[dropcap]T[/dropcap]alking in front of a large group of people isn’t a big deal for Dripping Springs resident John Letlow.
With a deep voice and a confident tone, Letlow isn’t one to shy away when he’s asked to make a presentation, or in this case, conduct an interview.
But Letlow understands that’s not the case for many Americans who fear the art of public speaking.
“The gag line is, at a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than do the eulogy,” Letlow said.
But through the Toastmasters organization, an international club that’s nearly 100 years old, residents are able to find a way to overcome that fear and spread the good word to their peers.
Toastmasters International is an organization that has more than 345,000 memberships and over 15,000 clubs worldwide.
The organization began as a series of speaking clubs organized by Ralph C. Smedley, who worked at the YMCA in Bloomington, Illinois at the start of the 20th century, according to the Toastmaster’s website. Those clubs were created to help men in the community learn how to speak, conduct meetings, plan programs and work on committees.
The first unofficial Toastmasters meeting was held in March 1905, according to the website. Smedley then moved to California and held the first official meeting of the Toastmasters in 1924.
Since then, the organization has spread worldwide and gained millions of members.
Toastmaster group meetings give members experience in the art of public speaking.
“The gag line is, at a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than do the eulogy.” John Letlow, member of Dripping Springs Toastmasters
In Dripping Springs, the Toastmaster organization meets once per month and has approximately 35 members.
But not all who attend the meetings are business executives or the shy-at-heart.
“We have a diverse group. We have doctors, teachers and a retired judge, and we have a couple of lawyers,” Letlow said. “It’s a fun club, it really is.”
The group assists its membership base is through several techniques. New members start off with the basics, which derive from the verified speaker’s manual.
That manual offers ten lessons for the ten different kind of speeches. Letlow said the lessons are cumulative and help members improve their public speaking skills.
It also covers important public speaking topics such as eye contact and body language.
In meetings, the group discusses the manual and has members conduct prepared speeches based on the part of the manual they’re working on.
The Dripping Springs group then shifts to table topics, where a chairman asks questions and picks someone to step to a podium and answer in roughly one to two minutes. Dripping Springs’ final part of its meeting is the evaluation section, where an evaluator critiques the speaker on how they performed.
All of it, however, is done in an environment that is not judgmental, Letlow said. The goal is to offer support to speakers and help them learn the art of speaking in public.
“Personally, I’ve seen people come in to Toastmasters and be literally terrified where they couldn’t speak at all,” Letlow said. “A year leader, they were better speakers than Bill Clinton.”
As a member of Toastmaster for nine years, Letlow said the lessons learned have helped him in his business and personal life. He said it’s made him “much more comfortable” in leadershipship skills.
And while there is some fear associated with public speaking, Letlow said Toastmasters helps to dispel it.
“One of the great things is removing the fear factor,” Letlow said. “A lot of people are afraid of public speaking. Once you remove the fear factor, it becomes a joy to do it.”
