A few weeks ago just before Hallowe’en, the Saint-Lawrence Toastmasters Club in Montreal had the privilege of having the current Toastmasters International President, Richard E. Peck, join our online meeting and give a speech.

We will also had a speech from our own Italo Magni (two times finalist at the World Championship of Public Speaking).

For those who missed the meeting, or who would like to view it again, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve got a recording available here.

(St-Lawrence Toastmasters online meeting)

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Interested in finding out more about Toastmasters? Feel free to join us for our upcoming meeting online.

Here is the programme for the meeting of November 24, 2020.

At the St-Lawrence Toastmasters club in Montreal, we like to have a theme for every meeting.  This will generally be the revolving theme when we hold the Table Topics session for example.

Since the theme for our upcoming meeting will be Persuasion, we thought of sharing the following speech:

Know your worth, and then ask for it | Casey Brown

What is interesting is that the speaker gives, in a persuasive manner, advice on how to persuade clients to adopt a point of view.

She does this by storytelling and by presenting simple slides that sum up important points to remember.  Here is an excerpt: “Make it about the other party. Focus on serving and adding value, and it won’t feel like bragging. What do you love about what you do? What excites you about the work that you do? If you connect with that, communicating your value will come naturally.”

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Would you like to find out how to give more persuasive speeches? Come visit our Montreal Toastmasters club.

Here is the programme for the meeting of May 28, 2019.

As Toastmasters, some of the things that we’ll find fascinating is how eloquently politicians can speak in public.  Regardless of our own political convictions, it can always be interesting to see what tools and techniques are used in a speech to make it more enjoyable to listen to.

Here, for example, is a speech by Pete Buttigieg, one of the USA presidential candidates for 2020. As mayor of South Bend, Indiana, he gave this speech at a TEDx Talk in early 2015.

Some of the techniques used in his speech include:

• Starting the speech using a story to connect with the audience immediately.
• Using the rule of three, as explained here. (Try to count the number of times that Pete uses this technique.)
• Using slides effectively: lots of photos, practically no text to read, one slide for one idea  (as opposed to many ideas on one single slide), etc.
• Good use of pauses between ideas.

What other techniques have you noticed him using?

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Are you interested in learning about techniques that can help you prepare more effective speeches? Come visit the St-Lawrence Toastmasters Club in Montreal.

Here is the programme for the meeting of May 14, 2019.

Un des buts des Toastmasters est de nous permettre d’apprendre à donner des discours bien structurés, inspirants, et même émouvants. 

Voici un exemple d’un discours qui semble accomplir ces trois objectifs (le lien s’ouvrira dans une nouvelle fenêtre) :

Le poignant discours de Virginie (Le Grand Oral)

« Je suis devenue avocate parce qu’on m’a dit que c’était impossible. ».  Virginie Delalande, a ému le jury du “Grand oral”, un concours d’éloquence présenté à la chaîne de France 2, en racontant son parcours d’avocate atteinte de surdité.

"Je vous parle avec une voix. Cette voix, qui peut-être vous dérange, vous met mal à l’aise, c’est une voix que moi-même je n’ai jamais entendue. C’est le fruit de 20 ans de travail. 20 ans d’orthophonie, trois fois par semaine", a-t-elle expliqué de manière sensible pour commencer son discours.

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Aimeriez-vous apprende à donner des discours plus inspirants? Venez visiter le club d’art oratoire à Montréal St-Lawrence Toastmasters.

Voici le programme pour la réunion Toastmasters du 7 mai 2019.

One of the many skills that we get to develop at Toastmasters is the ability to prepare and deliver powerful speeches that can inspire an audience, and even persuade with power so that people will want to take action.

Here is Harrison Ford speaking at the Global Climate Action Summit that took place in San Francisco recently.

(From: NowThis. Full speech can be found here or here.)

If we focus on the content of the speech, we notice that he inspires the audience by appealing to noble motives and challenging the audience to achieve a higher level of beliefs or achievement. He does this, for example, by speaking with passion and by using logic and emotion to support his position. Here are some excerpts:

“You’re here, I’m here, because we care. Not just for today. But we care passionately for the future.”

“While you work to recognize the challenge of climate change, I beg you, do not forget nature. Because the destruction of nature today accounts for more global emissions than all of the cars in the world. We can put solar panels on each and every house. We can even turn every car into an electric vehicle. As long as Sumatra burns we’ll have failed.”

“Nature doesn’t need people; people need nature.”

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Would you like to know more about how Toastmasters can help you be a more effective speaker and a stronger leader? Feel free to come visit us.

Here is the programme for the St. Lawrence Toastmasters Montreal meeting of September 25, 2018.

One of the great things about every Toastmasters meeting is the “prepared speeches” session. This is where members have the opportunity to present a speech that they have prepared in advance, for which they have different goals. One goal may be speaking to entertain, while another goal may be to motivate and challenge listeners to adopt higher, nobler attitudes, feelings, values, hopes, desires, and behaviors.

To give you a better idea of the sort of speeches that one could expect to hear at Toastmasters, here is a story shared from a great resource called The Moth.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Connection

Michelle Fecteau is working at The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Museum when she meets an enthusiastic history buff on a pilgrimage with no place to stay.

“Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storyteller and always told live.” You can always listen to other great stories at The Moth.  Download any of them. Listen to them on your way to the office. That inner feeling of satisfaction having listened to a story shared on The Moth is exactly the feeling that you might get when listening to members give speeches at Toastmasters.

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Would you like to come in person to hear interesting speeches shared by people who are passionate about public speaking in Montreal? Then visit St-Lawrence Toastmasters Club.

Here is the programme for the meeting of March 6, 2018.

Il peut nous arriver de penser que l’importance d’un discours repose sur la manière que la personne le présente, par exemple à travers le langage corporel, le contact visuel avec l’auditoire, et peut-être même du support visuel.

Si cela peut en effet être utile, il ne faut pas oublier que c’est le contenu d’un discours qui est toujours important, comme le démontre la vidéo suivante.  Puisque c’était pour une émission radio, les auditeurs n’avaient donc pas l’opportunité (ni le besoin) de voir l’oratrice s’exprimer en public, donc l’essentiel était vraiment dans le contenu du discours.

Rosalie Bonenfant : Est-ce que je te plais, s’il te plait?

(Pour le début du discours, vous pouvez défiler à 0m30sec.)

À notre avis, ce discours est une puissante réflexion bien songée, pertinente, d’une grande intelligence, et qui présente un angle susceptible de toucher les émotions de l’auditoire.  Il pourrait aisément répondre aux objectifs du Projet # 10 “Inspirer votre auditoire” du programme Toastmasters du Communicateur Compétent, qui sont de donner ”un discours inspirant qui permet de motiver un auditoire à s’améliorer sur le plan personnel, émotionnel, professionnel ou spirituel.  Le discours doit lancer un appel en faveur d’une grande cause et inciter l’auditoire à avoir des pensées plus nobles et à se dépasser dans ses actes.”

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Voici le programme de la réunion hebdomadaire du Club St-Lawrence Toastmasters Montréal (soirée du 9 mai 2017). 

The following video was shared by one of our members who came across it on Trendingly. As Emily Davis mentions quite fittingly:

“This 93-Year-Old Grandpa Had The Crowd In Stitches At An Open-Mic Night With His Hilarious ‘Love Hurts’ Story.“

“Tom Sitter won The Moth in Madison StorySLAM at the High Noon Saloon February 13, 2017. Tom scored our first ever 10 with his winning story tonight. The memory of the girls he carefully selected to give his five valentines to in 1933 was strong enough that 84 years later he still knew their names.”

As Toastmasters, not only do we enjoy seeing entertaining speeches, we also like to reflect on what elements allowed the speaker to give such a successful speech.  Among the things we observed:

• He uses gestures very often, and in a very natural way.
• He provides vivid descriptions that help the audience feel as if they were living the situation with him, for example by mentioning names of people and describing each setting.
• He is very comfortable taking pauses.  These give the audience adequate time to digest and appreciate, and to laugh heartily.

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Here is the programme for the St-Lawrence Montreal Toastmasters Club meeting of May 2, 2017.

Please note that our regular weekly meetings will start again on Tuesday January 10, 2017.

Here is the programme for the upcoming Toastmasters meeting.

Wishing you a wonderful new year!

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Until then, here is a video you may find interesting.

Nancy Duarte: The Secret Structure of Great Talks

From the "I have a dream" speech to Steve Jobs’ iPhone launch, many great talks have a common structure that helps their message resonate with listeners. In this talk, presentation expert Nancy Duarte shares practical lessons on how to make a powerful call-to-action.

Since the theme of our next Toastmasters meeting will be “Teachers”, we felt it might be fun to post the following TED Talk. (We actually wrote a post about it a few years ago, but it continues to inspire us, just like many teachers do!) 

This is a wonderful talk given by Sir Ken Robinson at a TED annual conference (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design):

How schools kill creativity
“Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity“.

The duration of the presentation is about 20 minutes, which at first may seem long but is well worth it, especially for Toastmasters looking to be inspired by what an inspirational speech can do.  Sir Ken gives such a remarkable talk that after the first few seconds you can’t help but be absorbed by his speech.

This talk has so many points that can inspire a Toastmaster: a great beginning and end, humour, story-telling, excellent choice of words, clear organization, great persuasion.  All this communicated in a most effective manner.  Enjoy!

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Are you interested in knowing more about how Toastmasters can help you prepare your own inspiring speeches?  Come visit our club located in Montreal!

Here is the programme for the Toastmasters meeting of January 27, 2015.