Big cheers to top toasters

DO you have a fear of public speaking or just want to improve your skills?

The Bendigo Toastmasters club meets twice a month with all members having an opportunity to enhance their speech giving skills.

Each meeting features a warm-up, a structured talk for someone to give their prepared speech, and impromptu talks for members to speak on a random topic for two minutes.

Vice-president of Bendigo Toastmasters John Warner said the group focuses on constructive feedback and developing communication skills.

“Absolutely everything we do is evaluated on the night, that give’s people feedback on what their strengths are, areas that they could perhaps improve” he said.

When COVID-19 forced their meetings online, Mr Warner said it created more opportunities.

It is a worldwide organisation. During COVID, we had people from other countries drop into our meetings which was quite a different experience,” he said.

Mr Warner has seen people join the club for many different reasons but all with the overall aim of improving their public speaking.

“Sometimes you can have people who come along for a while because they’ve got to do a speech for their daughter or son’s wedding,” he said.

“Some people want to improve in their career, and they realise unless they get better at standing up in front of a group of people, they’re never going to progress in an organisation.

“The other side is just for the comradery you’ve got… I’m always learning and I’m always very fascinated by other members stories about events in their life or work that inspire you to tackle things with more energy and more optimism.”

Toastmasters International’s pathways program is another way for members to learn and enhance their leadership skills.

“There’s thousands of hours of training and various paths online that direct you to gain more knowledge in the area you want to apply it,” Mr Warner said.

If you’ve got a passion for public speaking, or want to enhance your communication skills, check out Bendigo Toastmasters on Facebook.