To prepare for my first speech I watched Betsy from the Austin Toastmasters Club.

On the way to the meeting I was so nervous that I almost couldn’t drive. If I had someone with me I would have surely asked them to drive. I did make it there and did the speech. I did not say what I planned to say but Sean Barton the evaluator told me that it did not matter because no one there knew what I had planned to say. This was a major victory for me because in the past I took a public speaking class at the University of Houston. When it was my turn to speak I was too afraid to show up. This time I overcame my fear and I know that the hardest part was done thanks to the supportive people at the Toastmasters club. Later I found a great article that helps you understand your fear on Scotty Burch’s Blog

I was so ready to join that I  came to the meeting  with my application filled out.  I  gave a Table Topics speech about a bad weather experience (a  Table Topics speech last between one and two minutes and you do not know what the subject is until you stand up to speak). I completely forgot about hurricane Ike ( it left three giant trees on my rent house in Houston and caused me to spend 3 months camped out in the driveway there). I completely forgot about Hurricane Rita from 2005 (that one caused me to move to Austin in the first place). I guess I was just too nervous for my brain to work. I signed up and scheduled my Icebreaker speech for next week. The Icebreaker speech is your first planned speech in Toastmasters.

After seeing president Obama’s speech on 2/24/09 I was so impressed with his speaking ability that it gave me the desire to improve mine. Years ago I took a Dale Carnigie course and they recommended that I join Toastmasters to continue practicing my speaking skills. I always thought that Toastmasters was for rich and powerful people not regular people like me. I changed my opinion when I saw the videos on the Toastmaster website. I decided to go to a meeting to see what it was like. When I got to the meeting I met Darrel Thurman. He was really friendly and introduced me to almost everybody there. I even got to meet the club president Valentina Vale de Gideon . After watching my first Toastmaster meeting I was so impressed with the organization and friendlyness of the club that I wanted to join.