My toastmasters journey (DTM speech)

ACG Speech #10 - Humorously Speaking
The Humorous Speech
8th July 2012

[Disclaimer: This speech contains a number of exaggerated events / situations. This isn't a honest reflection of  my toastmasters journey and the speech was written just to meet the project objectives :)]

Some people join toastmasters to stay away from their pestering spouse for 2 hours

Some people join toastmasters to eat sandwiches and samosas at the end of the meeting

Some people join toastmasters to sleep peacefully in an air-conditioned hall

But I joined toastmasters to do all of them and also to pick up some communication skills.

It was the year 2006... I was very young... with lots of hair on my head. My friend took me to a toastmasters club in his college. It was a special meeting. The hall was filled with people and it was very colorful! Rajesh knows what I mean... It was a one hour meeting and I learned SO MUCH in SO LITTLE TIME. I was completely SOLD on toastmasters. I immediately filled the application form, borrowed money from my friend and became a member of the club on the first day that I attended.

I was eagerly longing for the next week's meeting. The next week came. I went to my friend's college and climbed the stairs to reach the meeting hall. Right there at the stairs, I saw the President of the club Sai. He greeted me with a beautiful smile ...

"Saro! I'm so thrilled to see you again. Welcome".

I thought ... "What a wonderful President he is... the President is going out of the way to greet everybody.... leaders should be like him".

Sai said... "Saro... Congratulations... you are nominated to be the Table Topics Master for the day".

"Wow... this club provides opportunity to everyone... even a brand new member. They follow the toastmasters' vision... in its true spirit... equal opportunity to everyone".

I walked to the meeting room and opened the door. I was completely shocked... There was nobody inside".

I asked Sai... "Sai.. have we changed the meeting room?"

Sai quickly responded... "No Saro! It is just you and me so far".

"But,... it is already our meeting time..."... Don't worry... members will come soon. We waited for another 15 minutes and 3 more members came.

The President started the meeting. He felt very sorry for starting the meeting late. He talked about the importance of time... he told us a story about how we should value others' time... and his address went on for 20 minutes. He then handed over to the impromptu TMOD.". The impromptu TMOD "Due to the lack of time... I'm going to be very short. He talked about his recent vacation for 10 minutes and told us why he was late today for another 5 minutes.

Friends... that was how my first club functioned.

With 3 years of toastmasters experience, I came to Chennai in 2009. It was my first visit to Chennai Toastmasters Club... the hall was filled with people. But, this time... I'm very cautious. I was carefully observing who is doing what. After the 2.5 hours meeting, I confirmed that this isn't a special meeting and this is REAL crowd. I joined the club right on day one.

Chennai Toastmasters Club taught me a number of things... and the most significant one was "How to be a GOOD evaluator". As an evaluator, you've to evaluate all kinds of speech. And the most tricky one was to evaluate speakers who give an unprepared, boring and pathetic speech. However, I learned the art of giving sandwich evaluations from Aditya. You've to always start with nice words and end with nice words.

For example, "Fellow toastmasters, guests and my dear speaker... What a wonderful speech it was. Your speech was really SUPERB".

·         S - Sleepy

·         U - Upsetting

·         P - Pathetic

·         E - Embarrassing

·         R – Ridiculous

·         B - Boring

Overall, I enjoyed listening to your speech and it was really SUPERB.

I love doing speech evaluations.

DTM Lalitha Giridhar, pushed me to kick start my leadership journey and I started with my CL 2 years ago. She also supported me to become a Division Governor. As a Division Governor, I had a fantastic opportunity to visit all the clubs in our Division. MCs in various clubs have introduced me in multiple different ways...

·         Some people introduced me as an Area Governor

·         Some people introduced me as a District Governor

·         One toastmaster was pretty close to introducing me as the Tamilnadu Governor (Thank god Rosiah didn't hear that).

The best part of my toastmasters career was my Division Governor role. In academics, you have theory and practical. In toastmasters, your Area or Division Governor role is the practical. That is where you'll get to fully apply all the communication and leadership skills that you gained in the previous years.

Fellow toastmasters, I THANK you for your outstanding support.... YOU converted me

·         from a DREAMING toastmaster to a DISCIPLINED toastmaster

·         from a DISAPPEARING toastmaster to a DEDICATED toastmaster

·         from a DULL speaker to a DISTINGUISHED TOASTMASTER