WGR Toastmasters
WGR Toastmasters is a group devoted to improving members’ public speaking abilities through a supportive speaking environment. Members take on various speaking roles and give speeches while receiving feedback from other members.
How Toastmasters Works
At Toastmasters, members learn by speaking to groups and working with others in a supportive environment. A typical Toastmasters club is made up of 10 to 20 people who meet once a week for about an hour. Each meeting provides opportunities to practice:
- Conducting meetings - Meetings usually begin with a short business session which helps members learn basic meeting procedures.
- Giving impromptu speeches - Members present one to two minute impromptu speeches on assigned topics.
- Presenting prepared speeches - Three or more members present speeches based on projects from the Toastmasters International Communication and Leadership Program manuals. Projects cover such topics as speech organization, voice, language, gestures, and persuasion.
- Offering constructive evaluation - Every prepared speaker is assigned an evaluator who points out speech strengths and offers suggestions for improvement.
The Tools You Use
Upon joining a Toastmasters club, each new member receives an instructional speech manual and resources on speaking. Members also have access to other books as well as audio and video cassettes on speaking and leading. They also receive The Toastmaster, an award-winning monthly magazine that offers the latest insights on speaking and leadership techniques.
Toastmasters & Leadership
Leadership cannot be learned in a day. It takes practice. In Toastmasters, members build leadership skills by organizing and conducting meetings and motivating others to help them. Club leadership roles and a leadership development program also offer opportunities to learn and practice. Just as members of Toastmasters learn to speak simply by speaking, they learn leadership by leading.
Company Benefits
A company's success also depends on communication. Employees face an endless exchange of ideas, messages, and information as they deal with one another and with customers day after day. How well they communicate can determine whether a company quickly grows into an industry leader or joins thousands of other businesses mired in mediocrity.
Toastmasters provides the tools that enable employees to become effective communicators and leaders all at a very low cost.
Toastmasters training helps employees:
- give better sales presentations
- hone their management skills
- work better with fellow employees
- effectively develop and present ideas
- offer constructive criticism
- accept criticism more objectively
Toastmasters produces results. Around the world more than three million men and women of all ages and occupations have benefited from Toastmasters training, and more than one thousand corporations, community groups, universities, associations, and government agencies now use Toastmasters training.
Community Benefits
Toastmasters has helped many members in their community service activities. Using the speaking and leadership skills developed in Toastmasters, people have become more active in business, churches, and service and charity organizations. Toastmasters members are able to organize activities, conduct meetings, and speak in public as their organization's representative. Some even become active in local, state or national government.
Toastmasters Meetings
Meetings are held the second and fourth Wednesday's of every month from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm. Toastmasters meets at Shell Oil Company, 1050 K Street, NW, Suite 700 (Metro Center). Guests are always welcome and you may bring a brown bag lunch if you would like.
Become a Member:
Ready to join? Contact Lorna Soderberg at lorna.soderberg@shell.com or 202.466.1470. We make new members feel right at home!