Last Monday, the Engineering Toastmasters celebrated their official status as a charter member of Toastmasters International. The inauguration happened at the Galbraith Building on September 13 complete with faux champagne, chocolate cake and, of course, a few toasts.
The evening began with a toast from President and founder Nicholas Wood.
“This club has changed my life,” he said, to applause and the raising of miniature plastic cups full of non-alcoholic bubbly.
The mission of a Toastmasters club does not involve slightly charred slices of bread, of course, but is “to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every member has the opportunity to develop communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth.” The international organization numbers almost 10,000 clubs with more than 195,000 members; roughly 30 more were added on Monday.
After Wood’s toast, Secretary Brian Zhou assigned different inanimate objects to club members, asking them to give speeches pretending to be the objects-a desk, a lamp, a waste basket. In turn the members each began to narrate the feelings and emotions of their objects as if it were at a formal dinner party with other inanimate objects. “I’m really at the bottom,” said Elliot Digby, pretending to be the floor. “People are always stepping on me, spilling drinks on me and the wall is always looming over me.”
You might assume that students from business or law would be more likely to have a Toastmasters club, but that’s not the case, according to Wood, a self-proclaimed “shy guy.”
“They get networking skills naturally as part of their program,” he said
“Engineers spend most of our time studying science and mathematics,” added Adrienne Ng, the club’s Vice-President of PR, “and language comes second.” They find that practising public speaking helps them with employment later on.
The standard curriculum of the Toastmasters includes the three rules of communication laid out by the group’s founder, Ralph C. Smedley: first, one outlines what will be discussed, then the ideas are explained , and finally they are reiterated briefly at the end.
The club currently has 28 members, which the organizers say is about as many as they can handle, given that everyone needs a chance to speak. Daniel Pohl, the Vice President of membership, said “we don’t want membership to exceed 30 or go below 20”
