This is the last post of my Toastmasters series. With my stories, I have shared my experience and written about different topics related to Toastmasters and public speaking, including feedback and mentorship. In this last article, I want to tell you about my Toastmasters club in particular: West London Speakers.

You won’t be surprised to learn that West London Speakers is a club based in West London, Hammersmith in particular. The club was founded on the 24th April 2006, so it’s coming to its 15th birthday soon. The meetings used to take place every two weeks on Monday evening in the function room at The Hop Poles. Nowadays every club meeting is online on Zoom, always every two weeks on Monday evening.

At the end of 2019, when I decided I wanted to understand more about Toastmasters and I considered joining a club, I looked for clubs in my areas. West London Speakers gave me the opportunity to attend a meeting as a guest before deciding whether I wanted to join them or not. That was exactly what I needed as I really didn’t know what to expect from Toastmasters. I reached out to Steve, VP of Membership¹ at the time (today our President) and he was very welcoming and invited me to attend the first meeting of 2020 as a guest.

As I shared in my previous posts, public speaking was scary and a bit intimidating to me. Even the idea of attending as a guest was concerning me in all honesty. I didn’t know what expectations they would have on me. Would they ask me to speak straight away?
What I learned when I attended as a guest is that West London Speakers is a very friendly and supportive group of people. At the same time, it’s also a very well organised and professional club. I soon realised that it was the perfect place for me to improve my confidence, public speaking and leadership skills.
Before and after the meeting, some of the committee members introduced themselves. They explained to me what I should do to join the club and what to expect. I met Claudia, the club President at the time, Raj, Sergeant at Arms, and Chris, Treasurer¹. They were extremely helpful for me to become a member and get up to speed very quickly.
By the way, they did ask me to speak in that first meeting, but that was only for a few seconds to introduce myself, so I could deal with that!

I told you in my previous post² the story of my first speech and all the feedback and support I received. Long story short, I became a very active member of the club very quickly, gave a lot of prepared speeches, and took on a number of functionary roles.

I loved the club so much that in June 2020 I decided to apply for a role in the club committee and in July I became the VP of Education. All the previous committee members I mentioned above remained in the newly formed committee, although in different roles, so I have been lucky enough to share my experience as a committee member with them. They are all amazing leaders as well as the new committee members: Ben, Veronique, Sharon and Olli³.

With my 8 blog posts in my Toastmasters series, I hope I gave you enough good reasons to at least consider joining a Toastmasters club. It’s an incredible opportunity to become a more confident public speaker, improve your leadership skills and meet some great people from a diverse background who share similar interests. And it’s also not very expensive.

If you are considering joining a club, you should definitely visit us at West London Speakers as a guest, and experience directly all the things I’ve told you in my posts. If you’re thinking about visiting us or joining our club, you’ll find all the information you need on this page.

I hope I’ll see you soon!

Andrea Marchello
​Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post

Have you ever felt the need to improve your public speaking skills but found it too daunting to even get started?
In this post, the second to last of my Toastmasters series, I will share my personal experience as a Toastmasters member and how I approached my learning path to become a better public speaker.

When I joined my Toastmasters club, just over a year ago, I was aware I had to improve in a lot of different areas of public speaking. I knew because I wasn’t new to it. I had done several presentations at work and I had given some speeches at Meetups or conferences. What I knew was that I used ehms and ehrs way too often, the famous filler words I talked about in one of my previous posts. I knew that my body language wasn’t great — for example, I tended to close my body and cross my arms; I also struggled to keep good eye contact with my audience. The reality is public speaking was nerve-racking for me.
In honesty, it still is. However, I now know what good looks like and, even though I still have plenty to learn, my confidence has increased. In this post, I will describe my journey over the last year.

I attended my first meeting as a guest in January 2020. It was the first meeting in the new year for the club. At the time, I had no idea about Toastmasters; I didn’t know what to expect. Hence, I decided to attend as a guest, so that I could observe and understand how it worked and if that club was suitable for my needs¹. As you can imagine, I loved it and decided to join the club as a member. Once I signed up, I chose Persuasive Influence as my learning pathway. The main reason was that I could see how I would have benefited from that at work, where I really wanted to learn how to influence people. Once I had my pathway, I didn’t hesitate and booked the next available slot for my first speech, in Toastmasters jargon my icebreaker.

I still remember my feelings on the day of my icebreaker as I was walking to the pub where we used to meet. I was so anxious I thought I would have a heart attack. I was freaking out. I didn’t know whether the story I had to tell was interesting at all or whether I would freeze up in front of the audience. Luckily, it went well and my new club was really supportive and encouraging. They also gave me plenty of constructive feedback. I love feedback so much that it made me even happier. I went back home with dozens of post-it notes from my fellow members that I still treasure.

It was so much feedback that it was almost overwhelming. There was a lot I had to focus on and improve, so I decided to create a spreadsheet to track all the different areas for improvement. I was committed to tackle all of them one by one. I knew I couldn’t focus on all of them at the same time, and I knew it would take time before I got to where I wanted to be.

Another challenge of embarking on a Toastmasters pathway is that you need ideas and topics to talk about, especially at the beginning. The first few projects give you carte blanche and you can pick and choose the topics you prefer. That’s why I created another spreadsheet, in which I could brainstorm and collect ideas for all the things I am passionate about and I wanted to give a speech about. That tool turned out to be really useful.

After my icebreaker, I was really excited and committed to move quickly along my learning journey. I booked a speech slot almost every month.

But how do I go about delivering a pathway project?
First of all, I book a slot a few weeks in advance, so that I make a commitment and I can hold myself accountable to it. Then, I book slots in my calendar every weekend to make progress with my project. I choose weekends as during the week I am too busy with work.
The first thing I do during one of my dedicated time slots is to read through the project, learn the theory, and understand the assignment. Then, I jot down the first draft of my speech. I then usually read it to my fiancée and a couple of friends to get some early feedback and I tweak it accordingly until I am happy with the script.

After that, I start practising so that I can learn the main parts. I don’t need to know it word by word, but I do try to memorise it as much as I can. Once I am confident with the script, I can finally practise the delivery. I stand in front of my laptop and tell the speech like my audience was there. I focus on my body language, vocal variety, and everything I talked about in one of my previous articles².

Preparation is key in my opinion. In this way, when you get to the day you have to deliver your speech in front of your club, you are more confident and you know what you’re doing. This will allow you to focus on connecting with your audience and bringing them along with you on your journey.

Not all projects require you to prepare and give a speech. Some of them are about evaluating someone else’s speech or being a Table Topic Master. Regardless of the projects, I challenged myself and took on other functionary roles, like Toastmaster or Grammarian³. When doing that, my approach is quite similar to when I prepare for a speech: I make sure I spend enough time to understand the requirements for the role and prepare what I have to say during the meeting. Once again, preparation is key.

As you can imagine, 2020 introduced a brand new challenge for all Toastmasters members. Every club in the world had to move their meetings from face-to-face to virtual. A lot of people decided to drop out and wait for the world to go back to normal. Instead, I preferred to continue as I identified a lot of potential in this new situation. Giving presentations and speaking publicly on a video conference is a different skill that comes with a different set of challenges. It’s also a skill that has become more and more relevant during the recent global pandemic. In the end, I got a lot of value from being a Toastmasters member in 2020. Although I miss being together with my club at the pub where we used to meet, I don’t feel like I wasted my time at all by attending our meetings online. In reality, I have made a lot of progress as a public speaker, regardless of all the limitations.

In conclusion, in this post I have shared my personal experience as a Toastmasters member and my approach to learning and preparing for a meeting.
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In my next and last post of this series, I will tell you about my Toastmasters club: West London Speakers.

Andrea Marchello
​Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post

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In this post, the 6th of my Toastmasters series, I will focus on mentorship. Mentorship is one of the multiple benefits of joining a Toastmasters club, and it’s also an extremely powerful tool in any area of your life where you’re trying to learn and grow, be it at work, with one of your hobbies or in life in general.

During my Toastmasters journey, as part of one of my assignments, I had to prepare a speech about mentorship and share my experience as a protégé. At the time, I hadn’t been exposed to the idea of mentorship too much. However, when I looked back to my past, I actually recognised many people who helped me during my life, effectively acting as mentors. I thought about school teachers, music teachers, sports coaches, managers at work and even my therapist. In the end, for that speech, I decided to talk about my mum and how through her love she inspired my whole life. Delivering that speech in front of my fellow toastmasters was very emotional and made me feel very vulnerable, but it was a great experience.

In the last year or so, I finally started practising mentorship both as a mentee and as a mentor. I have a mentor at work who’s been helping me massively with my career progression, and a Toastmasters mentor, who’s been helping me become a better speaker. I am also mentoring two people, one colleague at my company and one person from a different company. Additionally, in my job I am a line manager for several people. In a way, I feel like I am a mentor to them as well.

In the rest of this post, I will talk about my experience both as a mentor and as a mentee and I will share my thoughts on what makes a great mentor and a great mentee.

Deciding to find a mentor for yourself is a great step in the right direction, if you’re a keen learner and are trying to make progress in a specific area of your life. A mentor is someone who can support you, give you feedback and help you grow by leveraging their experience and knowledge in a specific topic. When you decide to work with a mentor, it’s important to define what you’re trying to learn in detail and even agree on a set of clear objectives you will focus on.

It’s also fundamental to establish how you’re going to work together. As a mentee, what do you need from your mentor? Do you want them to mostly listen to your ideas and your frustrations? Do you prefer them to give you explicit advice or to ask you questions to unlock your thinking? How do you prefer to receive feedback? Do you want to speak to them on a regular basis or on an ad-hoc basis? Do you want to meet them online or in person?

When you are planning a session with your mentor, it’s very important to prepare so that you know exactly what you’re going to discuss and you can focus on the things you need. Even better if you can send them an agenda in advance, so they can also come prepared. All these details will help make your mentorship relationship successful.

In my case, my Toastmasters mentor is the President of my club. He has an immense experience both as a Toastmaster and in life. I have so far been able to learn and improve myself a lot thanks to him. Every time I prepare a speech, I reach out and ask for specific advice either on the content and structure of the speech or on the delivery. I usually reach out also after the speech to ask for feedback and know what he thinks I should focus on next time. This has notably sped up my personal growth as a public speaker.

On the other hand, deciding to become a mentor was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I had to overcome a massive impostor syndrome. At first, I didn’t think I would have too much to offer and I wasn’t sure whether my advice would be any useful to my mentees. I have to admit that even now, after being a mentor for quite a while, I sometimes still feel that way. It takes a bit of vulnerability and a bit of risk to put yourself in that position. What if I don’t know how to answer their questions or what advice to give them?

Once you overcome that feeling, the return of investment is invaluable. Whenever my mentees tell me they found our sessions useful, or even better whenever they come to me in the following session telling me how they applied my advice successfully, I feel an unspeakable joy. In a way, it’s my way of giving back. I received a lot of support from numerous people and now I can finally help others.

The most incredible part of being a mentor is how much learning there is for yourself. You’re presented with a number of situations and problems you haven’t necessarily experienced before. You can learn more about other people, other departments in your company or other companies, depending on your mentee. You also have a huge opportunity to improve on fundamental skills, like communication or counselling.

When you’re a mentor, my main advice is: LISTEN. Listening is the most important skill you have to develop if you want to become a good mentor. You need to try and understand what your mentees need from you and how you can best help them. Sometimes all they need is someone to listen to them. But not always…

It’s crucial for a mentor to learn how to ask the right questions; open questions to encourage them to think and get to the solution to their problems by themselves; not trying to lead them anywhere but just facilitating their thought process.

When they’re asking for advice explicitly, first of all show empathy. Put yourself in their shoes and try to understand and acknowledge how they feel. If you can and if relevant, try to draw from your personal experience and share a personal story.

At times, it’s OK if you don’t have the perfect answer or perfect advice. Just be honest and brainstorm with them. That will surely help them.

Finally, ask for feedback. Try to figure out how you can best provide them with what they need and adapt your style accordingly.

Coming to the end of my post, I have gone through mentorship from both the mentor’s and mentee’s perspectives. I am a huge fan of mentorship and I strongly encourage you to go ahead and find either a mentor or a mentee for yourself. You won’t regret it.

Andrea Marchello
​Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post

Have you ever found yourself in that difficult situation where someone asked you a challenging and unexpected question and you didn’t know where to start? Imagine a situation like an important business meeting at work or a job interview. Or even an intense conversation with your partner or a friend. In situations like these, most of us would either freeze or start saying long ehms not knowing what to say and trying to buy some time.

Imagine instead if you were able to keep it together, think on your feet and respond to the question decisively and assertively, being able to convey your message effectively and concisely. This specific skill is called impromptu speaking. It’s basically about giving a speech without any preparation whatsoever. After all, providing an answer to a question is just like giving a speech.

Luckily, if you’re a Toastmasters member, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to practice this skill. That is thanks to the Table Topics session that happens in one of the two halves of a typical Toastmasters meeting¹.

A Table Topics session is run by a Table Topics Master. There are a number of participants, usually up to 10, and, in typical Toastmasters style, a Table Topics Evaluator is there to listen to all the speakers and give feedback to all of them at the end of the session.

The Table Topics Master will prepare a series of questions on a specific topic prior to the session; then, during the session call each participant on stage to answer one of the questions. Obviously, no one knows the questions in advance, so the challenge is to answer without any preparation and speak for a minimum of 1 minute and a maximum of 2. The Timekeeper is there watching you, so you don’t want to go over time nor speak for less than a minute.

As you can imagine, this can be fun and nerve wracking at the same time. However, if you think about the situations I described at the beginning of my post, you can imagine how useful it is to be able to practice this skill on a regular basis. Becoming a great Table Topics speaker has incredible benefits in real life. You will suddenly feel more confident at work, when put on the spot by your boss or a colleague with a difficult question. You can really up your game and start inspiring the people around you. You will also feel more comfortable just having a conversation with a friend or a chat with a stranger you’ve just met.

But how can you become a great Table Topics speaker?
Here are some tips²:

• No need to panic. This is just a game, don’t worry! All your fellow Toastmasters in the audience have been or are going to be in the same situation. They will empathise with your anxiety.
• Buy some time. There are many ways of buying some time, like thanking the Table Topics Master or repeating the question. In the meantime, you can think of an idea for an answer.
• When some idea pops into your head, go for it. You don’t need anything perfect. Say it and then build on what you said.
• Try to put some structure even if the speech is impromptu. Say your idea at the beginning, elaborate and provide supporting facts in the middle part, conclude by restating the main point of your speech.
• Tell a story from your personal experience. You don’t need any preparation to remember something happened to you and, as discussed in one of my previous posts, stories are always effective.
• Don’t be afraid of making things up. A Table Topics speech can be funny. You don’t need to know anything or state any absolute truth. Go with the flow and have fun.
• Avoid filler words just to buy some time if you don’t know what to say. As for any speech, that will not give a great impression.
• Always keep an eye on the Timekeeper. During a club meeting, nothing happens if you speak for less than a minute or more than two, but if you’re competing in a Table Topics contest, you will be disqualified.
• Last but not least, keep practicing and always put yourself forward when the Table Topics Master is looking for speakers!

What about being a great Table Topics Master?
Here are some tips for that:

• Prepare your topic in advance. Prepare an intro and about 10 questions.
• Make sure you provide enough context in the intro. Don’t forget to remind the participants about the purpose and benefits of Table Topics.
• Ask your question first and then call the name of the speaker. That will create a bit of tension for all the speakers.
• Listen carefully and try to link every answer with the following question.
• When preparing your questions, try to be inclusive. It’s important to give any speaker, regardless of their knowledge or background, an opportunity to speak for at least a minute.
• Finally, be creative, think outside the box and encourage the speakers to use their imagination.

On the last point, in our club we experimented with things like a role-playing game on a crime scene or people having to sell objects that don’t exist. It was a lot of fun and everyone was really engaged.

Finally, if you’re a Table Topics Evaluator, you obviously have a very difficult job.
A few tips below:

• Listen carefully to all the speakers and take a lot of notes.
• Make sure you identify at least one commendation and one recommendation for every speaker.
• When delivering your evaluation you will have between 4 and 6 minutes regardless of the number of speakers. Make sure you make time to give feedback to everybody.
• Don’t waste time summarising the speech, but focus on commendations and recommendations.
• Remember, you’re not assessing the Table Topics Master. Just focus on the speakers.
• Wrap up with a general and encouraging comment on all the speakers.

In conclusion, in this post, the 5th of my Toastmasters series, I’ve told you about the importance of impromptu speaking in real life and how the Table Topics session in a Toastmasters meeting can help you build that skill.

Andrea Marchello
​​Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post

In this post, the 4th of my Toastmasters series, I will focus on feedback. I will explain how feedback is one of the key elements of Toastmasters and why it is extremely important to me. I will also share some tips on giving and receiving feedback both from Toastmasters International and my personal experience.

Some say “feedback is the breakfast of champions”. I like to say “feedback is like a gift we give each other”. The concept is the same. Feedback is an indispensable tool we all need to learn how to use if we want to learn and grow and if we want to help others to do the same. Feedback is one of the main reasons why I love Toastmasters. The culture of feedback at Toastmasters is incredible as it’s always given in a positive and encouraging way whilst providing very valuable observations on areas for improvement. Becoming a member of a Toastmasters club really helps you build a growth mindset. Nothing is impossible. You quickly realise that public speaking is not a skill we were either born with or not. It’s a skill you can learn with feedback and deliberate practice. Like any other.

During a Toastmasters meeting¹, there are several opportunities to give and receive feedback. When giving a prepared speech, you will be assigned an Evaluator who will give a 2–3 minutes speech to give you feedback. The other members are also encouraged to provide feedback on your speech either via post-it notes in pre-pandemic meetings or via Zoom direct messages nowadays.

Another opportunity to receive feedback is when you participate in the Table Topics session. Every Table Topic is assessed by a Table Topics Evaluator. Their role is very difficult in that they have between 4 and 6 minutes to evaluate up to 10 Table Topics. That’s a lot of feedback concentrated in only a few minutes!

The Grammarian will share their report at the end of the meeting which will contain feedback regarding the use of the English language to most of the speakers.

Finally the General Evaluator will provide feedback for the meeting and the club in general, focussing on all those functionary roles that haven’t had the opportunity to receive feedback during the meeting, e.g. Toastmaster, Evaluators, Grammarian, Table Topics Master, Timekeeper and Sergeant at Arms. This is really to make sure that everyone who’s spoken during the meeting is receiving feedback.

Toastmasters International provides a few tips for both receiving and giving feedback, which I am going to summarise below. If you’re receiving feedback, they advise to:

• Listen carefully to what the evaluator observed.
• Have an open mind and refrain from all judgments, otherwise you may miss out on some valuable information.
• Ask for clarifications and make sure you understand all the observations.
• Be engaged and give your full attention.
• Stay positive and don’t take it personally. After all, they’re only trying to help!

When you’re evaluating someone else’s speech, Toastmasters International recommends to:

• Make sure you’re providing feedback rather than advice. Feedback is information, while advice is an opinion. Share observations rather than suggestions.
• Understand their objectives and their personal goals. Adjust your expectations based on where they’re at in their journey.
• Give positive feedback. Try and encourage them by highlighting what they did well.
• Provide constructive criticism. Point out areas for improvement respectfully by sharing what you observed.
• Give more positive feedback than constructive criticism.

When you’re going to give a speech, it’s even more effective if you seek specific feedback and ask the evaluator to focus on specific areas you’re currently working on and trying to improve.

When I am not a Toastmasters member, I am also a massive fan of feedback. At work, since becoming an Engineering Manager a few years ago, I’ve always been striving to create a feedback culture in every team I’ve worked with. I consider feedback a great way to learn more about yourself quickly and effectively; at the same time, it’s a great way to create trust and help others to improve.

Below I will share a few tips from my personal experience:

• Start by soliciting feedback for yourself and show that you’re willing to take it onboard and make changes accordingly. Obviously only for the feedback you consider valuable, not all feedback is good!
• Make it about the behaviour, not the person. Use expressions like “you did”, not “you are”.
• Be specific. Always support your theory with specific examples.
• Explain the impact of their behaviour. For instance, tell them how their behaviour made you feel.
• Share your observations and avoid prescriptive language.
• Choose the right time. Some feedback has to be given immediately to be effective, while in other circumstances you can wait for the next occasion.
• And the right context. Some feedback has to be delivered on an individual basis, some can be given in front of a group. This also depends on the personal preference of who’s receiving it.
• Last but not least, feedback doesn’t have to be all constructive. It’s important to also give positive and reinforcing praise, actually, if possible, more of that!

On the last point, I strongly believe in the power of praise and at some point in the future I will write about it in my blog. In a nutshell, I believe praise is incredibly important as it allows you to show people what good looks like to you and reinforce a specific behaviour you want to see more of. As a byproduct, it also makes people feel good about themselves, which is not a bad thing.

In conclusion, I strongly believe that all of us should always make an effort to create a culture of feedback, whether that is at work, at home or in other group settings. And for this very reason, I strongly believe the feedback culture at Toastmasters is one of the main reasons why you should consider joining a club.
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In my next post, I will write about impromptu speaking, don’t miss it!

Andrea Marchello
​Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post

In this post, the 3rd of my Toastmasters series, I’ll go through the different components of a speech and tell you how to deliver a memorable speech.
One of the things I learned during my experience as a Toastmaster member, is to break down a speech into 3 different components. I use this approach both when I am preparing my own speeches and when I am evaluating someone else’s. These components are structure, content, and delivery.
Aclear structure is paramount if you want to make sure your message is conveyed effectively and your audience is left with some meaningful learning. Regardless of the Toastmasters pathway¹ you select, your first speech will be your icebreaker. When preparing for that, you will learn the basic structure, which entails intro, body, and conclusions.
A very typical and old recommendation in public speaking is “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them”. This is adopted by many public speakers, but others don’t consider this approach very effective if you want to keep your audience’s attention up. I’ve personally used it at times, but not always.
What I’ve learned from one of the projects in my Toastmasters pathway is that you can use a lot of different types of structure, for example:

• Chronological: following a sequence of events.
• Topical: organising your speech into topics and subtopics.
• Spatial: using geography to organise your speech, almost like a journey.
• Causal: linking cause and effect.
• Comparative: highlighting similarities and differences between two topics.
• Problem/Solution: presenting a problem first and then offering a possible solution.
• Particular/General/Particular: starting your speech with a specific example, then looking at the matter more in general and concluding with something more specific to reinforce your views.

I’ve experimented a lot with structure and tried some of the above. In one of my speeches I used a slightly different approach: I started with a very compelling personal story using vivid and descriptive language; I then went back in time and explained how I got to that moment described in the intro; I concluded by talking about what happened afterwards and what I learned from that whole experience. That approach was very successful in that it kept the audience engaged during the whole speech².
The content is arguably the most important component of your speech. This is really about the WHAT. What do you want your audience to take away from your speech? What do you want them to learn and even apply in their own lives?
A speech could really be about anything, so I won’t write too much about content. However, I thought I would share a couple of thoughts from my personal experience.
First of all, when working on the content of your speech, you may need or want to carry out some research on the topic. That might require you to read a book or an online article or even to interview an expert. Whichever approach you choose, it’s very important to always quote your source and support the ideas you’re presenting.
Secondly, I want to emphasise the power of stories, a very effective tool to use in your speech. You could use one or multiple short stories during your speech, otherwise your whole speech could be a story. Stories are powerful because they stimulate and engage the human brain and help the audience and the speaker to connect. Using stories increases the likelihood of your message sticking with your audience. As Carmine Gallo writes in his book “Talk like TED”, there are 3 types of stories: personal stories, stories about other people or stories about brand success.
I personally like to mix research and personal stories and I’ve used this technique many times. However, regardless of what the content of your speech looks like, my strong recommendation is to always try to present your ideas in a novel way. Most people crave for learning and novelty is instrumental to make sure your audience has something to take away from your presentation. Even if you think that what you’re saying is not new, you can always offer a different point of view, your own point of view, and share your personal experience on the topic. That will surely make your content more original and intriguing.
Last but not least, delivery. Great delivery is essential to become an outstanding public speaker. A memorable speech is not just about what you say but it’s also about HOW you say it. Great content with a great structure delivered poorly results in mediocre speech.
Great delivery can help you achieve multiple outcomes. Great delivery can help you deeply and intimately connect with your audience and bring them on to a journey with you. Great delivery can help your audience focus on the most significant parts of your speech, capture their attention and emphasise the most important message you’re trying to convey. Great delivery can ultimately generate emotions in your audience and feeling strong emotions is what makes a speech memorable. Strong emotions stick in your brain and become part of who you are. And as a great public speaker you want your speeches to be memorable.
That’s great, but what should you look out for in order to achieve that? There are multiple aspects to delivery. We can separate them out in two macro-categories: how you use your body and how you use your voice.



How you use your body is key. I will focus on 4 areas, body language, hand gestures, facial expression and eye contact³.

1. A closed body language, e.g. if you cross your arms or clasp your hands, means that somehow you feel threatened by the situation and you’re trying to protect yourself from the audience. Instead, an open body language is a sign of you trying to connect to them.
2. Your hand gestures can also make a huge difference. With your hands you can reflect and amplify what you’re saying with your voice. For example, you can use your hands to count if you’re going through a list or you can move your hand upwards if you’re talking about something increasing. Imagine doing the opposite and moving your hand downwards when talking about an increase. That would make your communication very confusing.
3. Another important aspect of body language is your facial expression. With your face you can add an emotional component to what you’re saying. You can smile to highlight a joyful passage of your speech or wrinkle your eyebrows if worry is the emotion you want your audience to feel.
4. If you want to engage your audience, eye contact is paramount. Delivering a speech without even looking at them is surely not a great way to ensure they’re engaged.

Moving on to how you use your voice, I am going to focus on 4 areas to watch out if you want to improve your vocal variety, the so-called 4 Ps, Pace, Pitch, Power, and Pauses.

1. Pace: when you’re delivering a speech and you feel nervous, it’s very common to increase the pace of your delivery, almost like you don’t want to be there and you want this to get over with quickly. This is a very typical problem, that I personally had to work on a lot to overcome. Learning how to slow down during a key moment of your speech to make sure the audience can focus on that is essential to great delivery.
2. Pitch: varying your pitch is another great tool to convey specific emotions. For example, lowering your pitch for sadness or raising it for excitement.
3. Power: the volume of your voice doesn’t have to be the same all over your speech. Speaking more quietly can create a sense of intimacy when needed, but a loud voice can create stronger emotions in your audience.
4. Pauses: most of us feel uncomfortable with pause and tend to fill in the gaps with “ehms” and “ehrs”, the most famous filler words. This is not great not only because it gives the impression you don’t know what you’re talking about, but also because you’re missing an opportunity to create a sense of anticipation and suspense. Using pauses effectively can literally get your audience to hang on your every word.

You may have noticed that in this post I am using the “Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them” approach. So, in conclusion, with this post I’ve told you about the 3 components of a great speech and shared what I’ve learned from my experience so far.
In my next post I will write about one of my passions, the power of feedback.
[1] If you want to learn more about Pathways and Toastmasters, please read my previous post.
[2] If you are curious you can read about this story that I turned into a Medium post here.
[3] For more tips about delivering a speech, this video is a must-watch.

Andrea Marchello
Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post

In this post, the 2nd of 8 in my Toastmasters series, I will tell you more about Toastmasters: what it is, how it works and why you should consider joining a club.

Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organisation created in 1924 that operates clubs worldwide for the purpose of promoting communication, public speaking and leadership¹. As of today, there are more than 364000 members in more than 16200 clubs in 145 countries.

A club is a group of people who meet on a regular basis; it’s a friendly environment where you can practice your speaking skills and get plenty of feedback from the other members. After all, public speaking is like any other skill, only with regular feedback and deliberate practice you can improve.

The typical structure of a club meeting is in two parts,
Half of the meeting is dedicated to prepared speeches. Up to 4 people can book a slot in advance and prepare a speech they will have to deliver in front of their fellow members. Every speech is assessed by an assigned evaluator who will give feedback to the speaker in front of everyone else, effectively by delivering a short speech themselves. All the other members can also provide feedback either on post-it notes or online messages if the meeting is online.

The other half of the meeting is dedicated to impromptu speaking, in Toastmasters jargon “Table Topics”. A Table Topics Master will prepare a list of questions on a certain topic and the participants will have to answer by delivering an impromptu speech for up to 2 minutes. All Table Topics participants will also receive an evaluation by a Table Topics Evaluator. Another post dedicated to Table Topics and impromptu speaking will be coming soon.

At the end of the meeting, the President will assign awards to the best speaker, the best Table Topic speaker and the best evaluator.

Apart from delivering a prepared or an impromptu speech, there are many other opportunities to practice your public speaking skills during a club meeting. That is thanks to the so-called functionary roles, which are essential to run a meeting. We already mentioned Table Topics Master and Speech Evaluator. Here is a list of the others:

• Toastmaster: effectively runs the meeting going through the agenda and calling all the speakers on stage.
• Timekeeper: time is key during a meeting, all speeches have time constraints and the timekeeper is the one who enforces them using a traffic light system to notify the speakers.
• Grammarian: listens to all speakers and provides feedback at the end of the meeting about the use of the language, including figures of speech, rhetorical devices and filler words. Also defines the word of the day, explains its meaning at the beginning of the meeting and encourages all the speakers to use it when they speak.
• General Evaluator: usually a guest from another club who gives feedback on the whole meeting and all the functionary roles at the end of the meeting.

Any club member can and is encouraged to take any of these roles to practice their communication, public speaking and leadership skills.
Every club is run by a committee. The committee members are:

• President: directs the club, leads the committee, and represents the club on Area and District councils.
• VP of Education: handles educational program, makes sure members are making progress towards their objectives and organises the agenda for the club meetings.
• VP of Membership: responsible for keeping up and increasing the number of members.
• VP of Public Relations: looks afters the club’s image, both internally and externally.
• Secretary: responsible for the club’s records and administration.
• Treasurer: in charge of the club’s finances.
• Sergeant at Arms: looks after the logistics of every meeting, and effectively hosts the meeting.
• VP of Mentorship: promotes mentorship in the club and ensures every club member has a mentor.

As you may have guessed from the aforementioned stats, there are clubs everywhere. Wherever you live, chances are there is a Toastmasters club near you. During the current pandemic, it’s even easier to join one as all clubs are meeting online.
But what happens once you join a club? First of all, you can attend a club meeting as a guest to understand what’s going on and if that is the right club for you.

Once you join, you have access to Pathways on the Toastmasters International website where you can choose your pathway according to your personal learning objectives. There are 11 different pathways tailored to a number of different needs, from Presentation Mastery to Dynamic Leadership, from Effective Coaching to Persuasive Influence, just to name a few. Once you choose your pathway, you will be presented with a curriculum, organised in 5 levels, each level with a number of projects. In each project you will learn some new concept and you will be given an assignment. Most assignments are about preparing a speech either on a specific theme or following specific instructions and delivering it during one of the club meetings.

Another benefit of joining a club is that you are assigned a mentor, another member of the club who can give you advice and help you achieve your goals. One of my following posts will focus on mentorship.

So why should you consider joining a Toastmasters club? Hopefully all the above provides a clear picture of what goes on in a club. In summary, a club is a friendly environment with people from diverse backgrounds who share similar goals, e.g. wanting to become more confident speakers and leaders. You should consider joining a club if you are keen to:

• Improve your public speaking skills.
• Build and practice your leadership skills.
• Work on your personal growth.
• Create connections with people from diverse backgrounds.
• Gain more self-confidence and self-awareness.

This is the end of the second post of my Toastmasters series. In the next one I will walk you through the 3 components of a great speech.

Watch this space!
​
Andrea Marchello
Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post

Until a couple of years ago, I wasn’t particularly passionate about blogging. I was reading articles on Medium every now and then to learn new things, but I would never consider myself as someone who had anything interesting or innovative to share. But then in the last two years, something has changed and I have been publishing articles every couple of months.

So what’s changed? What convinced me to open up and share my thoughts, feelings and passions with the community?

In 2019, I only published two articles on things I had learned and done at work, mostly related with the Lean principles, one of my passions. However, the biggest change happened in 2020.

Towards the end of 2019 I started questioning myself and my public speaking skills. I thought I was OK delivering a presentation but I definitely didn’t consider myself a good speaker. And I didn’t think that was good enough for someone who was trying to grow as a leader. As someone who strongly believes in the concept of growth mindset and someone who’s extremely passionate about feedback culture, Toastmasters was the perfect solution for me.

​At the beginning of 2020, I joined a Toastmasters club, West London Speakers, who meet every fortnight in a pub close to where I live and work. Well, that was before the pandemic. Now, like everything else, it’s on Zoom. I will explain in more detail what Toastmasters is in my next post, but in a nutshell becoming a member of a Toastmasters club gives you continuous opportunities to flex your public speaking muscles as well as practice your leadership skills.

As a member, during 2020 I delivered 9 prepared speeches. Public speaking is a lot about vulnerability. You have to stand in front of a crowd (or a laptop camera) and talk about stuff that you have no idea if anyone in the audience will find any interesting or useful. And I prefer to go “all-in” which means in every speech I always share stories from my own experience, sometimes just something happened at work, other times something more personal.

What I learned is that people love personal stories. I also learned that although the topics I was talking about in my speeches were common topics, I was presenting them in a personal and innovative way, with a different angle, my angle. And this was something my fellow toastmasters liked.

In addition to that, when I prepare for a speech I like to write a script, so I thought I could just slightly tweak the language of my scripts and publish them as Medium posts. This allowed me to publish 6 more Medium articles in 2020 on a number of different topics.
In this post I’ve told you the story of how I ended up being a “blogger”. This is the first of 8 posts I am going to publish over the next couple of weeks on the topic “Toastmasters”. Whether you know what Toastmasters is or not, if you have an interest in public speaking and leadership or simply an interest in learning and self-development, in this series you will learn more about Toastmasters, why you should consider joining a club, a few tips on public speaking and of course you will learn a bit about me.
Stay tuned for my following post in a couple of days!

Andrea Marchello
Blog was written by author as 8 part Toastmaster series and also available in his personal Medium post