Opinions on Toastmasters?

[FacelessInLA]

A friend of mine told me about Toastmasters last night and, after looking at the website it sounds like something I'd be interested in joining. I've always been a little shy about meeting people (networking) and am not a very confident-sounding speaker (e.g. talk too fast, no eye contact). This organization looks like it can help me with both.

Have any of you had any experience with this club? What, if any, are the committments outside of the meetings? What should I look for before finding a chapter to join? Once you're a member, can you go to meetings at different chapters or are you restricted to the one you signed up for?

Thanks for the info!

[spokes]

for a while i was in a toastmasters group and if you are uncomfortable speaking in front of groups of people go and join as you will get some excellent practice at speaking.

i think you can go to different meetings, and the commitments outside of the group meetings are what you want them to be. i personally went to improve with respect to thinking on my feet and whe we were given a topic that we were to speak on, I would try and organize my thoughts and go up an weave my tale in a logical manner. other in my group had meticulous notes.

[labrat2111]

I'm a member now and I think it is pretty helpful. Even if you aren't giving a speech (and if you want you can usually give a speech every 3 weeks if you're up to that) there are other meeting roles where you will get up and speak for a minute or two. So each meeting gives you an opportunity to improve your speaking skills.

I've done 4 speeches so far and I feel more confident and I make better eye contact with good voice tone. I need to work on my non-words (um's and so's) and organizing my ideas better but that is coming along. Also I had a job interview a month ago and although I didn't get the job, but I felt much more relaxed talking with people both one on one and in a small group.

The club I joined I looked up online. You can find the main website at www.toastmasters.org and do a search from there to find nearby clubs. Then just go to a meeting and you can sit in as a guest and see how it goes. I visited the club I am a member of now about 3 times before I paid dues and joined.

You could go to different meetings if you like to but normally I just attend our club. Sometimes if there is a club with issues or lower membership they ask for people to visit another club and help them. There aren't very many commitments outside of the club unless you are an officer and that is only after you've been a member awhile and given a few speeches.

[wordsmith]

I used to be horrible with this, and it prob. would have been a good organization for me at one time. However, I'm coming up on five years as a reporter, and that pretty much ended up automatically serving the same purpose. I'm no longer an unconfident speaker, I can't be...and it's mainly thanks to working in journalism, where you're thrust into different situtations and have to learn to be comfortable shooting from the hip.