| About Toastmasters International Toastmasters International has 8,500 clubs in 70 nations, including 14 clubs in the Treasure Valley Toastmasters Lunch Rappers Club When: Thursdays at noon Where: Various meeting rooms at the Boise Cascade Corporate Office, 111 W. Jefferson Street. How: Visitors welcome, call president Lynn Lewis, 384-7257, for information |
| Strictly Speaking Toastmasters club works to improve members’ speech-making skills By Mike Butts The Idaho Statesman* Friday, October 26, 2001 |
 |
 |
| Greetings Madame Toastmaster, other Toastmasters, honored guests and readers. My speech today is about the Lunch Rappers, a Boise Toastmasters club that meets once a week for people to practice their speechifying. Club members are professionals who get bored with the usual sandwich and bag of chips for lunch. Instead, once a week they get together for some public-speaking training while trying not to look as nervous as Barney Fife at a tax audit. “There have been surveys to show public speaking to be the number one fear in America,” Lunch Rapper veteran Karl Johnson said. “And that’s what Toastmasters is all about”. Scaring the living apple juice out of people? |
“I’ve changed a lot, because I’ve been in Toastmasters three years now. It was a year before I gave my first (formal) speech. That’s one of the reasons I became the president, because I have to speak at every meeting. I get pushed into it whether I want to or not.” In conclusion, I have run over my time limit by 31 seconds, thereby disqualifying my speech. Thank you, brave Toastmasters. Mind if I have mine lightly browned? |
| Well, not really. Folks join the international club to improve their overall communications skills, face their fears and become better public speakers. A lot of it is so they can get better at the jobs they have or maybe just impress the boss with some slick discourse. Last week’s meeting at Boise Cascade began precisely at 12:05 p.m. and ended precisely at 1:05 p.m. Meeting are formal (each speaker addresses the meeting’s acting toastmaster, the toastmaster members and guests before speaking), and the agenda is planned down to the minute (12:53, Pass ballot and comment boxes around; 12:55, Evaluate the meeting”). The stringent timing at Lunch Rappers gives members practice in leadership skills. That way, if any of them have to conduct a staff meeting, it won’t last forever because Stan spent an hour explaining how to make the computer calendars beep to remind you of the next staff meeting. Jerry Lin took the stage to give the first formal speech of the meeting. Lin may be the bravest man in Boise. In the first place, he gave a speech. On top if this, as with all the other speakers, one person in the Toastmasters’ audience timed Lin’s speech. Another recorded the number of times he used words such as “uh” ”um” or “you know” (these are called “crutch words”) and also counted his grammatical errors. Yet another was taking notes for an overall evaluation of his speech. To further add to Lin’s potential for discomfort, he is a native of Taiwan and speaks with a heavy accent. This didn’t keep him from giving an interesting talk about his coming to the United States and learning English and computer technology. Members of the club say the meetings are all done in a spirit of support and friendly criticism. Speeches are carefully evaluated by other members. Even the evaluators are evaluated. “For your first evaluation, I thought it was a very good job,” general evaluator Mary Lou Basler said of Diane McLain, who evaluated a speech given by librarian Anne Abrams. As the general evaluator, Basler also evaluated how the room was set up and noted an acceptable placement of the club’s banner to the left of the podium. It should be noted that Lunch Rappers does stop short of evaluating the evaluation of the evaluators. Johnson critiqued Lin’s speech and liked it. But he did mention that Lin put his left hand in his pocket during his delivery and tended to rock back and forth. After two planned speeches and four “table topic” impromptu speeches, the assigned timekeeper announce the length of each speech. Speakers can have their speeches disqualified if they are 30 seconds over or under their allotted window of time. Lin’s was six minutes and 48 seconds, 18 seconds over his time maximum. |
|
| The names "Toastmasters International", "Toastmasters", and the Toastmasters International emblem are trademarks protected by the United States, Canada, and other countries where Toastmasters Clubs exist. Unauthorized use is prohibited. |
| FOR QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, OR SUGGESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT THE WEBMASTER Laura Baker LunchRappersInfo@yahoo.com |
|