The word of the day, announced over Zoom chat, at the most recent Bronx Toastmasters Club of Riverdale, was “polyvalent” which means “having different functions, forms or facets”. There is hardly a better word to describe the club.

 

Toastmasters International is a non-profit, educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs. Bronx Toastmasters Club of Riverdale, which just last month celebrated its 21st anniversary since its foundation, is one of 16,800 such clubs, collectively comprising 358,000 members across 143 countries. Since 1924, the organization has helped people from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds become more confident speakers, communicators, and leaders.

 

While each toastmasters club differs in style, the meeting format remains broadly the same. A few of the members present speeches that have been prepared in advance, while others are assigned the role of evaluating their colleagues’ speeches by providing constructive feedback. Then, there are other members who participate in what’s called the “Table Topics” section of the meeting. The aim of this section of the meeting is to help members think on their feet by developing impromptu speaking skills. This is done by assigning particular topics to random club members on which they must speak for about two minutes, without having any prior knowledge of what the topic will be.

 

At each meeting, one member acts as grammarian, tracking any grammatical errors which are highlighted at the end of each meeting, and another member times the various speakers and evaluators.

 

The club offers different educational programs which are basically a series of speeches, each one having a different purpose e.g. persuading an audience, inspiring an audience or motivating an audience. How each speaker goes about this, in terms of their chosen speech topic, is up to them. During the last meeting, one member gave a speech about her brother who, when he listens to James Brown’s music, dances too hard and ends up splitting his pants in half. Another member spoke about the complicated dichotomy of protocol and diplomacy.

 

As the meeting was virtual, after each person spoke, members shook their hands in front of their cameras in applause. Indeed, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the club has persevered, uplifting and informing its members in the process.

 

In fact, Adam Cole, the club’s new president, is pleasantly surprised by the positive effect Zoom has had on regular meetings. “We’ve been able to attend meetings in other parts of the country and other parts of the world,” he said. Dunstanette Macauley affirms this, saying she’s attended meetings hosted by clubs in New Zealand, Scotland, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Haiti and Jamaica. Similarly, toastmasters from other clubs around the world have joined the Riverdale club meetings via Zoom also.

 

Though the members love Toastmasters, they say it is nerve wracking to learn how to give speeches because it requires being vulnerable in front of a group of strangers. Cole said after first hearing about Toastmasters, he waited for a while before trying it. “It took me a couple of years to build up the courage to actually contact the club, then go to a meeting,” he said.

 

Another club member, Alicia Wyatt, said she struggled with speaking up during meetings at her workplace. “I’m Jamaican,” she said. “You’re often taught as a child not to speak until spoken to. Because no one directly spoke to me [at work], I didn’t speak up.” Wyatt said she joined Toastmasters after her first meeting when she attended as a guest, and has been a member for three years now.

 

Everyone’s first speech at Toastmasters is called an icebreaker, a speech in which members share something unique about themselves, as opposed to showcasing their knowledge. Wyatt laughed as she recalled her icebreaker, which she described as an anxiety-inducing experience.

 

While advanced speakers learn to speak in public without too many notes, Wyatt said, for her icebreaker, she simply read an essay aloud verbatim. “I not only held it in my hand, but you could see the paper moving as I was reading it because I was nervous,” she said. “I was trembling.” Since then, Wyatt said that the meetings have helped her both at work, and in her interpersonal relationships with her son and her daughter. “I have these really good, thoughtful conversations with them and it’s because of Toastmasters,” she said.

 

Macauley, an international toastmaster member who splits her time between the Bronx and Togo, West Africa, has learned more from the club than just how to speak in public. Unlike other members, Macauley never had qualms about public speaking. During her icebreaker, she told a story about learning safety rules at school in Liberia when she was 7 years old. “I was going home and I thought of what I had learned, and I went to the middle of the road and I started doing what I had learned,” she said, raising one hand as if to signal cars to stop and waving the other to instruct cars to go around her. “I was picked up and taken to the police station, and they called my grandmother,” she chuckled.

 

Though she possesses a strong sense of self, Macauley said she learned the true meaning of leadership at Toastmasters. “Before I could speak [publicly], I was always talking,” she said. “Talking, and learning how to talk are different things.” For Macauley, learning to lead means looking inward. “Leadership is the most important one. It’s about yourself,” she said, adding that there are three questions everyone should ask themselves: How do you interact with people around you? How do you resolve conflicts? How do you learn to listen to others?

 

According to Zenobia Kelly, another club member, Toastmasters is similar to therapy. “You have to realize that fear is fear. It’s like a pawn,” she said. “It wants to hold you, but Toastmasters teaches you how to get rid of that fear.” Indeed, it seems that while members do occasionally stumble during some speeches, the freedom that each person feels to fearlessly mess up is crucial.

 

Overall, members of the club find their shared moments together every other Wednesday night to be a safe haven. “The great thing about Zoom meetings is it’s also a way of checking up on each other,” said Cole. “It’s a way of making sure that all of us are okay.” Indeed, members close every meeting with the same ritual, saying, “Stay safe and stay well! We look forward to seeing you again soon!”.

 

The next meeting of Bronx Toastmasters Club of Riverdale will be held via Zoom Video Conferencing on Wednesday Jul. 8 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Guests are encouraged to join, but are asked to RSVP to BronxToastmastersClub@gmail.com beforehand. For more information about the club, visit their site.