Unaccustomed As I Am
By Peer J. Oppenhtimer
f hat is the first need of a man who wishes to learn to speak in public?
ul': n- nanay sei or joKes.' A good textbook?
"An audience!" insists Ted Blanding of Santa Ana, Calif., affable ex-landscape
artist who is executive director of Toastmasters International.
Toastmasters International neither manufactures toasters nor acts
as an agency for after-dinner speakers.
It is neither a fraternal group, though its members join partly for fellowship, nor
a service club, though its purpose is community service through self-service.
Actually, Toastmasters' purpose is to improve its members' personality, leadership,
and general usefulness through development of their speech ability.
"But Toastmasters is not a speech course," Blanding emphasizes. "Our members
teach one another how to communicate and this means how to
listen analytically as well as how to speak."
Toastmasters of Portland, Me., tale to sea while they discuss being "Millionaire for a Night."
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Blanding himself is an example of how the process
can work. Born in Wisconsin and educated in
North Dakota, he came to California at 21 and
went to work as a landscape designer
in his brother's nursery.
It wasn't long before Blanding found himself
called on to address groups interested in garden
ing, but he was too nervous even to
stand up and state his name.
"So I joined Toastmasters," he relates, "and
attended its weekly meetings. Clubs are limited to
40 members, and each one speaks at least once a
month. His speeches are evaluated by his fellow
members. There's no professional teacher present,
no glib super-salesman to cow the newcomer. I
found that my self-confidence increased, and
I developed an ability to think on my feet and
communicate intelligently."
The Toastmasters was founded in 1924 by Dr.
Ralph Smedley, a Y.M.C.A. executive in Illinois.
Today there are clubs in almost every free country
in the world. And as Blanding puts it, "The only
reason we have no Toastmasters in Communist
countries is that if there were any, undoubtedly
they would have talked their way out from
behind the Iron Curtain by now."
What started as a class in oral communications
for Y.M.C.A. youths 34 years ago has now become
the only world-wide organization of its type. In
the last decade alone, it has grown from 250 to
some 2,000 clubs with more than 80,000 members.
How does Toastmasters work? Under the guid
ance of Blanding and his staff of 32 the only paid
personnel in the organization it mails more than
three million pieces of literature a year from its
Santa Ana headquarters to its member clubs.
From the presses run such titles as "25 Ways
to Build a Speech," "How to Run a Meeting," "How
to Evaluate a Speech," "How to Organize a Toast
masters Club," "Speech Engineering," "Conference
Manual," and many more. Since no member club
employs a professional instructor, these publica
tions are very important for self-training and
mutual evaluation.
"Everyone has something to sell," says Blanding.
"On the most intimate personal level, it may be
a matter of harmony in the home. Then it broadens
into community service. And now that Toast
masters has become world-wide, its ramifications
are tremendous."
Indeed they are. The Army and Air Force, for
example, have Toastmasters clubs to aid officers
in communication.
"A Toastmaster member knows how to get his
message over as intended," says Marine Corps
Gen. Stanley Ridderhof. Long a Toastmaster him
self, the retired general put his experience to com
munity service on the Newport Beach (Calif.)
city council.
Proper communication between people promotes
understanding among races and nations. In San
Francisco, for years there was serious friction be-
GOT
tween Italians and Chinese. Through
discussions at weekly meetings of a
Toastmasters club, this resentment has been eased.
Not a day passes that nonprofit Toastmasters
International does not receive several inquiries on
how to form a Toastmaster club. In reply, the
writer gets a packet of organizational material.
First step is the organization of a five-man
steering committee. Ultimately a new club is
chartered and its officers furnished with texts of
guidance for the conduct of their offices.
Individual clubs set their own fees, usually $1.00
to $1.50 per month, out of which 50 cents goes to
headquarters to defray literature costs. Applicants
have to be men of 21 or older. There are no other
restrictions on membership the grocery clerk
joins with doctors and lawyers, and his self
importance grows as he sees his ideas listened to
attentively by his fellow members. Most Toast
masters meet once a week, usually at dinner,
although meeting places include private homes,
boats, planes, and buses.
In the last few years, the popularity of the
organization has caused it to become something
its leaders didn't anticipate: big business. Its 1958
revenues will pass the $600,000 mark. And while
its publications are not available in book shops,
some are sold outside the'organization. Dr.
Smedley's "The Amateur Chairman," for example,
has sold more than 600,000 copies at $1 each
enough to make any publisher drool!
Family Weekly. December 7. I5I 5