People often ask what are the benefits of joining a Toastmasters club. We therefore like to ask our members what are some of the reasons why they decided to join our club.

Here is what Emmanuelle, one of our newest members, has to share with us.

It often amazes me how things happen in life. It’s no different with me joining the St-Lawrence Toastmasters Club in downtown. Montreal. I heard about the existence of the international organization on Sunday, did some quick research on Monday, and attended my first session on Tuesday, the day the club greeted a special guest, M Peck, the Toastmasters International President.

What a great evening. Despite meeting over Zoom, I could feel the warm and benevolent atmosphere. After the next session, I knew the SLToastmasters Club would offer the safe space I need to learn and practice public speaking with fun and great support. Thanks for having me, I can’t wait to meet you all in person.

Welcome to our club, Emmanuelle! We look forward to meeting you in person as well!

« Chaque jour, nous sommes confrontés à nous exprimer oralement. La séance des improvisations développe la capacité de penser rapidement, de structurer ses idées et de s’exprimer avec aplomb.

Prenons l’exemple d’une salle de classe à l’université. Combien d’étudiants sont terrifiés à l’idée d’émettre leur opinion lorsque le professeur pose une question ouverte ? Je me rappelle, il y a plusieurs années, j’étais cet étudiant. »

Dans le cadre du cours Éducation & développement à l’Université de Montréal, notre membre et auteur Yanick Daoust a fait un travail portant sur l’éducation non-formelle.  Il a choisi de parler de son expérience Toastmasters, qu’il nous partage au cas que cela puisse informer certains invités curieux de ce que nous faisons au club St-Lawrence Toastmasters à Montréal.

Voici un autre extrait :

« Grâce à Toastmasters, j’arrive à prendre la parole avec confiance, saupoudrer mon intervention avec un peu d’humour et cela m’a permis de gagner le respect de mes collègues de travail. Lorsque j’ai une idée à partager, les gens écoutent et considèrent mon opinion. »

Le texte dans son intégralité est disponible ici :

Bonne lecture!

Last week we held our Toastmasters club’s International Speech and Table Topics contests. Congratulations to everyone who participated!

For the results, feel free to consult the programme for the St-Lawrence Toastmasters meeting of February 6, 2018.

Nous avons eu les concours de discours et d’improvisation à notre club Toastmasters la semaine dernière. Félicitations à tous les participants !

Les résultats sont disponibles dans notre programme pour la réunion Toastmasters du 6 février 2018.

This is exciting! Our member Nadine was interviewed on the English Montreal talk radio station, CJAD 800 on Friday Nov. 17.

They wanted to interview her regarding her recent win at the Toastmasters District 61 Humorous Speech Contest.

In the interview, Nadine Champagne Gundry-White naturally talks about Toastmasters. 

Here is a quick summary that she shares with us here:

Toastmasters has inspired me to take steps to become a professional speaker and ‘clean’ comedian. I want to put on a comedy show appropriate for all audiences.

À l’occasion de la réunion du 14 novembre 2017, les membres du club St. Lawrence Toastmasters à Montréal ont pu célébrer les 69 ans du club.

En fait, notre club est le club Toastmasters le plus ancien à l’est de Windsor. (Nous aimons nous vanter amicalement et à la légère que puisque nous sommes le plus ancien club, nous sommes naturellement le club le plus expérimenté. )

________________________

Voulez-vous en savoir plus sur notre club?  Venez nous visiter!

Voici le programme pour la réunion du 21 novembre 2017.

Toastmasters has recently announced the new educational program entitled “Pathways”.

If  you would like to know all about it, you can always visit the official Pathways page on the Toastmasters International website.

It will answer questions such as:

• Why is the education program changing?
• Why is Pathways valuable to me?
• How many paths are there?
• Are there different levels in each path?
• etc.

If you prefer to get a brief overview for the time being, here is an interesting presentation prepared by Kevin Broughton, a fellow Toastmaster in Australia:

___________________

Would you like to visit our club?  Here is the St-Lawrence Toastmasters Montreal programme for October 31, 2017.

We’d like to congratulate Nadine Champagne, proud member of St. Lawrence Toastmasters Club in Montreal, for having won the first place in the Toastmasters Division F English Humorous Speech Contest.

Nadine (standing second from the right) at the Humorous Speech Contest.

Congratulations as well to Martina for having participated in the French Evaluation Contest. (From what we hear, she have an excellent evaluation but may have slightly exceeded the maximum time limit. Better luck next time!)

Martina (shown standing in the middle) at the Evaluation Contest.

The St-Lawrence Toastmasters Club in Montreal would like to congratulate everyone who participated in the Toastmasters Area 54 Evaluation and Humorous Speech Contests.

A big thanks to the contest organisers, all the contestants, and everyone who came to cheer them on.

Here are the contest results:

English Evaluation Contest

1st place: Gregory Fine (Westmount Toastmasters)

2nd place: Alex Chan (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

Concours d’évaluation en français

1ère place: Martina Kugler (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

2e place: Alex Chan (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

English Humorous Speech Contest

1st place: Nadine Champagne (St-Lawrence Toastmasters)

2nd place: Jinghui Ding (NDG Leader Toastmasters)

The first-place winners will go on to represent our Area during the Toastmasters Division F contests, which will take place on October 14, 2017.

______________

If  you’d like to see photos with the other contestants, please feel free to consult our weekly programme.  Here is the programme for the Toastmasters meeting of Tuesday October 10, 2017.

Bravo à tous les participants!

Congratulations to all the participants!

———————————

Want to know more about Toastmasters?  Feel free to come visit us!  Here is the programme for the St-Lawrence Toastmasters Montreal meeting of June 13, 2017.

Voici une note de Yanick Daoust, président de notre club Toastmasters :

J’aimerais féliciter nos 2 grands gagnants du concours de la division F qui avait lieu au HEC hier soir. Pier-Luc et Nadine ont remporté les honneurs du concours d’évaluation en français et du concours humoristique en anglais. 2 excellentes performances qui assurent la poursuite de la tradition d’excellence de notre club St-Lawrence Toastmasters.

Venez les encourager au Chateau Bromont les 11-12-13 novembre lors du concours Toastmasters du district  61. Bravo à nos champions !

_______________

Et voici une note de Benoit Menard, Directeur de notre secteur Toastmasters :