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Mentor Program

A mentor is a more experienced member who takes a personal interest in and helps another member. Mentors serve as role models, coaches, and confidantes, offering knowledge, insight, perspective and/or wisdom useful to the other member. A mentor can help a new member become familiar with our Club or can assist a more experienced member in learning special skills.

Confidence Builders is a President's Distinguished Club with several Distinguished Toastmasters and a Nationally Accredited Speaker serving as resources. The mentor program is available to all members, with a tailored growth program to suit your individual needs.


Interested in becoming a mentor?

The only requirements are that you complete your first four speeches (from the Competent Communicator manual) and are up to speed on all club roles.

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That Role Called Speaker

How to prepare and memorize a speech  Awesome, you've been assigned to speak! Ideally, you will have at least 3 weeks to prepare. Taking a 3 weeks prep time as a sample, this is how to use my speech prep formula: Week 1 Review speech objectives in the manual – this will influence the topic you choose. Once you have your topic, you'll need to focus in on a single facet and consider what message you want to convey. Ideate and hone your message and then start typing out your speech -- keeping within your speech timeframe. Typical speech lengths are 4-6 mins, 5-7 mins, 7-9 minutes. Target the middle minute – for example, for a 4-6 minute speech, target for the 5 minute mark. Target for 4 and you may risk ending too early or not developing your message enough. Target for 6 and you might go over.  A logical breakout of that 5 minutes is: 1 minute intro, 3 minute body, 1 minute conclusion.  For reference, a minute translated to word count is roughly 100 typed words ...

An Introvert's Toastmasters Journey

Image by Silvarita from Pixabay I gave a cringe-worthy presentation about a month after I joined  Toastmasters . The eyes were my downfall. It didn't occur to me then to practice my speech in front of my fellow Toastmasters. However, I had a chance to redeem myself. A couple of months after the appalling speech, I learned that I would be giving a talk at the National Weather Association's 44th Annual Meeting . Me needing help was an understatement. Children are great motivators. During my first Toastmasters meeting, I politely passed up several opportunities to participate. At my second meeting, I had another chance to take part. Like the first time, I passed it up. I was too nervous. It took a little girl named Philippa to encourage me to speak at the next meeting. What did she do? She stood in front of a group of adults and gave a short talk! The following week, I gave my Ice Breaker Speech on how I became interested in meteorology.  After the Ice Breaker ...

Your Dream Team

With Toastmasters contest season fast approaching, I thought I'd share a contest speech that survived three contests last year, went through 15 drafts (I have them all), numerous practice sessions in front of two clubs, in the living room in front of a big dog and a cell phone, and in the driveway working on my footwork! I received good feedback on using parts of the speaking area (contest-speak for stage) to emphasize transitions from one point to the next - and to refer back to earlier points.  There are two "maps" one for the speaker's perspective and one for the audience's perspective.  The solid lines are movement, while the dashed lines are prompts to refer back to an earlier area. Did I get carried away?  I don't think so.  Having every detail mapped out and refined gave me the confidence to compete and improve each time - and confidence-building is what we do! Speaker's Perspective Audience's Perspective -RM Image ...