Toastmasters

One of the simplest art that could have been acquired by humans is the art to converse. This seems to be the only thing that comes so easily and naturally to us. But lets ponder over this for a while. Does it really come that easily to all of us? In the basic sense - yes. But being an ambitious species, a human being's quest for reaching various milestones in both personal and professional life requires him to do public speaking. There are a lot of other skills in the initial stages which take priority and this communication/ conversation/ public speaking bug bites us a little less unless of course we want to go for a course like MBA. What we fail to notice at this stage is that the goods we are to deliver at our job and in our personal life are not complete without conveying out the right information by the right means. And when we begin to lose out because of lack of communication skills, we realize that it's time to develop this very fundamental skill. All that we need for this is an awareness of our needs and goals, the company of other human beings who can provide constructive feedback, an informal yet structured technique, and a platform to practice the technique.

This is exactly what Toastmasters club has to offer. Toastmasters was started in 1924 in US and now it has nearly 15000 clubs in 90 countries.I've heard Toastmasters has 2 other community clubs as well in Delhi. The maximum number of Toastmasters club in India are Bangalore formed mostly within big IT companies. The reason for starting this club was the research findings that nearly 70-80% of the people have the fear of public speaking. For some who don't have this fear , becoming a Toastmasters might give them that extra edge as far as their communication skillls are concerned. And for someone who wants to overcome the fear of public speaking, it might be a Leap of faith - at least in the initial period. So i'm looking forward to joining this club which is being established within my company premises in Noida.