Toastmasters can help you get ready;

              TOASTMASTERS
CAN HELP YOU
GET
READY
-TVjCChhaarlr*le s G. Steele,
Executive Office
partner:
28
At frequent intervals, the practice offices
of Haskins & Sells are asked to provide
speakers. Or an individual in any of those
offices is invited to give a talk on short notice.
The request may come from a school or col­lege,
a business organization, a civic group,
or perhaps a radio station. The subjects can
range from careers in accounting to income
taxes to a complex federal regulation. What­ever
the subject, those who ask H&S for a
speaker expect the best.
It is in the cards for almost everyone who
spends more than a few years with the Firm
to be called on, eventually, to face an audi­ence.
When your turn comes, will you be
ready?
Will you feel confident in standing up to
speak before a large group of people, most of
whom are strangers? Can you deliver your
message clearly and effectively, without suf­fering
the tortures of platform-fright? Can you
field questions deftly, and give satisfactory
answers? When it is over, will you be satis­fied
with your presentation? Will your lis­teners
be glad they heard you? One of the best ways to make
sure that the answer to these
questions is "yes" is to take part
in Toastmasters International,
the worldwide organization de­voted
to self-improvement in public speaking.
A good many partners and managers in the
Firm have trained themselves in Toast-masters,
and the consensus among them is
that they have benefited from it and enjoyed it.
There is a Toastmasters club in or near
almost every city and town where H&S pro­fessionals
work or live. If there are several
clubs in one area, a person interested in join­ing
can visit the meetings of several clubs in
"I found that my
experience in
Toastmasters in
Detroit (1958-61)
helped me develop
confidence in
appearing before
audiences, and
practice, particularly
in extemporaneous
speaking, helped to
build confidence."
turn and select the one that suits him or her
best, according to the convenience of its
meeting place and time or the conviviality
of its members. In fact, there are roughly
3,500 Toastmasters clubs in the United States
(and more in a dozen other countries), and
every large city has a good many clubs from
which to select.
In Toastmasters the members (men and
women, despite the masculine sound of the
name) learn by doing. Everyone takes his or
her turn delivering prepared speeches of five
to seven minutes in length, following a pre­scribed
plan to develop various speaking skills.
A member is also called on to give talks of one
to two minutes' length with no advance warn­ing.
Everyone serves as evaluator, on his feet
in front of the club, following the prepared
speech given by another member. And every­one
is subjected to an evaluation from a fellow
member.
As the weeks pass, each member also serves
as Toastmaster (chairman) of the meeting,
and in that position gains experience as a
master of ceremonies responsible for making
the meeting run on schedule. The Toast-master
calls the meeting to order, introduces
the speakers, leads the applause and in gen­eral
sets the tone of the session. In addition,
members rotate as general evaluator of the
entire meeting, with the task of commenting
on how well the speech evaluators, the Toast-master
for the day and various others have
performed.
Clearly, by the time you have attended a
dozen weekly (or biweekly) meetings of a
Toastmasters club, you have practiced ex­pressing
yourself orally before a group in a
number of different roles. In doing so, anyone
is bound to grow both in ability and in self-