There's CC's and CL's and DTMs, and ACBs, and on and on and on and to speak the lango you'll need to tango with the tongue of the Toastmaster.
But S-L-O-W D-O-W-N ... it's not really all that bad....if you're just starting out, you do need to add vitamin C to your Toastmaster diet, as C stands for "competent" and "communicator" making you a Competent Communicator (or CC) once you've completed your first 10 speeches. Let's start here!
Competent Communicator = CC and consists of 10 speeches which are:
- Speech 1: The Ice Breaker — The first speech of the Toastmasters program is about introducing yourself to your peers, providing a benchmark for your current skill level, and standing and speaking without falling over.
- Speech 2: Organize Your Speech — Introduces the basic concepts of organizing a speech around a speech outline.
- Speech 3: Get to the Point — Clearly state your speech goal, and make sure that every element of your speech focuses on that goal.
- Speech 4: How to Say It — Examines word choice, sentence structure, and rhetorical devices.
- Speech 5: Your Body Speaks — Shows how to complement words with posture, stance, gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact.
- Speech 6: Vocal Variety — Guides you to add life to your voice with variations in pitch, pace, power, and pauses.
- Speech 7: Research Your Topic — Addresses the importance of backing up your arguments with evidence, and touches on the types of evidence to use.
- Speech 8: Get Comfortable With Visual Aids — Examines the use of slides, transparencies, flip charts, whiteboards, or props.
- Speech 9: Persuade With Power — Discusses audience analysis and the different forms of persuasion available to a speaker.
- Speech 10: Inspire Your Audience — The last of ten speeches, this project challenges the speaker to draw all their skills together to deliver a powerful inspirational message.
When you join Toastmasters, you are given a Competent Communication manual like THIS
...but Toastmasters is not just about overcoming your fear of speaking, improving your speaking, and building confidence. It also builds leaders through it's Competent Leadership program. Because leadership skills are so important and coincide with the ability to express yourself professionally, the other half of Toastmasters consists of improving your leadership skills. The Competent Leader or CL can be worked and earned together with the CC program and both manuals are provided when a new Toastmaster member joins. Like the CC's 10 speeches, the CL consists of 10 projects to help grow leadership skills giving you the opportunity to complete these while serving in various club meeting roles. See the Competent Leadership manual HERE
Want to learn more? Come join TOTTs (That's an acronym for our club Top of Texas Toastmasters) as we'd love to have you at our next meeting.
You can visit our Web Page HERE
Come see us!
