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How Toastmasters Works
At Toastmasters, members learn by speaking to groups and working with others in a supportive environment. Our Toastmasters club is made up of 20 to 30 people who meet twice a month for about an hour. Each meeting gives everyone an opportunity to practice:

• Conducting meetings. Meetings usually begin with a short business session which helps members learn basic meeting procedures.
• Giving impromptu speeches. Members present one-to two-minute impromptu speeches on assigned topics.
• Presenting prepared speeches. Two or more members present speeches based on projects from the Toastmasters International Communication and Leadership Program manuals. Projects cover such topics as speech organization, voice, language, gestures, and persuasion.
• Offering constructive evaluation. Every prepared speaker is assigned an evaluator who points out speech strengths and offers suggestions for improvement.
  

The Tools You Use
Upon joining a Toastmasters club, each new member receives a variety of manuals and resources on speaking. Members also have access to other books as well as audio and video cassettes on speaking and leading. Additionally, they receive the award-winning monthly magazine The Toastmaster, that offers the latest insights on speaking and leadership techniques.

Toastmasters and Leadership
Leadership cannot be learned in a day. It takes practice. In Toastmasters members build leadership skills by organizing and conducting meetings and motivating others to help them. Club leadership roles and a leadership development program also offer other opportunities to learn and practice. Just as Toastmasters members learn to speak simply by speaking, they learn leadership by leading.

University Benefits
The University's success depends on communication. Daily employees face an endless exchange of ideas, messages, and information as we deal with one another and with customers day after day. Effective communication consistently determines whether a company quickly grows into an industry leader or joins thousands of other businesses mired in mediocrity.

Toastmasters provides the tools that enable employees to become effective communicators and leaders all at a very low cost. Toastmasters training helps employees:

• give better sales presentations
• hone their management skills
• work better with fellow employees
• effectively develop and present ideas
• offer constructive criticism
• accept criticism more objectively
  

Toastmasters produces results. Around the world more than three million men and women of all ages and occupations have benefited from Toastmasters training, and more than one thousand corporations, community groups, universities, associations, and government agencies now use Toastmasters training.

Community Benefits
Toastmasters has helped many members in their community service activities. Using the speaking and leadership skills developed in Toastmasters, people have become more active in business, churches, and service and charity organizations. Toastmasters members are able to organize activities, conduct meetings, and speak in public as their organization's representative. Some even become active in local, state or national government.

About Toastmasters International
Toastmasters International is a nonprofit organization governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership. The first Toastmasters club was established on October 22, 1924, in Santa Ana, California, by Dr. Ralph C. Smedley, who conceived and developed the idea of helping others to speak more effectively. More clubs were formed, and Toastmasters International was incorporated under California law on December 19, 1932.

Toastmasters International's business and services are administered by its World Headquarters, located in Rancho Santa Margarita, California. It employs no paid promoters or instructors. It has no salaried staff except the Executive Director and World Headquarters staff, who provide services to the clubs and Districts.

Edited from Toastmasters International, www.toastmasters.org/about.htm

"The names "Toastmasters International," "Toastmasters," and the Toastmasters International emblem are trademarks protected in the United States, Canada, and other countries where Toastmasters Clubs exist. Unauthorized use is prohibited.