Westmount Toastmasters: Public speaking breeds confidence.

Many of us shrivel and cringe at the thought of standing up and speaking our minds in front of others. Members of the Westmount Toastmasters club are working on conquering fears of public speaking by facing them head on. Every Tuesday at 7 p.m., about 20 people gather in Victoria hall to spend an hour delivering formal speeches in front of each other.

Susan Klucinskas, who joined the Westmount Toastmasters two years ago, is now president of the club. “People join for various reasons,” she said. “For the most part it is to improve their communications and leadership skills, to get over fears of public speaking or to improve on the gifts they already have.”

Right now the club consists of 33 registered members who come from all different walks of life. Age, professional background and levels of public speaking experience are not a factor. Throughout course of the meetings, every speaker is treated with utmost respect and is given thoroughly constructive evaluations by fellow members.

There are certain skills the Toastmasters strive to perfect during the weekly meetings. The use of eye contact, gestures, vocal variety, organization and content of speech are subjected to evaluation. These aspects are covered in the manuals issued to the members, however, the main goal of these Tuesday night speakers is maintaining their own individual voices and delivering a message in the most natural way possible. “I speak in all sorts of settings: lectures, informal talks, conferences, from three-hour-long lectures to ten-minute blitz research talks, so I have to be very versatile," said McGill computer science professor Martin Robillard. He has been a member of the club for four years now, and believes that no other club has offered him such tangible and concrete benefit from membership.

The meetings run over the course of an hour, and every minute is accounted for. Club members are assigned executive roles, and the facilitators make sure that all goes according to plan. The well structured meetings run smoothly akin to the serious corporate summits or court procedures.

In proper Toastmaster fashion, members present jokes, toasts, short impromptu speeches and longer discourses on assigned topics. Every presentation is evaluated by the fellow members using detailed criteria. “You can tell when somebody is a member of Toastmasters, in a way you can tell a graduate of the Carnegie School of Public Speaking, there are certain things that have been instilled,” said Klucinskas.

The club’s doors are open for anyone who decides to join or to see what the club is all about. No reservations are necessary and drop-ins are welcome.