I’ve been meaning to do a short blog series on Toastmasters for some time. I got my Advanced Communicator Bronze award a couple months ago–that means I completed two advanced manuals of five speeches each. Now I’ve moved on to two more advanced manuals.
So what’s an advanced manual?
The Toastmasters program starts with the Competent Communicator manual, which has 10 speeches. Most of them cover different aspects of speaking–body language, vocal variety, etc.
Once you finish that, you can pick two free advanced manuals. All of the 15 advanced manuals have five speeches, and most of them focus on a specific topic. There are manuals for sales talks, technical presentations, and interpretive reading (that would be the one that I joined Toastmasters for). Some of the projects are short speeches (yes, there is one for making a toast) and others involve team presentations, role playing, and can be 20 minutes long.
It’s hard to know what a manual is really like without seeing it, so when I picked the manuals I’m doing now, I relied on blog posts by people who’d done them. So next week I’ll continue the favor and start reviewing the manuals I’ve done so far, starting with Interpretive Reading.