Lone Star Toastmasters, an affiliated club of Toastmasters International, is dedicated to improving the public speaking skills of its members. Anyone can benefit from the Toastmasters experience -- you do not have to be a professional speaker to reap the rewards of participation in Toastmasters.

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 20 to 30 people who meet once a week for about an hour. Each meeting gives everyone an opportunity 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 a variety of manuals 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 award-winning The Toastmaster, a monthly magazine that offers the latest insights on speaking and leadership techniques.

Toastmasters and 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 Toastmasters members 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.

For more informaiton on the Lonestar Toastmasters, please contact Jose Segarra at EXIT Home Vets at 1-888-953-8387 or (254) 953-8387.  Or Robert Gregory at Quality Desktop Resume Services at 254-554-8559.

*The Lonestar Toastmasters meet each Tuesday evening (7:00 pm sharp) at the Ft. Hood Area Association of Realtors, which is located at the corner of Florence and Mary Jane.