Toastmaster Thursdays!

Public speaking is more than just addressing an audience. It entails feeling the pulse of the audience, connecting and engaging with it, and creating a forum that activates dialogue and inspires fruitful action. Ralph C. Smedley started the Smedley Chapter One Club in 1924 that eventually evolved into the Toastmasters club – now an international non-profit educational organization that operates clubs worldwide to help members improve their communication, public speaking, and leadership skills.

Here at ISB, we have a 30 member strong group of passionate and talented speakers who are getting progressively better with every speech. Every speaker starts with an icebreaker speech and follows it up with nine project speeches over the course of the one year at ISB. The speaker is thoroughly scrutinized on aspects such as stage presence, body language, gestures, ability to generate humor, ability to connect with the listeners, and grammar skills. Meetings are scheduled for every Thursday evening and are attended by members and non-members alike.

The Toastmasters club is one of the avenues on offer at ISB wherein students can make a tangible transformation in their personality, confidence, and appeal. We have witnessed marked changes in the speech delivery of almost all the speakers thus far, not only on forums such as these, but even in their daily interactions with fellow students. There are a few experienced speakers in the group (Arun, Shrikala, Abhishek, and Rakesh), who not only lend their precious inputs to the greenhorns, but also raise the standard every time they give speeches. Being the VP-education of the club has afforded me the opportunity to evaluate speakers on their grammar and general speech skills. It has been an enriching experience given the mutual learning.     

Five core members – the club president (Pooja Nayyar), VP-education (Kshiteesh Phansalkar), VP-public relations (Mohit Mittal), the treasurer (Kushal Vidyarthi), and VP-membership (Lester Noronha), run the Toastmasters club at ISB.

The awesomely awesome core committee

This forum works as a perfect training ground for leaders-to-be because being a powerful orator very closely correlates to success as a leader. The club here at ISB is doing a fabulous job of unearthing hidden talents and polishing the known ones. The bonhomie and admiration amongst the members at every meeting is seen to be believed. Every member is greeted with a rapturous applause before the speech and given a warm ovation at the end of it. This fosters a sense of oneness, mutual respect, and an environment of collective learning. Every meeting is a treat to be a part of and each one of us leaves a notch higher in intellect and a couple of notches higher in contentment!

Kshiteesh Phansalkar, Class of 2015