Skip to content

Members

Member Journey

Nuremberg Toastmaster’s mission, along with all Clubs across the globe, is to “provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth.”

We provide you with a wide range of opportunities to build skills, increase self-confidence and achieve growth.

You take this journey at your own pace: define your goals, make plans, take action. This page provides you with information and resources for the general stages along your journey. Use it as a guide to mapping out your own route.

Resources for all members

Your First 100 Days

Your first 100 days as a Toastmaster is full of new experiences and, most likely, lots of questions. It’s also a totally arbitrary timeframe – everything at Toastmasters is self-paced, so you may decide to take things at a slower pace. Or speed your journey up. Totally up to you!

The five steps below represent what we believe are the essentials for getting off to a good start: read through the basics in The Navigator, have an onboarding chat with an experienced member, get acquainted with the Easy Speak planning tool, take meeting roles, and deliver your Ice Breaker.

We want to help you get the most out of the Toastmasters program and our amazing club, so please feel free to reach out to any member if you have any doubts or questions. We’re here for you.

Review the New Member Packet you were given. This provides you with a concise introduction to the Club and to Toastmasters in general.

For more detail The Navigator handbook provides an excellent overview of all things Toastmasters. Most relevant for your first 100 days are the topics of meetings, roles, and speeches. It also provides an overview of the Pathways Educational program, club officers, evaluations, and more.

Take a look through pages 3-8 in the pdf version in particular. The online version is always the most current with more complete information. 

Meeting Roles

Club meetings are at the heart of Toastmasters. By actively participating, you develop your speaking, listening, leadership and feedback skills – the reasons you joined Toastmasters in the first place!

Roles such as Ah Counter, Timer, and Grammarian are great roles to start with. They are narrower in scope, allow you to contribute to the meeting, and give you the chance to speak for a minute or two.

Use Easy Speak to sign up for the roles one or two meetings in advance to ensure you get the role you want.

Information on each role can be found in several places. You may want to read through the responsibilites of the role before the meeting. Take a look at:

Easy Speak

Although not an official Toastmasters platform, Easy Speak is used by 1000s of clubs worldwide as a valuable meeting planning and progress tracking tool. It’s extremely helpful for both you and club leadership when you use Easy Speak regularly to take meeting roles and request speeches. You will receive an email with your login credentials shortly after you become a member. Once logged in, you can update your name, userid and profile information. Watch this short tutorial showing how to mark your attendance at meetings, sign up for roles and request a speech.

Ice Breaker

The Ice Breaker is exactly what you think it is – your first speech where you break the ice as a speaker by introducing yourself to the club. It’s a 4-6 minute speech about a topic you are an expert on – you!

Use the skills you already have and aim to deliver your Ice Breaker shortly after joining. Select three or four interesting aspects of your life that will give your fellow club members insight into and understanding of you as an individual. These might include your birthplace, education, or family. You could explain how you came to be in your present occupation and tell the audience something about your ambitions. Or you could explain the effect an incident from your youth has had on your life.

Once have the highlights of your talk in mind, weave them into a story, just as if you were telling it to a group of friends. Sharing personal experiences will relieve some of your stress and make your Ice Breaker very enjoyable for the audience.

Additional Ice Breaker resources:

Pathways

Once you’ve become more comfortable with the Club, its meetings and the meeting roles, and perhaps after you’ve delivered your Ice Breaker, you’ll want to explore Pathways and select your Path.

Pathways currently offers 6 different learning paths to choose from. Each Path has a variety of required and elective projects that give you the opportunity to strengthen existing skills and/or try out something new.

The entire Toastmasters program is self-paced, so you make your own plan. Actively participating in Pathways, whatever pace suits you, will benefit both you and the Club.

Pathways resources include:

Further Down the Road

Once you’ve become comfortable with the basics, you’ll be ready for some new challenges: selecting a Path, delivering more speeches, taking on more advanced meeting roles. You’ll become better acquainted with the full Toastmasters program and be introduced to the Base Camp platform.

Feel free to reach out to an experienced member if you have any questions or doubts.

 

Deliver More Speeches

 Regardless of which Path you choose, the first four (4) speech projects are the same and are designed to provide you with a solid foundation in public speaking skills:
  • Ice Breaker
  • Writing a Speech with Purpose
  • Introduction to Vocal Variety and Body Language
  • Evaluation and Feedback

Take More Advanced Meeting Roles

You’ve probably tried your hand at Ah Counter, Grammarian, and Timer. You’ve given your Ice Breaker. How about challenging yourself with one of these roles? Check out Club Meeting Roles for further info.

Notes for inclusion in above section:

  1. Explore Pathways
  2. Choose Path
  3. Deliver speeches (Evaluation Form) / Other meeting roles

Future Destinations

Your Toastmasters journey is full of milestones and opportunities. Watch for updates in this section to guide you through competing a level in Pathways, completing a Path and becoming more involved in the Club.

Notes for inclusion in above section:

  1. Complete a Level
  2. Complete a Path
  3. Become an Officer
  4. Get involved outside of club