Wattala Toastmasters Club:

Climbing up the ladder

Demi Hewamanna

The Toastmasters Club was begun in a basement of a YMCA in Santa Ana, California in 1924 by Ralph C Medley and today it has grown to spread in 113 countries with 12,500 clubs and more than 250,000 members.

In the early 1900s ‘toastmaster’ was a person who made the toast and introduced the speakers at a banquet and this is how Ralph named this group “The Toastmasters International”.

“The Toastmasters gives self confidence to an individual and also in the other areas of life, like in their studies, work and others,” the first President of the Wattala Toastmasters Club M. Alroy Mascrenghe said when I asked him what Toastmaster is all about. People come from all walks of life and when they give a speech at one of the meetings they hold, other members listen to it and evaluate it.

Toastmasters has two main levels and that is improving leadership skills and building up self confidence of a person and at every meeting a person is chosen to chair the meeting and make a speech, Alroy added. Under these levels there are many tests or projects that one has to master to be the toastmaster.

There are 20 to 25 people who get together and these people are given a project in the competent communication level where they have to do 10 project speeches. In this level they learn how to use gestures, make eye contact and how to deliver a proper speech.

The beginning of the speech is called the Ice Breaker, where one comes out of their shell and brings out their inner voice to show what they got and see where the changes can be made and build up their confidence.

The second level Advanced Level goes under three Communicators which are advance communicator bronze, advance communicator silver and advance communicator gold.

Then there is the Competent Leader which has two levels to reach which are advance leader bronze and advance leader silver. Reaching all this levels takes one to be the Toastmaster.

“The difference between our club and other clubs is that people fight to get a particular place but in Toastmasters one has to be communicator for at least six months,” Alroy added.

The Wattala Toastmaster Club was founded only two months ago, and this was a vision of Alroy who is the All Island Best Speaker of the year at the All Island Best Speaker Contest organized by the Colombo Toastmasters Club.

They had their meeting in June where they invited other club members to judge their meeting. They gave publicity in all the areas, hung up posters everywhere and persuaded people to join the club explaining what they can achieve out of it and made the Wattala Toastmasters Club.

When they began telling people to join they had only 12 entries and they needed 20 entries to get chartered as affiliated club and somehow or the other through Alroy’s persuasion eight gave their names and on June 30 chartered the club.

Everything that the club does is first approved and checked through Toastmasters International. Already they have completed four successful meetings and members such as Galadari Hotel General Manager’s Office Executive Secretary Nishanthie Dissanayake has completed four speeches already.

Nishanthie is the Vice President of Public Relations of the club and she too is a winner of her own talent. She was awarded the Secretary of the Year 2010 organized by SLAAPS.

The Sri Lanka Association of Administrative & Professional Secretaries (SLAAPS) conducted the Contest to select the Administrative and Professional Secretary of the Year 2010 in April this year.

Nishanthie will now vie for the “Asia Pacific Administrative & Professional Secretaries Award for the year 2010, which will be conducted by the Association of Secretaries and Administrative Professionals in Asia Pacific (ASA) during its Congress, which will be held this year in Taipei.”

This is a great big training and help for her as it is building up her skills to speak at an event she will be participating in Taipei. At first Nishanthie was keen on speaking but just after two meetings, she asked the President to hold the meeting as much as possible.

“We don’t have any funds, but we have created something different from our club, we have added value to our members from every meeting and we have a mix of people,” Alroy stated. With their motto “Creating Positive Opportunities for Everyone”, they have got people from all over to join them.

There are people who are senior managers of banks, insurance managers, accountants, military and university students who are among the members of the toastmasters club.

They are always giving them confidence and an average six speech a day would take one far. People come out of curiosity to see what it is and when they know what it is, they want to come for more.

Toastmaster as said before is all about building up your confidence and leadership skills that can take you to places you wouldn’t have dreamed of going. To know more of the club in Wattala you can contact Alroy on 0777-572-414.

Committee members

Alroy Mascrenghe - President
Nishanthie Dissanayake - Vice President Public Relations
Shadiya Zackaria - Vice President Membership
Anbalahan Paul - Vice President Education
Prabu Doraisamy - Treasurer
Alex Leons- Sergeant at Arms
Santhush Weerakoon - Secretary