1. What is Toastmasters?
Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational corporation headquartered in Rancho Santa Margarita, California.Its mission is to improve communication and leadership skills of its members and in general. Mainly, this works out to 'improving public speaking skills' but there is also a potent leadership and management aspect to the organization if you aspire to reach that level.

2. Is this just a group for people in the USA or for people who speak English?
No. The organization includes approximately 180,000 members in 54 countries, including Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, and the United States of America.

Toastmasters International publishes a complete set of materials in English and basic materials in French, Spanish, and Japanese. As translators make themselves available, more materials are translated.

3. How is Toastmasters organized?
All Toastmasters members belong to one or more clubs. Clubs consist of at least eight members and may have forty or more. The recommended size for a club is twenty or more.

Clubs exist in communities around the world, especially in North America, and it's a rare locality in the United States that doesn't have at least one Toastmasters club within thirty minutes' driving time. There are, at present, over 8,000 clubs around the world, and most of them are in the United States.

There are many sorts of clubs: community clubs, military clubs, company clubs, prison clubs, collegiate clubs, and so on. At this time, the majority of the *new* clubs being chartered are 'company clubs', i.e. clubs chartered at and meeting at businesses and organizations, in many cases open only to employees or members of those organizations. Never fear, however; there are thousands of community clubs already in existence as well.

4. Where can I find a club?
If you'd like to visit a club meeting, simply telephone Toastmasters International World Headquarters at (714) 858-8255 and ask for the locations of the clubs near you. Alternately, drop a postcard to TI WHQ, P.O. Box 9052, Mission Viejo CA 92690 and ask for the local clubs' listings. You may be VERY surprised by how many clubs there are in your area. Quite a few clubs don't get around to advertising in the newspaper.

In Taiwan, if you would like to visit a club close to where you live or work, you can visit Toastmasters District Website at http://www.toastmasters.org.tw or email to David Wang at asiacom@ms1.hinet.net and ask him. BingBing Lin is currently the Districtl Governor of ROC Council of Toastmasters.

5. Do I have to ask permission before attending a meeting of a club in my area?
Usually no.

If you're visiting a community club, it might not be a bad idea to let them know you're coming so they can tell you any details like what time members arrive to eat and what time members who don't come to eat arrive, but community clubs are almost always open to all and they'll be delighted to have you come to the meeting.

Clubs that meet at companies and organizations, on military bases, or in prisons are often, but not always, restricted to members or employees of the sponsoring body. These clubs are happy to have guests but you sometimes need to call ahead to get through security or to find out specifically where the club meets.

Unlike some other organizations, where one must have a sponsoring member who invites you to the meeting and introduces you to the group, Toastmasters welcomes all guests. If the club is open to membership from the community, you will usually be offered a membership application at the end of the meeting.

6. What's a "prepared speech?"
When you join Toastmasters you receive a basic speaking manual with ten speech projects. Each project calls on you to prepare a speech on a subject of your own choosing but using certain speaking principles. Each manual project lists the objectives for that speech and includes a written checklist for your evaluator to use when evaluating the speech. Thus, if you're scheduled to speak at a meeting, you generally pull out your manual a week or two in advance and put together a speech on whatever you like but paying attention to your goals and objectives for that speech.Then, when you go to the meeting, you hand your manual to your evaluator and that person makes written comments on the checklist while you speak. At the end of the meeting, that person (your evaluator) will rise to give oral commentary as well.The purpose of the extensive preparation and commentary is to show you what you're doing well, what you need to work on, and driving these lessons home so you're constantly improving.

7. What is Evaluation?
The Evaluation program is the third of the three main parts to the meeting. All prepared speakers, as noted above, should have their speaking manuals with them and should have passed them on to the evaluators beforehand. During the speech, and after, each person's evaluator should make written notes and furthermore, plan what to say during the two to three minute oral evaluation. Evaluation is tough to do well because it requires an evaluator to do more than say "here's what you did wrong." A good evaluator will say "here's what you did well, and here's why doing that was good, and here are some things you might want to work on for your next speech, and here's how you might work on them." It's important to remember that the evaluator is just one point of view, although one that has focused in on your speech closely. Other members of the audience can and should give you written or spoken comments on aspects of your speech they feel important.

8. What's all this emphasis on time limits?
As noted above, speeches have time limits, Table Topics have time limits (1-2 minutes, usually) and evaluations have time limits (2-3 minutes, usually). This is in order to drive home the point that a good speaker makes effective use of the time allotted and does not keep going and going and going until the audience is bored. In the real world, quite often there are practical limits on how long a meeting can or should go; by setting time limits on speeches and presentations, participants learn brevity and time management and the club meeting itself can be expected to end on schedule.

Time limits are rarely enforced to the letter. In only a few situations will you find yourself cut off if you go too long, and that's up to the individual club. Most clubs don't cut speakers off if they go overtime.

It is common for clubs to use a set of timing lights to warn the speakers of the advance of time. All speeches and presentations have a time limit expressed as an interval, e.g. 5 to 7 minutes. A green light would be shown at 5 minutes, amber at 6, and red at 7. In Table Topics, the lights would go 1, 1.5, and 2 minutes respectively. When the green light comes on, you've at least spoken enough, though you need not finish right away, and when the yellow light comes on, you should begin wrapping up. If you're not done by the time the red light comes on, you should finish as soon as possible without mangling the ending of your speech.

The only times you're actually penalized for going over or under time is in speaking competition; in speech contests you must remain within the interval or be disqualified.

Some clubs hold an audience vote for "best speaker," "best topic speaker," and "best evaluator" during the meeting and it's a practice in some clubs to disqualify people who go over or under time from these meeting awards. Check with the particular club to see what they do.