I recently decided to join Toastmasters International. If you don’t know what Toastmasters is all about you should check it out at www.Toastmasters.org.
I joined Toastmasters for a number of reasons. I am regularly asked to give presentations on inspections as a part of my job here at LaRocca Inspections, I also have taken on a number of leadership roles within the REALTOR associations I belong to which require me to organize, and facilitate meetings and give presentations on occasion, and last but not least, I have my side career as a singer which requires me to be on stage for hours and keep things rolling and interesting in between songs. I already felt pretty comfortable in front of a crowd prior to joining Toastmasters but I figured it could do no harm to try to hone my skills and hopefully learn new skills and tricks to make presentations and performances smoother and more focused.
So far, I’ve belonged to the All StAARs club in Arcadia for approximately 6 months. We meet every other week. I have enjoyed learning about the rules and rituals of Toastmasters and giving speeches with specific learning objectives in mind such as organizing my speech, and clearly identifying and sticking to my speech topic.
This past Friday, I gave my third speech for toastmasters. The “Get To The Point” speech which puts importance on identifying a General Purpose, Specific purpose, and maintaining focus throughout the speech. I chose to do my speech on the topic of self-esteem with the specific purpose of inspiring the audience to be kinder to themselves. The title of my speech was “Learning to Love Yourself (Is the Greatest Love of All).” I think it came together really well and was especially proud when my fellow toastmaster voted me the best speaker of the day! Carrie caught the speech on video so I decided to share it with you. Let me know what you think J
-April Kass
Marketing Director
LaRocca Inspections
laroccainspect 