The Best Journey I Ever Took: My Toastmaster’s Journey

“Hello Deepthi, Welcome to our club. So have you heard about toastmasters before? ” asked the club Vice President Education of the Punggol Park CC Toastmasters Club, the club of the World Champion of Public Speaking 2016, Darren Tay.

I smiled at him recollecting my days at The Orators Toastmasters Club and how I used to say the same lines to the first time visitors of the club. I replied, “Yes, I do. I have been associated with toastmasters since last three years; in fact I can happily say that I am a CC and CL. I was a part of The Orators Toastmasters Club in District 98. I am new to Singapore and I would like to continue my toastmaster’s journey here as well. ” He said, “That’s amazing. We are glad to have a visitor from District 98. I am sure you will enjoy our session today and I hope that you will join us soon.”

I have visited five TM community clubs here until now and planning to visit more before I decide to settle for one to join. What I learned from visiting different clubs is that it’s all the same, yet different. The culture of each club is unique to itself however the structure and the purpose remains the same. As I am about to continue my journey here by joining a different club, I can’t help but remember my days at The Orators Toastmasters Club, where I began my toastmasters journey.

1st July 2013, I joined Black & Veatch as a GET. I was very shy and timid. I restricted myself to my cubicle for the fear of having to interact with fellow colleagues. On the 4th of July, 2013 I attended my first ever toastmasters meeting at The Orators Toastmasters club. When the session for table topics started and the table topics master asked for volunteers, I raised my hand and the next moment I regretted my decision. But still I went over to the front and selected one topic. The topic I got was “Independence day”, pretty easy, but I still remember how horribly I spoke, but yet I got a round of applause and encouraging faces in response.

I was invited again for the next meeting and the next, but I didn’t attend for the fear of being called again to speak. Few days later one of the club's active member came to me and told how toastmasters has brought a drastic improvement in his personality. He said that it is a good platform to improve public speaking skills and asked me to give it a try. And I did and there was no looking back since then.

My icebreaker speech was good but it didn’t win me the best speaker for the day however I enjoyed breaking my ice. I took my first role as joke master of the day and instead of cracking jokes I read the jokes from a piece of paper, word to word, hiding my face behind the page. Few months later, I took the role of the toastmaster of the day, where I forgot the sequence of events, exceeded the time and was successful in making the session a mess. But for all of these failures, I only got encouragement and support from my fellow toastmasters in return. I distinctly remember giving my second speech ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus’. I wrote it from my own experience of being an only girl in the batch of GETs. It was a humorous speech and I was able to tickle everyone’s funny bones. I got my first best speaker award and many beautiful comments. One of the comments was “I never knew you could speak so well.” And I thought to myself “In fact, even I didn’t.”

Toastmasters revealed the things about me which I never thought I could do.

I realized that writing down my thoughts and delivering it through a speech is something that I love to do. Soon I completed my CC. I started contesting in speech contests and started winning a few of them. Parallel to my “speech journey”, I regularly took different roles at the session out of which I liked being the table topics master the most, because that’s the only role where you would be spared from being a table topics speaker! Yes, giving prepared speeches slowly had started becoming a five-finger exercise for me however speaking impromptu was still an uphill battle. One day I was asked if I was willing to take up a role in executive committee; with lot of hesitance I said ‘yes’ for the role of Vice-President Public Relations. I started enjoying the role as I was entitled with responsibility to be the editor of the quarterly Magazine Mind spark. It was a tough task gathering articles from everyone and compiling the same, but I was learning a lot from the task at hand. I became a mentor to few new members of the club. I enjoyed editing their speeches and practising with them. To see my mentees giving their speeches with confidence gave me more joy than I got from delivering my own speeches. It was the time when the club’s membership was declining. Few core members left the club which shook the foundation of the club and somehow it became difficult to control the attrition rate of the club. The club started shrinking and the quality of the session was coming down. But something was

pushing me to continue with the club and not to give up. It was time to elect the new executive committee members for the club and I was asked to take the responsibility of the President.

During my first six months tenure as the President, I saw myself failing as a leader.

We were 8 members left and it was becoming difficult to conduct the sessions. The discussions of dissolving the club started to come off. I didn’t want it to happen, nor did few core members of the club. We decided to do something about it and give last try to build the membership. The executive committee had discussions with office management. The area director, HR and few core members came together to find a solution. I was part of the team. I led the team and they led me. We created videos, talked to professionals and invited all to attend the demo meeting; the management encouraged everyone to join the club. The idea worked and from 8, the membership came up to 24. There were new faces, new expectations and new enthusiasm. The club got the “Never Give up Attitude Award” and receiving that award was one of the proudest moments for me.

I had joined the toastmasters club to become a good communicator, but accidently I became a good leader too.

Today when I look back at my toastmaster’s journey I realize that my failures and successes at toastmasters club, have nurtured my self-confidence. And that is the reason I like to continue my journey and I know that there is lot more to learn. It’s true that I will be continuing my journey with a different club now here at Singapore, but my days at The Orators Toastmasters club will be always in my memories, because the club has a lot of contribution in making me the person I am today.