by Diana J. Ewing

Created on: June 12, 2008   Last Updated: June 13, 2008

My First Year in Toastmasters: I Survived!

"Hi, uh, hello. I'm Diana, and I was thinking about joining Toastmasters...maybe."

No, I wasn't quite that timid when I walked into my first Toastmasters meeting a little more than a year ago, but that's how I felt. Speaking in front of a group wasn't high on the list of things I wanted most in the world to do. However, I knew that Toastmasters could help with the future promotion of my nonfiction humor book, so joining this group made a lot of sense.

As a guest during that first meeting, I drank it all in: the prepared speeches, the lively and impromptu table topics portion, and oral evaluations. I was impressed not only with the members' public speaking abilities but with the way they handled all the essential meeting roles, including the toastmaster for the day, who acts as master of ceremonies and provides insights on the day's theme.

How confident and competent all the members seemed. But rather than making me feel intimidated, they made me feel welcome and eager to learn how to do what they were doing. I joined on the spot.

Every Monday over the next several weeks, I filled many meeting roles, such as timer, ballot counter and grammarian. I soon discovered how much I liked table topics, both as a speaker and in the role of table topics master. This is the person who brings a variety of questions to the meeting for other members to answer in one- to two-minute speeches with no advance preparation. It's the Toastmasters version of improv.

I also found that the writer and researcher in me came alive preparing for my first turn as the M.C. for a meeting. Could it be that I was a little bit of a ham after all? Who knew that Toastmasters could be so much fun? I had definitely stepped out of my comfort zone, but this new zone was starting to feel comfortable, too.

My icebreaker speech, as the all-about-you first prepared speech is known, went pretty well. I liked looking around at all the smiling faces as I spoke; and when I got a few laughs in all the right places, it felt great. Whew, I survived!

As the date for my next speech approached, I chose a topic with which I have vast experience: procrastination. Amazingly-and fortunately-I had written the speech in plenty of time and was starting to feel good about my presentation in practice. Then our club president notified me that a film crew would be covering the meeting for a daytime TV show called "Your L.A." This was no common occurrence, and it would mean good publicity

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