Toastmasters

Growing up with having a history of seizures really caused some problems for me in life.  When I was in Elementary School I had to go through a Speech Therapy program, in till I was in about 5th grade.  I tend to be a really shy person, so between that and having to do the speech therapy, I became extremely nervous when it came to public speaking. It was not in till my mom became the Fire Prevention officer with OWL VFD (Occuquan Woodbridge Lorton Volunteer Fire Department), that we were truly around Public speaking opportunities. My mom, sister, and I would work Pub Ed (Public Education) events, where we would teach fire safety to sometimes ten people and sometimes a couple hundred.  It can be a horrifying thought, but when we were little we did not think about it. We loved it and had fun teaching it.

Once I got older though, and had to present projects or papers. The thought of it started to make me scared. Public speaking after all is one of the top most feared things out there, and I was experiencing that. Then my mom found a club called toastmasters when I was 16. She was brought in to the club by one of her college professors, while she was working to get her master's program. She instantly fell in love with it. She began to drag me to the meetings with her. Even though I was not of age to be a meeting I feel in love with it too.

Just by listening to the meetings I learned so much, so that by the time I was 18 I was ready to join officially. I am still a beginner like in the video below the person who gave the ice breaker.

I truly think that this club has helped me a lot. I believe that though I am continuing to grow from the club. I wanted to share it with people here at the Nova Woodbridge Campus. The Annandale campus I believe it has a toastmasters group, they incorporate it within their communications classes, making their program a specialized communication program. I am right now trying to start a Toastmasters club at the Woodbridge Campus. I have two people right now interested and I need three more to get a room, so that we can start meetings here at the Nova campus.  I am going to have the club open to all Students, Facility, and staff, as well as if people have friends they believe should try toastmasters.

I would like to encourage you to try toastmasters, you learn a lot and it is truly a lot of fun. You learn not only how to be a public speaker without using filler words; you also learn listening and leadership skills as well as evaluating skills.

If you believe Toastmasters can help you too. Then please let me know my email is cee229@email.vccs.edu

I look forward to starting a club here at Nova and I hope you find it just as exciting as I do.



"Welcome To Toastmasters (Full Version)." YouTube. YouTube, 11 May 2011. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.