Tania Ferus clearly remembers the moment her fears were realized.
“I was asked to present to a group of Grade 5 students… they just stared at me and I was terrified,” recalls the Newmarket GIS technician. “Apparently one of the greatest fears is not death, but public speaking. It’s something everyone can relate to.”
Ferus found her way to Toastmasters, a non-profit educational organization that builds confidence and teaches public speaking skills through a worldwide network of clubs that meet online and in person. The peer-run groups develop a supportive community where members prepare and deliver speeches, respond to impromptu questions, and give and receive constructive feedback.
Toastmasters International is celebrating 100 years since Ralph C. Smedley formed the first official Toastmasters club in 1924 where members could learn the art of public speaking. With its headquarters in Englewood, Colorado, Toastmasters boasts 270,000 members in more than 14,000 clubs in 150 countries.
Ferus became a founding member of The Newmarket Toastmasters in 2012, with the corporate club providing professional development training for Town of Newmarket employees. The club is now a hybrid corporate/community club, having opened our doors to the community in 2018. It meets each Thursday noon at the Newmarket Municipal Offices.
It is one of three local clubs. The Court of Blarney Toastmasters had an early presence in Newmarket. The Region of York Toastmasters is another corporate club that was developed to serve regional municipal employees.
The Court of Blarney Toastmasters was founded in 1996 and meets at the library monthly, explains president Marylou Ahsan.
“It’s a group that really enjoys conversation and the social aspects of it,” she says of its membership of 27.
While Toastmasters is all about public speaking, Ahsan says that includes conversations in social environments, on the spot chats, as well as prepared speeches. So the group focuses on interpersonal skills and how to get ideas across.
“We actually think of ourselves more as a workshop,” adds Ferus, who serves as vice-president of membership for the Newmarket club that has 28 members. Each club operates through an executive committee.
Toastmasters has two kinds of clubs – those run and set up for community members and corporate clubs that have been established for a particular organization or company. Ferus’ club is a hybrid, which started as a corporate club for Town of Newmarket employees that has since welcomed members of the community not linked to the town.
Like Ferus, many join to conquer their fear of public speaking. Some join to enhance their interpersonal skills, others want to gain leadership skills and grow professionally, others seek a community with a supportive group.
There are a series of programs the groups follow, including the Pathways learning experience that consists of several approaches that can be tailored to members’ individual needs. Another, the Speechcraft digital, is designed start members' public speaking and communication skills.
The approach is based on experiential learning with peer feedback and mentoring.
Ferus says she still presents to school groups but does it with relative ease now.
“I started getting more comfortable so the following school year I was a lot more confident when I came to speak to the next class,” she recalls. “I was able to be very calm and collected and bubbly. I used all the tools I learned from Toastmasters and it turned out to be a very good presentation. And I’ve been doing it ever since.”
And even though she’s overcome her fear, Ferus continues to attend meetings because she enjoys the camaraderie and friendships she has developed over the years. First, it was a great way to meet other colleagues and now she connects with community members, as well.
There’s also a post-pandemic re-charge component that continues to draw her to the club.
She found the online meetings and withdrawing from social interaction enforced by the pandemic dulled some of the skills she had developed and decided to work on sharpening them.
“I am tuning up my skills so I can get that confidence back.”
