Toulouse Speakers – Toastmasters Club

Toastmasters

Toastmasters is a non-profit educational organization which was founded in United States in 1924, but today in this era of technology, it has been transformed into a thought which speakers talk about whenever the topic of public speaking and improving one’s language comes. Till now, 4 million people have taken advantage of the services that this organization offers and currently serves 364,000 members, with more than 16,000 clubs, across in 145 countries. Members are comprised of people from all walks of life, including business people, professionals and students.

Every Toastmasters club follows the same time-tested educational programs. These programs are continually updated to meet participants’ needs. The self-paced programs allow members to progress as rapidly or gradually as one’s needs dictate.

With this, I would like to talk about our club, Toulouse Speakers Club. Toulouse Speakers club, situated in Toulouse, France is a Toastmasters Public English Speaking club dedicated to Beginner and Advanced Speakers. At Toulouse Speakers, members learn by speaking in front of an audience and working with fellow members in a supportive environment.

How does it work?

The meeting is organized every two weeks on Mondays from 19h15 to 21h15. Year 2020 was tough for everyone, we stick together and organized meetings online via zoom to support each other during the confinement. In each of our meeting, the members can take different meeting roles such as hosting, evaluator, timer and many more.

Every attendee gets an opportunity to speak and practice:

Prepared Speech – For this role, a member should be on Pathways and present speeches based on the requirements. The speeches are focused on organization, vocal variety, body language etc..

Impromptu Speaking – This comes under Table Topics session in which members including guests are given opportunity to talk for 1 to 2 minutes without any preparation.

Evaluations – Every prepared speaker is assigned an evaluator who points out speech strengths and offers suggestions for improvement. Speech Evaluators learn to provide effective and constructive feedback to others.

We believe in hard work and teamwork because public speaking cannot be learned in 1 day, it takes time. Here at Toastmasters, members build speaking and leadership skills by organizing and conducting meetings and motivating others to help them. Just as Toastmasters members learn to speak simply by speaking, they learn leadership by leading

Guests are welcome to attend for free, members have to pay a one-time fee of 25 euros and 50 euros as a membership fee every semester.

The Toastmasters Journey

In the past 2-3 years, the educational program of Toastmasters has been transformed into a new one called “Pathways”. It is a very interesting program which focuses on 5 core competencies:

1. Public Speaking
2. Interpersonal Communication
3. Strategic Leadership
4. Management
5. Confidence

These core competencies can be achieved from the following 10 socialized learning paths:

1. Dynamic Leadership
2. Effective Coaching
3. Innovative Planning
4. Leadership Development
5. Motivational Strategies
6. Persuasive Influence
7. Presentation Mastery
8. Strategic Relationships
9. Team Collaboration
10. Visionary Communication

You can choose any of these paths based on your choice and you are good to go. For more information on pathways, click here. A detailed video for Pathways by Scarborough Toastmasters Club has also been provided below: