Subra the speaker, like a magician, transfixed us with a matchbox which he held high. He told us to watch. Removing a match from inside, he then struck it against the side of the box. The match lit aflame, but he continued to let the fire swallow the wood till it reached his fingertips. With a puff, he snuffed it out; a trail of white fumes decorate the air.
He coached us, “All your speeches must be like a match.” – A fiery beginning, a steady burn, and a lingering finish. I’ve heard of the Toastmasters before, and their public speaking prowess but this was my first encounter with this organization. I was enrolled in Toastmasters Speechcraft training course along with the rest of my colleagues.
Speechcraft is a program where the fundamentals of public speaking are introduced to non-members in an atmosphere of a Toastmasters club meeting. Speechcraft is therefore under the guise of a public speaking seminar, when it really is a recruiting platform. My company was interested in building confidence among some employees and fostering overall communication skills. Hiring the Toastmasters is an interesting albeit indirect approach towards that end.
So, through a slightly misdirected company initiative, Speechcraft let me into some of their secret rituals. Meetings are held regularly. Each club has around 40 members plus or minus 20. They wear full suits and tie to all their engagements. They have worldwide annual speech competitions, many of them quite impressive.
In meetings, they have impromptu speech exercises called Table Topics. A random topic is revealed to the terrified speaker only seconds before he or she is supposed to present. He has to organize his thoughts on the spot, just like a politician would.
Besides that, Toastmasters present speeches in front of each other. Their speeches will be evaluated by a fellow toastmaster or two. Their evaluations highlight what they did right, while suggesting a few points to improve on. One good thing is they would never blatantly disparage the speaker.
Because of their overly forgiving and self-praising nature, Toastmasters rarely shun a prospective new member. Therefore, they are not an elite club as I envisioned them to be. Instead, judging from the speakers that presented topics in Speechcraft, I deduce that they can range from the remarkable, awe-inspiring and charismatic to the god-awful, please-shut-your-face and please-use-half-a-brain nitwits.
The Toastmasters may not pique my interest at this point of time. Maybe I’ll join them if my career edges me in that direction. Nevertheless, the best thing I can take from them is the analogy of the matchstick, that every article must have an explosive start, an enduring body and an unforgettable end. It probably means I have to polish up my endings with ones you can’t forget, like a smoke after the flame.
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