D5 Toastmasters

One of our members in District 5 is now famous! Roena Oesting, DTM, of Great Communicators Toastmasters (#6296), had an article published in the January 2010 edition of the Toastmaster magazine! We are pleased to publish Roena's wonderful article, "Speaking to My Stove," on the District 5 website for both current and future members to enjoy.

Speaking to My Stove

We have all heard the old joke, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” The answer is still the same: “practice, practice, practice.” At Toastmaster club meetings we have all heard, “You needed to practice that speech a bit more.”

But how should you practice? What practice techniques work?

In the real world, it is difficult to practice a manual speech the way you would a competition speech. You probably do not have time to videotape the manual speech or practice it before an audience for feedback.

I joined Toastmasters in 1999 and have given about 75 manual speeches. I’ve tried different methods for practicing. Here’s what is effective for me.

10 Steps to Practicing Your Manual Speech

1. Never write a speech out in full. Leave the written-out speeches for the experts or for competition speaking. This method eliminates the urge to read your speech, helps you sound natural, and increases your eye contact with the audience.
2. Jot down the points you want to make, decide on the examples or quotations you will use. You can make this a formal outline or just a list of words or phrases that move you through your speech.
3. Write out the closing sentence. Think about the impression you want to leave the audience and the one final word you want them to remember. Write and re-write this closing sentence and say it out loud a dozen times until you have it memorized.
4. Next, write the opening sentence and polish it until you are comfortable with it. Even if you fall over a chair on the way to the lectern and lose your notes, at least you will remember your opening sentence.
5. After these two most important sentences are complete, you are ready for the first run-through with your outline. Stand up in front of the most visible timing device you have and practice. I talk to my stove because it has a large timer and I can see it easily. I set the timer for two minutes longer than my speech’s maximum time. I love using my stove because it doesn’t talk back or evaluate me—at least it hasn’t yet.
6. Never expect perfection. The first practice session may not be as polished as you would like, and the timing may be off. I usually stumble part way through, and fumble to find where I am in the outline. I then sit down, relax and go back to the outline. This is the time to remove any extraneous material, add more examples, rearrange the sequence, or make any other changes to the outline.
7. After modifying your speech, review your notes from your last evaluation. These include the notes your evaluator has written in your manual and the notes you wrote. (If you don’t make notes while your evaluator is speaking, you should!) Find the two or three things that your evaluator said went well and write an affirmation of just one of them, such as: I’m good at eye contact, or My voice was loud enough to be heard at the back of the room. Use these affirmations and stand up and repeat them three times out loud. My stove doesn’t care if that seems silly. The affirmations remind me of my best speech habits.
8. Now it’s time to practice your speech again. I don’t know how your kitchen is laid out, but my refrigerator becomes “Mr. Toastmaster” and my canister set is “Fellow Toastmasters and Guests.” The speech is more polished on the second practice session, but I may still need to tweak the outline.
9. After the second practice session, put the speech away for the rest of the day. It’s important to let a speech simmer a bit; you have a life outside of Toastmasters!
10. On the next day, practice again. Read the opening and closing sentences twice out loud and go through outline carefully before practicing a third time. For me, my patient stove awaits; my refrigerator is ready to be Toastmaster and introduce me; and the canister set—I mean, the audience—is eager to hear my speech.

Sometimes, that’s all the practice time I have. The third practice session is the confidence builder. It confirms that I can do this speech and will not make a fool of myself. If I can practice one more time, that is great. If not, I have the best educated, most patient stove in town.

About Roena Oesting

Roena Oesting is a retired educator and a member of the Great Communicators Toastmasters Club #6296.

When not talking to her stove, she is active in her church, her library, and serves as lead cook for a weekly free dinner for about 200 homeless people.