Keeping Toastmasters in the Family by Jeannette Boucher, ATM-S, CL

It was my younger son in California who first joined Toastmasters eight years ago. Over the years I learned how much his Toastmasters experience had meant to him and was persuaded to join myself after visiting Toast of the Coast two years ago. During the time it took me to earn my CTM designation I tried to persuade my older son, in business in Cincinnati, of the benefits of the program, with the result that he is also a member, having completed six speeches. Now when we get together we have fun times talking about various speeches we've given and how are clubs operate. I also notice that all three of us have managed to eliminate "I mean" and "you know" from our everyday speech!

This younger son, David Rutan, recently wrote the following essay telling about his "icebreaker."

"I was standing in front of the Toastmasters audience, the 15 of them all fellow engineers, giving my first speech. That means 30 eyeballs looking my direction, and I hate being looked at. I focused on the 5 minute speech that I had written out in front of me, wishing that the speech was over. As this day had loomed closer over the last week, sleep had been harder to come by and food had lost its appeal.

Rationally I didn't see what the big deal was. The first Toastmaster's speech only meant that I had to speak about myself, a topic I should know pretty well. In my rehearsals, I had little difficulty relaying my experiences to the empty chairs at the dining room table at home. What was the difference saying the same words to an audience?

Having an audience meant all the difference. For 5 minutes, my thinking went, people's undivided attention would be on me. What if theythought that I looked funny? Or that my shirt didn't go with my pants? Or what if there was a piece of food stuck between my teeth? What if they thought I was weird? I had brought my lunch that day to the Noon meeting only to find my throat feeling much too constricted to pass food as the meeting started. I kept my hands firmly on the table or on my legs to keep them from trembling. When my legs started to shake, I clamped them together. I felt my heart pounding throughout my body and wondered if anyone could see my tortured state.

As the time to give the speech neared, I found it impossible to concentrate on anything. All I could think about was how awful it was going to be. I hoped that my fellow Toastmasters would take pity on me in their evaluations of my speech.

When it finally came time for my speech, I swallowed hard, clamped my notes in my sweaty hands and strode meekly to the lectern. The first thing that I noticed was how low the ceiling seemed (I'm over 6 ft. tall) and how close to the fluorescent light my head seemed to be. Oh great, all the more difficult to hide my nervousness from the 30 eyeballs.

I felt like I was standing in some spaceship, speaking to a bunch of aliens, and that I had a tentacle springing out of my head. Sounds somehow emanated from my mouth repeating the written words in front of me. I tried picturing the audience in their underwear but only managed to lose my place temporarily as imaging 15 fellow engineers without clothes proved to be more distracting than stress relieving. I had sprinkled little jokes into my speech but could only read them as though I was reading an instruction manual. Somehow, the audience interpreted this speech style as a tongue-in-cheek delivery, and the laughter, that I talked straight through, helped to loosen my throat at notch or two.

"After the fourth bit of laughter, I could actually crack a small smile before becoming overburdened again with the thought of the 30 eyeballs. I looked up from the written speech occasionally only to verify that people were still there. My body temperature was soaring as I approached the end of the speech, either from the adrenaline coursing through my body, or possibly from the air coming out of my mouth. Finally, just before I burst into a sweat, I concluded and sat down. As the other Toastmasters scribbled out their evaluations of my speech in the 1 minute of silence that followed the speech, I wondered if anyone would comment on the tentacle I felt emanating from my head when I was speaking.

Reading the evaluations later, there were only two which mentioned a "trace of nervousness" in my presentation. Could this be? Did I really look OK up there? Most evaluations spoke highly of the humor in the presentation and mentioned that I had good posture and a nice speaking voice.

"In the months and years that have followed that first speech, I have given over 40 more speeches at different Toastmasters clubs and in Toastmasters speech contests. I no longer have that tentacle sticking out of my head when I speak, and my focus is on the most effective way to communicate my ideas to the audience instead of simply surviving the speech." David Rutan