Ice Breaking as a Toast Master

As I have decided to be one among the Toast Masters - I have joined the CA Toast Masters club in Doha Qatar. Joining is always easy but delivering is not so.

As per the surveys more number of people fear for public speech than fire, accident or anything else. Everyone will be having this pschycosis in one or the other time. Best way to overcome this fear factor is to practice it. Start with a crowd of 10 to 15 people and go on increase the number of crowd. once you speak in a small crowd it will be easy to make it in a bigger crowd.

I had got all these tips when I was doing my graduation- that is 17 years back - still I didnt jumped to the water to try my skills. After seeing all new comers and freshers reaching higher levels in the ladder of success it has dawned me to find a way to come out of this fear pschycology. Why to shy away, if anything wrong how many will understand what is wrong.

Ice breaking is the first project a new Toast Master have to give as his presentation. On 27th November 2012 I gave my ice breaking speech. Ice breaking means breaking the silence. You are trying to connect yourself with the fellow members of your respective club. Highlight of this speech will be how able you are to elaborate yourself in front of crowd and how much you talk about your hobbies, education, job, family members.

I spoke about my parents, brothers, wife and kid. And of course about my education, struggle in the early years, job. The time duration is 4 to 6 minutes. Though I have rehearsed the speech couple of times, at the time of delivery it has giggled me too much, throat was drying up and my lips also got dried up. I spoke with a humurous touch, that part I beleive the crowd liked. There were totally 3 speakers including me.

As per our clubs practice they give best speaker award based on the audience opinion poll. The crowd was around 22 to 25 people. I was not expecting to be best speaker, since I had seen both other guys speaking and their body language was excellent, but audience proved me wrong they selected me as the best out of three. So I was the best speaker of the meeting and got nice present from our Toast Masters Club.

A long journey starts with a small step. hope I will continue in the long journey of a Toast master.