With the world becoming smaller due to the advent of social media, communication plays a huge role in shaping your future as a student who wants to get employed, an employee looking to rise up the ranks or an employer looking to run a successful business with adequately skilled people.
Who are we?
Toastmasters International is the world leader in communication and leadership development. With a membership of 292000 members and adding more every minute, this organization is spread across 14,350 clubs in 122 countries.
The amazing growth of Toastmasters in South India has now led to the formation of a new Toastmasters district, District 92. True to our tag line “Where leaders are made,” we are a highly enthusiastic community which strives for excellence in communication and leadership. In the words of District Governor and Associate HR Consultant, Toastmaster T K Ramesh, “every individual who walks into this movement as a guest joins Toastmasters with a simple desire to speak well in front of an audience. However what he experiences is the transformation from a “Voice of Uncertainty” to a “Voice of Dignity and Self-Confidence”
Our members
The community has regular participants from all walks of life, software professionals, managements/finance personnel, HR executives, trainers, college students, doctors and lawyers. Corporate clubs form 75% of our membership base which include IBM, ING, Sabre, Cisco, GE, Deloitte, Nokia Siemens, Thomson Reuters, Microsoft, Oracle , Wipro, CapGemini and many more.
The youth movement
Until a few years ago, Toastmasters meetings saw a majority of the middle-aged, with the average age of a member being 45. It was believed to be a forum for the mature and serious speakers. But off late, there has been a large interest in the younger community. Many young leaders now run clubs, areas and divisions, bringing laurels to the community worldwide. They are great orators and exceptional leaders.
Social Responsibility:
Toastmasters International also provides a structured platform for transferring their learning to other members of the society who could not be part of this learning process. There are two programs called the Speech Craft (for age group above 18 years) and Youth Leadership Program (for age group 9 – 16 years) which provide the learning over a period of six sessions spread over six weeks.
More than 1500 young minds in the age group of 9 – 16 have been benefitted by the Youth Leadership Program. More schools are coming forward to seek the support of Toastmasters to conduct Youth Leadership Program for their wards.
While participants of these programs are charged with nominal fees, Toastmasters of Bangalore also conducted free courses as part of the Club Social Responsibility (CSR). Sons and daughters of BSF Jawans, marketing team of Association for the Physically Disabled children and for the inmates of Asha Deep (Home for the girl children).
The way forward
The Toastmasters community is filled with passionate members who are young in their thought, speech and action, or by Toastmasters who are in their youth.
The youth brings in the zeal, passion, enthusiasm, creativity, limitless energy and a natural flair for learning new things!
District 92 leadership is a judicious mix of Toastmasters who are young and Toastmasters who feel young!
The District 92 Leadership Team:
The Pit Stop - District 92 