Toastmasters Stony Brook Speech Wolves

What can you expect at our Toastmaster meetings? – We are in person and on zoom. Does it matter?

 

The short answer is yes. The follow up questions is why are you here?

 

I’ve been a member since February of 2006.Perhaps the question can be asked of me. Why am I here? Toastmasters has presented me with many great opportunities to learn and get feedback.

Learn? – what? I’ve learned what my style of speaking is. Not from the first speech but after the first one hundred speeches. I’ve learned to be confident on stage, any stage. I’ve competed, won and lost many contests. Always learning more from the losses then the wins. I’ve become a better coach, understand what goes into event planning and a ton on leadership skills. As for the online aspect. I host a podcast and when I attend online I pay close attention to the background, microphone and eye contact.

Our members are focused not just gaining confidence as a speaker but on being effective as a presenter. Yes there is a difference. With more and more of our members joining for a specific reason the club is stronger than before.

Our meetings are run by our members – Leadership, Time management and Motivation skills are used by our Toastmaster of the day. That person’s role is to have a full agenda and coordinating the meeting where it begins and ends on time. 6:00pm to til 7:30pm est on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays for our club.

Prepared speakers, generally three at each meeting, deliver a 5-7minute speech on a topic with a specific goal in mind. Could be using visual aids, body language, vocal variety, humor, motivational or…….. The beauty of this is that will have a mentor that works with you privately, but you will also get a verbal evaluation from a fellow Toastmaster’s member and written comments from all other members.

 

Here a few takeaways when you are mentor or a speech evaluator.
1) Congrats you are now practicing your coaching skills in either role
2) Mentor or Motivator? Could be the same encouraging the mentee to deliver their speech even when they feel that they may not be ready.
3) Impromptu speaking as the evaluator – Not only that you will use your listening skills much more effectuvely knowing that you will be delivering a 2-3 minute presentation on what the speaker did well and how they may consider a different way of doing something to increase their effectiveness as a speaker

The other roles are plentiful and so is the fun.

Umm and AAH counter, table topics (improv speaking) word of the day, quiz master all have different purposes to make our meetings effective and fun.

We are not just focused on your speaking skills but also your entire presentation, Handouts, shared screens, videos, speaking while standing, backgrounds and what may be the most important is we will focus on what you want to most improve.

Share your goals, thoughts and concerns with the group, the mentor or myself and we will certainly help you on your way.

A good member for us is one who wants to be effective as a speaker, not just comfortable. A person who has a message to deliver not just facts to share.

A person that embraces the idea that meetings will be forever changed with new communication tools and understands that we are entering a new way of interacting not just doing it like we did before.