Our Program

About Toastmasters

Toastmasters is a non-profit organization whose clubs operate with the goal of promoting communication and public speaking skills. Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development. Our organization has more than 357,000 memberships. Members improve their speaking and leadership skills by attending one of the 16,600 clubs in 143 countries that make up our global network of meeting locations.

The world needs leaders. Leaders head families, coach teams, run businesses and mentor others. These leaders must not only accomplish, they must communicate. By regularly giving speeches, gaining feedback, leading teams and guiding others to achieve their goals in a supportive atmosphere, leaders emerge from the Toastmasters program. Every Toastmasters journey begins with a single speech. During their journey, they learn to tell their stories. They listen and answer. They plan and lead. They give feedback—and accept it. Through our community of learners, they find their path to leadership.

For more information refer to Toastmasters International.

Pathways Education Program

Pathways is an extremely flexible self-paced education program that you can tailor to your needs. When you sign up for pathways, you will receive a link to a questionnaire that can help you determine which path is ideally suited to your needs at toastmasters. Once you select a path, the entire toastmasters community at and outside of Fair Oaks Toastmasters is available to guide you through the journey of being able to articulate your inner self. At, Fair Oaks Toastmasters you will have the opportunity to see members at different levels in their program from beginners at level 1 to distinguished toastmasters known and recognized for their skills.

To get more information about pathways, we have a video introduction to the entire toastmasters pathways program provided in a generic manner that is applicable to not only Fair Oaks but toastmasters in general as well.

The 10 paths available at Pathways include:

1. Dynamic Leadership 6. Persuasive Influence

2. Effective Coaching 7. Presentation Mastery 

3. Innovative Planning 8. Strategic Relationships

4. Leadership Development 9. Team Collaboration

5. Motivational Strategies 10. Visionary Communication

Anatomy of a Toastmasters Meeting

A toastmasters meeting consists of three parts:

Prepared Speeches

Prepared speeches are avenues for members to present a rehearsed speech, typically of 5-7 minutes. These speeches allow the member to progress on the pathways agenda. The speaker is free to chose a topic of his/her liking and the speaker gets full attention of audience as well as guidance from a series of evaluations that can help improving the skills that a speaker can have.

Table Topics

Table Topics are opportunities for impromptu speaking and participation in the meeting for everyone. A topics master presents questions on the meeting theme and invites everyone to speak without preparation. The unprepared and erratic nature of table topics teaches us to think on our feet and has proven to be a great source of humor and learning in the meetings.

Evaluations

Everyone in the audience is evaluating the speeches and providing feedback. There is also a dedicated evaluator assigned to each speaker who focusses on the key ingredients of a speech like - the content, the structure, the use of the stage, body language, eye contact, the use of drama, of silence and every other aspect of the speech. In this section the evaluator provides feedback not only to the speaker but also to the rest of the audience to learn from not only the expertise of the speaker but also the evaluator.  Our evaluators are seasoned toastmasters who have taken the stage multiple times and have experience going through a lot of motions that a first time speakers go through.

Awards

There is no fun until there is some competition. In each meeting we have a contest amongst the speakers, evaluators and table topics speakers to crowned the best for the day. There is always something to be for the taking if you give in a little bit extra in your minutes of fame on the stage.

Meeting Roles

Each speaker gets feedback for his speeches in various forms: