Welcome to Toastmasters!  Those are the happy words you will hear when you visit one of our clubs. If joining Toastmasters has been one of your goals, or even a New Year’s resolution, there is no better time to visit a club than now.

For a practical example of how Toastmasters can change your life, let me share the story of Dananjaya Hettiarachchi  from Sri Lanka,-  the 2014 World Champion of Public Speaking,  with his speech “I see something in you”. It had a basic plot: a young man finds himself in trouble with the law. Through the pain in his mother’s tearful eyes and with the help of a mentor he is given another chance. With the help of Toastmasters and other programs, he finds his voice and wins the ultimate prize: a new life filled with self-confidence, excitement and promise.

The tools he used for his speech covered the basics for a good speech:

• Gestures – he opened his speech with a beautiful red rose and said that this represented all of us, special until life changes us. He then tore petals off the rose.
• Vocal Variety – he called out to the audience, how many of you have a mother who would have cried for seeing her son behind bars? He then included us all by saying ” my mother is like all of yours put together!
• Base phrase – “I see something in you”, then added ” but I don’t know what it is”.  This was woven through his story first, by his mentor, then by his future wife, and by a Toastmasters member.
• Humour – he pointed to a spot on the stage that represented his wife and commented that he was so fortunate to find his beautiful wife even though she said “I see something in you, but I don’t know what it is”, then he said “I couldn’t find a job, but I found a wife. Picture it with dramatic pauses, exaggerated facial expressions and a shy smile.
• Drama – after sharing his journey from delinquent to successful speaker, he paused for a long moment, reached into the bucket on stage and pulled out another special red rose.

The audience exploded as he ended his speech.

I invite you to check it out on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbz2boNSeL0

Adapted from Winnipeg Free Press article of January 6, 2015.

Author:  Dorian Guerard, DTM