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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Section 4: Evaluations

The Toastmster introduces the General Evaluator , who will conduct the evaluation of the overall meeting. The General Evalutor ask the Speech Evaluators to give their report on the speeches. Then the General Evaluator ask for the report from the Timer, Ah- Counter, and the Grammarian.  Finally, the General Evaluator gives some remarks on the whole meeting. This section is important because it allows everyone to improve.

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Section5: Anouncements and Closing Remarks

The Toastmaster makes some finishing remarks and hands over the meeting to the President. The president then ask for feedback from Guest, goes over the roles for next week and talks about any new business.

The Place

Become a Member

All you need to do to become a member is to download and fill the documents listed below. You can either bring them to the meeting and give it an officer or you can email these files to and treasurer@menloparktm.org. The last thing to become a member is to pay the club dues which will register you with Toastmasters International.