriculum awards. Toastmasters International also encourages its member clubs and districts to run speakers bureaus.

Primarily, the Success/Communication and Success/Leadership module series are promoted by Toastmasters for presenting to people outside of Toastmasters. Each series is a collection of six modules designed to be presented as seminars, facilitated by an active club member. Toastmasters encourages the presentation of these modules within the club to improve member abilities, and out of the club to promote Toastmasters. In particular, Toastmasters promotes its Speechcraft module as its "#1 membership-building tool" for clubs, as the module provides participants with experience writing and presenting speeches with the aid of the coordinator and other participants.

Toastmasters also offers the Accredited Speaker program,for recognizing members of Toastmasters clubs who are professional speakers. The program requires applicants to have their AC Bronze (or older equivalent) award, as well as have performed at least twenty-five speaking engagements in the three years prior to applying.

Lastly, the Youth Leadership Program offers some of the benefits of Toastmasters to teens, primarily by providing training in leadership roles with some opportunities for public speaking.