Menlo Park Toastmasters
Where Leaders are Made
The Guests
All guests are welcome to visit us as often as they wish in order to familiarize themselves with the club, and the program. No commitment is necessary, but returning guests will be encouraged to become a member. Membership is the only way to gain access to all the benefits of Toastmasters International programs and resources.
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A club member will introduce you at the beginning of the meeting and at the end of the meeting you will be given the opportunity to comment if you feel inclined to do so. There is no charge for guests. Sit back and enjoy the meeting.
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All members start with different abilities, experiences and comfort levels. However, the primary goal of Toastmasters is not for us to compete against each other, but to improve ourselves. When you invest effort in the program and your personal goals, and practice often, you will soon start seeing improvements. Sooner than you’d think, there will be another guest feeling a little intimidated by you!
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The Club
The Club
Who are we?
Every Toastmasters club has a unique culture. It is important for prospective members to find the club they most resonate with. The Menlo Park Toastmasters club is characterized by five attributes: welcoming, supportive, informal, diverse and fun.
We strive to welcome all guests and make them feel comfortable and to support members and guests in their quests to become better communicators and public speakers. Although meetings follow a predetermined agenda with a focus on prepared speeches, evaluations of the prepared speeches and extemporaneous responses to questions that revolve around a theme of the day, the tone of our meetings is still friendly and casual.
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Club members come from a wide range of professions including attorneys, real estate agents, scientists, therapists and designers. We have also had a number of techies and entrepreneurs. Ages range from the mid-twenties to early sixties. For a number of our members, English is a second language.
Although we are serious about and strongly committed to improving our communication skills, we have a lot of fun on that journey. It’s unusual for us to have a meeting without lots of laughter.
We invite you to join us as a guest at one of our meetings in order for you to experience the Menlo Park Toastmasters for yourself.
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We provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.
The Meeting
The Meeting
A Day of Powerful Talks
Tuesdays
07:00 pm - 08:30 pm
​Section 1: Meeting Introduction
In this section the President welcomes everyone and makes sure that everything is in order to start the meeting. In addition, the President asks guest to introduce themselves. After that the whole club does an exercise related to the theme of the month suchas vocal projection, gestures, connecting with the audience, etc.
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Section 2: Prepared Speeches
This section is introduced by the Toastmaster of the evening. The Toastmaster will introduce each speech evaluator, who explains the objectives of the speaker that is being evaluated. Usually there are between 2 to 3 prepared speeches that follow Pathways, which is a guide that members obtain to follow and improve their public speaking.
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Section 3: Table Topics
The Toastmaster introduces the Table Topics Master, who has a list of interesting questions that will get asked to the audience. The Table Topics Master then selects someone from the aduience to pThis section allows all members to participate since it is impromptu speaking tasks.
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