Toastmasters

This afternoon, I attended a Toastmasters meeting on my lunch break at work.

I'd been planning on checking out Toastmasters for a couple years now, to see if I can upgrade my public speaking skills.

I saw a poster advertising the club couple weeks ago at work and decided to email the guy in charge. He told me a little about this chapter and encouraged me to attend a meeting.

I got a reminder about it in my email this morning and was lucky that it synced up nicely with my lunch.

This particular meeting consisted of only four people, counting me, so it was nice and informal. After asking me about my background, both with speaking and with work, the head Toastmaster told a few jokes to get people comfortable and asked one of the attendees to pick a "word of the week."

After that, there were "Table Topics", an informal speaking round where each person in attendance talks for a minute or two about a specific topic or question. This meeting's was "Talk about a memorable city you've visited." I chose Scottsdale, Arizona and talked about being wowed by it's deserts, complete opposite environment to Ottawa, and sites like Montezuma's Castle. After listening to the other attendee's answers, which were very entertaining and informative, the head Toastmaster delivered his speech as part of the meeting's main speaking portion. It was a little longer, more detailed, and had many good visual aides to it. When he was done, he asked others to critique his speech, then he did the same for the rest of us.

It was definitely worth it to attend. They were a friendly and encouraging bunch and I'm looking forward to doing so again in two weeks, when they next meet. 

Cheers!