Developing your Leadership Skills at Toastmasters

The majority of new members who join our club do so in order to develop their public speaking skills. At Toastmasters, there are actually two skill sets we develop. The first skill is obviously public speaking with the second being to develop a member’s leadership skills.

As a new member, you are provided two manuals. The first manual provides information on developing your public speaking skills and the second to develop your leadership skills.

Many new members of our club focus their efforts on their public speaking skills and tend to ignore their leadership development. I make an effort to remind our members not to ignore their leadership development. I believe the two skill sets augment one another and should be developed simultaneously in order to gain the maximum benefits from being a club member.

The leadership manual consists of ten projects focusing on many aspects of leadership.  Each of the ten projects focus on developing specific leadership skills that include listening, critical thinking, providing feedback, time management, planning and implementation, organization and delegation of tasks, facilitation, motivating, mentoring and team building.

The majority of these projects have the club member taking on various roles during our Toastmaster meetings. The meeting roles include being the Toastmaster, General Evaluator, Speech Evaluator, Grammarian, Table Topics master and Timer.

These meeting roles allow you to develop new leadership skills while also developing your communications skills, providing the opportunity to participate at a meeting even when not giving an actual speech. You will also be supporting our club as a valued member of the team.

Several of the projects develop organizational skills outside the Toastmaster meeting roles for example, organizing a club speech contest, working on a public relations team or becoming a mentor for a new or existing member.

This may all sound very intimidating to you but remember there are many club members, including myself, who are more than happy to mentor you along the way. When you join our club, you are among friends who share the same club goals and values.

By developing our communications and leadership skills simultaneously, we become stronger as individuals and as a club.

Remember that no club member is an island. We all become better members when working as a team together!

I hope to see you at one of our future meetings!

Paul Horvath

Cedar Hill Toastmasters Club

Sergeant at Arms

Meeting Minutes - December 17

Paul as SAA, started the meeting.

John was Toastmaster for the evening and gave the meeting an unusual twist. Prior to the meeting, John passed out a questionnaire to everyone with about a dozen questions such as the number of years you've been in Toastmasters, an animal you'd like to be, the best and worst Xmas gifts you've ever received, an age you'd like to stay at, etc. Then as Toastmaster for the evening, everytime he (or anyone else) introduced someone, John then gave an introduction for that person using the information from the questionnaire.

Joyce gave the word for the day which was nemoplilist.

Kevin stepped up to do a joke.

Anna gave her second speech entitled, "Christmas Eve Polish Style." She informed us of the customs in Poland practiced on Christmas Eve such as looking for the first star of the evening as well as the variety of foods eaten.

John, working from an advanced manual, practiced introductions throughout the evening.

Paul did Table Topics asking questions related to the Christmas.

Larry was grammarian noting some unusual "double ands" by Joyce and Kevin but noted Anna's expression of exclamation was perfectly fine.

Paul gave the timer's report.

Elizabeth as General Evaluator called the evaluators up to give their reports. 

Kevin evaluated Anna's speech giving her a few points to improve upon.

Larry evaluated John's work (speech) with almost everything noted as "excellent."

Elizabeth noted how much she enjoyed Anna's speech since she too was Polish. She also noted there was some "whispering" in the background during the meeting but overall it was a great evening.

Mike brought in a bowl of apples and mandarin oranges for everyone to enjoy.

The meeting actually ended early- about 8:23PM.  The next meeting will be January 7, 2016.

Respectfully submitted,

Joyce Boncal

Meeting Minutes - December 4

Great night at Cedar Hill - lots of laughter and learning in a very supportive environment. 

The meeting was started by Paul, Sergeant of Arms, who reminded everyone about the upcoming winter in spite of a warmer weather pattern that we had been experiencing lately. 

Kevin was the Toastmaster and did a great job moving the meeting along and explaining each section of the meeting since we were honored with a presence of a guest. 

Anna gave the Word of the Day - otiose. Then, Larry brought some humor with the Joke of the Day. 

There were three speakers presenting the prepared speeches. Lyn's speech entitled "Christmas" was quite entertaining as Lyn talked about different ways people approach Christmas preparations and gift giving. It was project 6 from the Competent Communicator, Using Vocal Varieties. 

Next, Martha presented a speech "Nutrition Traps", project from Speaking to Inform manual. She educated the audience about the consumption of sugar and how sugar is lurking into our food on a daily basis.

John gave a speech from Special Occasion speeches manual. He presented a "roast" speech in recognition of Cedar Hill Toastmaster member, Kevin. 

Eliot as a Table Topics master challenged the audience with the topics related to winter. We all know that winter will eventually arrive so this was a prelude to what we need to think about when the winter is here. 

In the educational section of our meeting, Larry evaluated Lyn's speech, Paula evaluated Martha's speech and Paul evaluated John's speech. 

Paul was the Timer and Anna was the Grammarian. We were reminded of bad habits, such as starting the sentence with these popular filler words, "so" and "now."

Finally, Joyce presented the General Evaluator's report praising the Toastmasters contributing to the success of last night's meeting. 

John, our President reminded everyone about the mentor program at the club and encouraged members to take advantage of it. 

The meeting roles for the next meeting were taken by Paula. Cedar Hill meets again on December 17. 

Respectfully submitted by 
Martha Danielewicz
Secretary 
Cedar Hill Toastmasters