Tips, Tricks and Techniques for Having Fun and Becoming More Effective When Doing Impromptu Public Speaking

On Thursday, November 21, SPICE Toastmasters heard from a dynamic speaker — 2013 District 27 Table Topics Winner Clarence Featherson!

Our Toastmaster of the Day kicked off this special meeting with the pledge of allegiance, mission statement, word of the day, and inspirational quote.

Word of the Day: Cogent – Convincing or believable
Inspirational Quote: “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.” -Edward R Murrow

We welcomed our guest speaker and launched our educational portion of the program. Clarence was brilliant and cogent in his speech delivery and provided us with engaging instruction that was full of ways to improve any type of speech. He taught us that table topics and evaluations are two of the most important skills we learn as toastmasters and how beneficial these skills can be for job interviews.

Below are some great takeaways from the training session:

• Every speech (short or long) should have a beginning, middle, and end.
• During meetings, never start your speech until the person who introduced you has returned to their seat.
• Use the power of pause — wait a few seconds to respond or proceed.
• Pauses eliminate filler words like um, so, ah, and you know.
• Positive body language is important and affects the initial perception of your speech.

Clarence also explained how table topics are mini-speeches that are much like “show and tell” and should be delivered with gestures and natural movement during presentation. Our club members and guests were able to ask questions throughout the session and take notes. Before wrapping up, we jumped into a table topics session with our guest speaker at the helm. Do men or women have it harder? Can money buy you happiness? These were just two of the engaging table topics questions that participants at the meeting were able to speak on.

We want to send a special thank you to Clarence and also to all of our members and guests who joined us for this special session! And we invite everyone to come out again for our next special event on December 12th where our former area governor will be joining us!

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Speaking Publicly at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (SPICE) Toastmasters provides a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills.

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