AK47 Gaming Machine

The deceiving name left me confused about the purpose of the organization even after I spent about an hour researching the organization. My first impression from the name, Toastmaster was either  a wine tasting or food club. After some research I started assuming it was a form of self-success promotion club and business management thing-a-ma-jig. Only when i attended one of their meetings did i realize that it was a club about speaking. Yes speaking, somewhat along the lines of public speaking except the emphasis is on communication which means the club helps it members develop speaking, listening and leadership skills. Its like the speech/communication class in college except much better, because you are not stressed out about losing a grade every time you stutter.

I took a speech class here at University of Missouri and i lost confidence in my ability to talk to an audience. I didn’t mind the criticism that class wrote about my speeches, but with every C i would get i would become a bit more nervous on my next speech.

However this club does an exceptional job at providing a comfortable environment for a speaker to speak, though they do not pull their punches when it comes to constructive criticism. A speaker selects the day he or she wishes to speak – on any topic of their choosing – after which they are assigned an evaluator, who will give a general evaluation of the overall speech at the end of the day. Along with the evaluator there are three other people closely listening to the speaker. The Timer, who keeps track of time; the Ah-counter, who keeps a record of all unnecessary words that the speaker utter ranging from the time-buying “uuuh” that people use in speeches to collect thoughts to useless words like “like” when used in the fashion that i did right now; and a Grammarian who keeps track of the grammatical errors.

The Grammarian and Ah-counter not only keep track of the speaker delivering a speech but they keep of what everyone is saying throughout the session. Even simple discussion or chit chat they will keep an ear out for possible misuse of words and such.

There also a number of moderation positions, along with the previous three, are rotated around so as give to everyone equal opportunity at developing speaking, listening and leadership skills. You gain confidence and improve your speaking skills at the same time. Swear to god they should make a requirement to join this club in every college/university’s communications department out there.

Toastmasters clubs are located all across the nation and are also present in 20 other countries as well. Their official website is http://www.toastmasters.org/