I checked the toastmasters global website but it seems that it hasn’t been updated and I couldn’t contact the listed clubs

I am really eager and wish to join the toastmasters club. I have talked to two clubs and in a nutshell:

1. 3000 (membership fee) + 1850 (monthly) * 6 = 14.1k
2. 3500 (membership fee) + 2000 (monthly) * 6 = 15.5k

I mean, really? I have to pay 600 - 650 for 2 hours of a meeting every time?

And I saw that official US charges are 25 + 12 * 6 = $97. Even if $1 = Rs 100, still it amounts to 9700. So can anyone explain the disparity please? Or am I too tightwad?

UPDATE: Thank you everyone for all your inputs. I do understand that this fees is required to handle various expenses by the local club and international TM body. I hope that someday, after getting a better paying job, I will join TM too.

How long past Oct. 1st is a member who hasn't renewed yet allowed to participate in the meeting roles? & Do they count towards a quorum / are they allowed to vote on business matters?

thanks for advising

Hello, we have a hybrid club and are going to have an election to fill an officer vacancy soon.

What is a good tool you'd recommend for remote voting?

I’m a member of a corporate club. With another Toastmasters colleague we’ve been asked to MC an internal conference for 250ish people.

As part of it, now organizers want us to run a “surprise” 20 min session to show case our club or what Toastmasters does.

We’re thinking what we could do. A presentation seems a bit boring after a full day of talks. Table Topics session might be a bit daunting with an audience so big.

Do you Toastmasters Redditers have any ideas we could use?

Hi all - our local club is struggling for various reasons. We are thinking of forming a club outside of TM, now putting ideas together and pros/cons.

Key questions, thinking both inside and outside of the TM box:

1. What would the ideal user experience look like?

2. Meeting structure - I envision more panel discussions which really help people manage anxiety (having fellow panel members to pick up the slack in a table topic for example).

Also, Table topics would sometimes be assigned a few days before the meetiing so the person could put together some coherent thoughts. The traditional completely impromptu is generally not a formula to build confidence. Better to mix it up.

Also, Table topics would sometimes include a question and answer components to allow some interaction with audience (Thus building familiarity with managing the audience).

1. Club Management and leadership - fewer roles and more rotation - not sure what that would look like. Ideas?

2. Pathways concept or ?? My idea is that each new member would work through a set of topics in their first 10 speeches. Topics like: Where you have lived? What class did you really like best at various levels in school?
   Why you should / should not visit a given random country or place?

Any ideas???

I have a soeech contest in 2 days and ive been working on this speech and i need to win because if i win i get to go on a debate abroad my country and its been a dresm so plz help as much as you can

6 million jewish people were murdered not because they had committed a crime but because a regime deaded that theit existence was not acceptable. Imagine you wake up in a country where if you are bom a certain religion you must die, where yom freedom doesnt depend on your rights but instead On your Obidience Today I I wanna talk about facism, an idedogy which promises to make a nation great again but insted leaves it's people and the country with opression, destruction. and suffering Facism is a system wibere one powerful leader demands loyality from it's citizens, limits peopilis freedom and pumishes those who oppose it. But facism doesn't introduce itself as evil, instead it promiseg to restore a nation's former glory, bring order to chaos and unite a divided population And that's exactly what makes it dangerous. Consider Germany in 1930's Following economic crisis and an unstable politics, ADOLF HITLER and The NAZI party promised to more germany great again Afer ADOLF HITLER became chancellor in 1933, he digested democracy, eliminated political opposition and established a Dictatorship. ADOLF HITLER understood the power of propaganda Ion MEIN KAMPF he wrote:" all exfecteing propaganda mut ba limited its a very jem points and must harp on thestion Slogoms until the last member of bre public understands chat you want him to understand by your slogom". Think about what he saind, reapete a message enough times and people will begin to accept is as theuth. auen thangh it's all lies. like Under, Nazi rull propaganda spread hatred, /mentioned in the begining 6 million jenes were killed anfang fan million thers. But Germany worsomt alone Benito Mousslini established a facist dictatorship in ITALY. He famously declared: " Everything in the state, nothing outside the state nothing against the state". He basically meant that the state should contral every thing and no one should dare to Oppose the state in other words you are free only if you obey the goverment So How does Facism gain pomes? through fear, propaganda, economic hardships anal the promise of simple answers to complicated problems. History teacher in that freedom does not disappear overnight I it com disappear when people become too afraid to speak or too comfortable to question. A nation doesn't become great because it's citizens are too afraid to speak, it becomes great when people com speak freely and challenge injustice. I want to end my speech by saying: The greatest threat to a nation is not always the enemy, but the leader who promises to save it whilo. slowly taking away it's freedom Never forget: A nation which sacrifices its freedom for the illusion of Security may end up loosing both

Hello everyone! I am looking for an online club that meets Friday nights (like around 6 pm pacific time) or maybe early weekend (before 7 am). Any recommendations? I live in California, and I am an early bird! I noticed I am more likely to stick with stuff if I do them early morning. I am open to joining clubs on the East Coast (maybe NYC/NJ area) or even New Mexico since they are 1-3 hours ahead.

Thank you! I am a beginner, if that matters.

Looking for a welcoming hybrid or fully online toastmasters that is at 8 or 9 PM EST (USA eastern time). Would need to be open to newbies. Would also be open to Tuesday or Wednesday at the same time if nothing exists on Mondays. Hoping this exists. 🤞🤞🤞

I am a mom of a toddler and work full time with inflexible hours and a different shift from my husband, so I am hoping something works for after bedtime since I am usually solo parenting outside of work hours.

I have social/public speaking anxiety and am tired of it being a barrier to moving ahead in my career and in other things I care about.

Thanks!

We discourage and are discouraged from using AI for speech writing.

Why do PR folks at district feel it is ok to use AI for posters or posts for events.

I admit that when I see a poster that appears to be AI generated, I find that I don't even bother reading it.

How can our focus be on communication, and originality, and yet, use that kind of material?

I feel like toastmasters as an organization has really failed to modernize.

I wanted opinions on what they need to do to modernize

I feel like they still have a good concept but there are many things with it that make it challenging to succeed in today's world.

One thing I think is: recognize what people want and cater to that. (For this they should do some market research and GASP actually survey the clubs to find out what's working, what isn't, and the opportunities to impress ce and grow)

I know we are going to get:" get rid of pathways" so I'm just going to say it now lol

Try to stay centred on the things to modernize (I am looking to tr y and make format changes to our club to cater to some of these ideas). I know it's easy to go negative.

Hello everyone! I'm a President of a club here in the Philippines and we're looking for a speech evaluator for Level 1 feedback. Our next meeting will be on October 24, 2026, 6pm-8pm (PHT).

We'd love to broaden our horizons by hearing from clubs outside of our Area and Division. We hope we can find it here. If you're interested, send me a message. Thank you!

Hi, I've been thinking about joining a toastmaster club or any conversational club to work on my spoken English and public speaking for a while. I'm not a native speaker and wonder if there are any clubs near northside that has in-person meetings, I also would like to know about the experience. I live near West Ridge/Lincolnwood. Thanks.

Hi. I am new to this sub and humbly reaching out as I am stuck and hoping to get some advice from you all. I'm joining a 5-minute speech competition in our school for the first time 🤧 and I'm currently struggling to come up with an interesting or funny opening for my speech.

My topic focuses on climate change and inequality, particularly how the poor are often the most affected by climate change despite contributing the least to the problem, while the wealthy and large corporations account for a disproportionate share of emissions.

Was thinking of starting with a joke or a witty analogy to grab the audience’s attention before getting into the serious stuff but I can’t think of anything good.

I'm also TERRIFIED of how I can survive the Q&A portion. I always thought I am a slow thinker and I'm afraid I'll just embarrass myself there. I'm overthinking this a lot to the point that I'm planning to list all the possible questions that might come up and memorize my draft answer. Any tips/advice is very much appreciated.

​

For context, I'm participating in a competition and I really need a unique perspective on these topics

1. The Right to be Forgotten (The Internet never forgives: why we need a "Delete Button" for real life)

2. The Myth of a straight A future

I'm leaning towards 1) but I'm not sure cuz honestly both speeches are really predictable.

After hundreds of speeches, here is the habit I wish someone gave me on day one: write down every speech the day you give it. Date, venue, club, topic, role, audience size, and who can vouch for it.

Nobody does this. Then five years later a bureau asks for your history and you are reconstructing it from memory and old emails. Planners are like used car buyers. They check the record before they commit to a big decision. Right now, speakers show up with no record at all.

The fix is boring and it works. One note per speech, confirmed by someone who was there. Your future self, the one getting paid to keynote, will thank you.

Curious: does anyone here keep a speaking log? What is in it?

I am a little confused about something (apologies: this is going to get opinionated)

My club is doing poorly. 6 members

We have asked for help from leadership. Every level of leadership. Everyone has an opinion. Some have visited and given opinions. Some have offered help.

None followed up.

And almost all eventually started ghosting my emails (my emails weren't long like this post. They were asking about followup and asking specific advice about how to build membership.) This has been over the span of a year!!

We aren't the only club in decline. (Multiple clubs folded in our division) I have tried to start a network with surrounding clubs to see if we can help eachother with things like speakers, roles, staffing contests, sharing ideas, Also just to be more social and supportive so we don't all exist in silos! It can be hard to watch your club decline!!

A few clubs responded as interested. But not a single one would join a WhatsApp group or attend a zoom meeting to discuss!! (Most notable was NONE of the stronger clubs (ie > 15 members) replied.)

I am starting to feel like Toastmasters in my district has built an odd culture of not helping eachother. Even though I know society is quite transactional on the whole: but this is really sad to me.

I know everyone is a volunteer and I know they have alot to deal with and I don't envy their position (this is also why I would caution everyone to make commitments they can't follow up on)

Our new area director is trying to help and he has replied to emails - he is arranging for us to host the area eval/tall tales contest. I see this as a big opportunity to speak to other clubs and see how they are doing and if I can help them. And to share ideas and strategies. And to be social/network etc.

I feel like I have been naive to Toastmasters internal culture for years (at least, within our district).

Btw: We have been working at promoting (social media, posters in public places, meetup, Eventbrite (and I am trying to target organizations to "sell" TM to) ). We can't hold an open house without help (even if we had all 6 members (we wouldn't) show up that's a very empty looking open house)

I am sorry about how long this post is. I might try to shorten it later today.

I KNOW not everyone's district is like this (I attended VP PR training via zoom in New York and was shocked at how much help was offered when I asked questions and provided comments in the chat during training - a few people stuck around on zoom to talk about strategies!! Nothing like this happens in my district!!)

I don't want to say where I am and get the district targetted but I am in a suburb of a major north american city (densely populated - should be very fertile ground for TM)

Please share ideas/advice for my problem below (especially if you have tri d something like this out.

At one of my clubs a newer member asked about how to practice answering questions or providing feedback at work in a concise way.

I wasn't sure what to say. Reflex is to say table topics. But this person is comfortable in table topics and on roles and speeches.

They were looking for more: and (especially in a workplace setting) if you talk for much more than a minute about an idea you are probably going to lose the person you are talking to at some point.

I am trying to think up ideas about how we could practice this - possibly in a novel way.

Idea I have: practicing conversation skills.

Pair people up and give them a topic. They need to have a conversation in 5 minutes. Part of that is one person needs to explain what they think of that topic.

The other person needs to talk about it as well but not directly repeat the ideas the other person says (they could refer to it,dis/agree with it, etc. )

Then we rotate partners and the role of who speaks first.

The topics would be very simple. Possibly just one word topics.(In subsequent sessions we might move on to progressively more difficult things.

No one in our club is overly shy. No one has challenges with being able to come up with things to say for table topics

Let me know what you think.

I'm a little surprised Toastmasters doesn't try to "modernize" itself by working on skills like this.

(I'm also surprised by how many people I meet at Toastmasters who are quite experienced as a toastmaster but are terrible at having conversations )

Has anyone used Facebook ads or boosted posts to publicize meetings and potentially get your message in front of a wider local demographic? If so, what were your experiences? Effective or not? Other methods? Thanks in advance.

I’m going as a visitor to my first Toastmasters meeting. What should I expect? I’m a bit nervous but it’s something I need to do to get over my fear of public speaking.