Greetings from Toastmasters International!

From a humble beginning in 1924 Toastmasters International has grown to become a world leader in helping people become more competent and comfortable in front of an audience. The nonprofit organization now has nearly 235,000 members in 11,700 clubs in 92 countries, offering a proven - and enjoyable! - way to practice and hone communication and leadership skills.

One of the key success factors behind a thriving User Group and successfully running dynamic meetings is the ability to have experts speak in an informative and engaging manner on topics they are interested in. Although there are many who present and are either technical wizards or engaging speakers, there are far fewer who are both! Quite apart from the obvious benefits good speakers have to your meetings, the ability for them to present well and to get their ideas across is a critical skill, especially in today's economy

The Toastmasters program is a convenient, supportive, interactive and inexpensive way to help improve presentation skills and increase leadership potential by helping participants to communicate more effectively. The program uses time-tested methods in a self-paced curriculum. As participants progress in the program, they receive constructive evaluations from their peers to assist them in becoming a more effective speaker and leader to a broader audience as well as more select audiences, such as your user group.

Working together with Culminis, INETA, Microsoft and PASS, we have identified a number of ways in which Toastmasters can assist you: