Toastmasters International

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 250,000 members in 108 countries, through its over 12,500 member clubs.

Contents

1 Membership

2 Educational program

2.1 Communication training

2.2 Leadership training

2.3 Distinguished Toastmaster

3 Club meetings and meeting roles

4 Conferences and officer training

5 Additional programs

6 Organization

6.1 Clubs

6.2 Districts

6.3 International

7 Contests

7.1 International Speech Contest

8 History

8.1 The beginning of Toastmasters clubs

8.2 1924-1927: First permanent clubs formed

8.3 Founding of Toastmasters International

8.4 Toastmasters after Smedley

9 Notes

10 References

11 See also

12 External links

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Membership

As of 2009, there are more than 250,000 members and over 12,500 clubs located across the United States, Canada and in 104 other countries. Membership in the US grew by 3% in 2007 and continues to grow rapidly in many foreign nations. Toastmasters members belong to local clubs, which generally have between six and 40 members, with 20 members being a typical size. The local clubs meet on a regular basis for members to practice various skills useful in public speaking, including giving speeches, speaking extemporaneously, listening, and providing each other with feedback and evaluation. Some clubs meet monthly, some meet twice a month, and some meet weekly.

Membership is open to all people ages 18 and above wishing to improve their communications skills. In certain rare cases, where previous links to Toastmasters can be found, people under 18 are allowed to participate, even though they are not allowed to join officially until their 18th birthday. Any speeches toward an official award completed before their 18th birthday are accepted retroactively.

Toastmasters International has a policy of non-discrimination (including based on ethnicity, nationality, and gender). Although Toastmasters was initially formed as a male-only organization, membership was opened to women in August 1973. Certain clubs (referred to as “closed clubs” or “in-house clubs”) organized within businesses restrict membership to people in the organization; this is the only restriction on membership permitted by the international organization. From time to time, advanced clubs form and it is preferable that one has completed a certain number of speeches (e.g. 10) before joining these clubs.

Gavel Clubs (Toastmasters-sponsored groups for teenagers or other groups who may be ineligible for membership in Toastmasters International) may be set up upon request at schools and institutions to provide them with the Toastmasters experience. Other than the mix of membership and that no official Toastmasters titles such as CC, CL, AC, etc., will be awarded, the benefit received from a Gavel Club is essentially the same as that of a Toastmasters club. Toastmasters also has a Youth Leadership program, which is an eight-session program that introduces school-aged children to the art of public speaking. These Youth Leadership programs are conducted by members of Toastmaster Clubs in the local area. They allow active members who put in effort to gain confidence and expertise in the art of public speaking.

Educational program

Toastmasters International curriculum, tracks, and awards. Arrows are used to demonstrate awards required.

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.

Communication training

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. 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.

After completing the ten Competent Communication projects, a member is entitled to the Competent Communicator award, and may add the post-nominal CC to their name for Toastmasters purposes. Prior to July 2008, Toastmasters awarded the designation Competent Toastmaster (post-nominal CTM) for this achievement to members who joined Toastmasters prior to January 1, 2006.

After achieving their CC, the Toastmaster then can go on to more advanced projects. There are 15 advanced manuals in the Toastmasters program, each consisting of five projects. These include projects on sales presentations, speaking to inform, speeches by management, interpretative reading, speaking on television, entertaining dinner speaking, communicating with news media, interpersonal communication, and others. The Advanced Communicator awards are given to members who complete two manuals per level, as well as performing various other duties. There are three levels of Advanced Communicator, being Bronze, Silver and Gold, with the respective post-nominals ACB, ACS and ACG. Prior to July 2008, Toastmasters awarded the identical Advanced Toastmaster Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards (with post-nominals ATM-B, ATM-S, and ATM-G) to members who joined Toastmasters prior to January 1, 2006. These in turn were originally expanded from the Able Toastmaster award (post-nominal ATM).

In addition to the various project manuals, Toastmasters provides a number of educational programs and seminar packages which members can present. The Better Speaker Series is a collection of educational modules that teach certain aspects of creating and giving presentations. There is also the Success/Communication seminar programs, such as the Speechcraft program, which members can present inside or outside of the club over a number of meetings.

Leadership training

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 60 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