Toastmasters club goes online, builds leadership

Toastmasters International, founded almost a century ago in 1924, has 364,000 dues-paying members in over 16,200 clubs in 145 countries. There are several Toastmasters clubs already in Korea, offering get-togethers on various days of the week in locales across the country in a variety of languages, including Korean, Chinese and English. There are also bilingual clubs and even a trilingual Korean-Spanish-English club.

One of the newest clubs, North River Toastmasters Club (NRTC), was chartered on Jan. 20 this year amid the pandemic, and events are only held online for now.

“NRTM didn’t want to start an online club, but it ended up being that way because of the coronavirus pandemic,” NRTC President Peter Kim told The Korea Times. “Although everyone prefers having offline meetings, we nonetheless decided to start a club because there are more clubs in southern Seoul than northern Seoul. More importantly, we believe that having online club meetings and other NRTM activities are important as ways to engage with each other, but also to support and encourage each other through these challenging times. We also believe that when we finally meet offline that

everyone will continue to sustain the club for continued growth and success.”

The new club holds meetings online in English inviting people of all fluency and experience levels to sharpen their communication and leadership skills in a supportive environment. The organization also holds events like speech contests and publishes a magazine, as well as providing fellowship and friendship, which are increasingly vital in the pandemic era.

“There are many benefits of becoming a Toastmasters member!” Kim said, adding that he is concentrating on “Innovative Planning” and “Engaging Humor,” two of the 11 paths of Toastmasters’ education program, Pathways, which covers 300 competencies.

According to Kim, the fledgling club’s membership represents Korea as well as the U.S., Nepal, Canada, Laos, South Africa, Cambodia and Saudi Arabia, making it one of the most diverse Toastmasters clubs in Korea. “Such diversity provides not only variety in terms of where people are from but also what they bring into an NRTC meeting and also to Toastmasters itself,“he said.

The club’s meetings “provide fun, education and structure,” according to Kim.

For each meeting, someone is selected as the “Toastmaster” to offer a theme and ask a question for others to answer. These are usually broad, general knowledge topics that are easily approachable to anyone and conducive to engaging, directed talks. Past questions of NRTC have included, “What is your favorite tree?” and “When you think of green, what comes to mind?” (held on St. Patrick’s Day).

The next meeting, held May 12 on Zoom, starting at 7:30 p.m., is themed on dreams and asks, “What is your wildest dream?”

The meetings have a “Table Topics Session” intended to help people sharpen their impromptu speaking skills, as well as a “Prepared Speech” session. Each speaker is assigned an evaluator, who works in consultation with five role takers — the general evaluator, grammarian, timer, review master and ah-counter. The ah-counter’s job is to note any overused words or other unnecessary “pause filler” sounds such as “um” or “uh” that hamper the effectiveness of any speeches given during the meeting.

Membership in the club costs a one-time $20 new member fee and $45 in membership dues which lasts for six months.

Visit toastmasters.org for more information about the organization and its many clubs, or search Facebook for “North River Toastmasters Club” to find out about this new club and its meeting. To join or get more information, send a message to the Facebook page or email northrivertoastmasters@ gmail.com.