The Toastmasters Club ,helps its members fight the fear of public speaking

The Toastmasters Club of Pune, which meets every weekend, helps its members fight the fear of public speaking, reports Aanchal Kurmi

The Toastmasters Club of Pune, which meets every weekend, helps its members fight the fear of public speaking, reports Aanchal Kurmi

for those who get scared stiff when it comes to speaking in public, the Toastmasters International (TMI) is nothing less than a guardian angel. Founded in the year 1924, TMI was started in the United States with an intention to help people improve their communication skills. And now, this non-profit organisation boasts more than 1.8 lakh members in hundreds of cities across the globe, including Pune, which is also known as the Oxford of the East.

Forty-two-year-old Prasad Sovani started the Toastmasters Club in Pune around two years ago and within no time, it had 57 members. "There are six Toastmasters Clubs in Pune. However, five of these are corporate clubs that are meant only for the employees of companies like Infosys, IBM, Eaton. The only community division of the club in the city is the Toastmasters Club of Pune," said Sovani.

Learn to speak
The Toastmasters, the first name by which the members are addressed, meet every Saturday or Sunday and practice public speaking for a couple of hours.

"The first 45 minutes are dedicated to impromptu speaking, which isu00a0 followed by prepared speech segment.

The prepared speech has to be as per the guidelines mentioned in the manual that is given to each Toastmaster at the time of registration," said Sovani. He added that senior members give their feedbacks and suggestions to the Toastmaster to better his public speaking skills.

Sharing his experience with the club, Savani said, "I joined a Toastmasters Club when I was in Singapore. Initially, public speaking terrified me, but after joining the club, I became so confident that I changed my job to become a corporate trainer."

Competitions
The club also holds several competitions. Sovani said, "Contests are held four times a year, where the participating member has to clear a variety of rounds, including humorous speech, evaluation, table topics and international speech."

He added, "The member who clears the international speech contest at the club level enters the Pune level, followed by state andu00a0 national level. Finally, when a member clears the national level, he gets a chance to compete at the regional level and then, finally at the international level."

Meet people
Speaking about the club, Abhishek Bihani, a third-year petroleum engineering student from MIT, said, "I have been associated with this club since its very inception. It is a place where one grow as a person and gets to know peopleu00a0 from various backgrounds."