Speech Preparation Guidelines

Writing and delivering can be a great experience if you follow a few careful steps.

• Read your Toastmasters speech assignment and understand what you are trying to achieve in the speech.
• Know what your speech evaluator will be looking for at the meeting
• Check both the minimum and maximum times allowed.
• Start your speech with an introduction that establishes who you are, what your purpose is, what you'll be talking about.
• Try to grab the audience's attention at the start with a question, joke, anecdote or maybe an interesting fact.4
• Organise your information into three to seven main points and prioritise them according to importance and effectiveness.
• Delete any content or points that aren't crucial to your speech if you have too many for your time allowed.
• Support all the points raised in your speech using statistics, facts, examples, anecdotes, quotations or other supporting material.
• Write a conclusion that summarises your points, restates the main purpose and leaves the audience with a lasting impression.
• Remember, writing and delivering a speech on a subject you know is far easier than have to research and learn loads of facts.
• Practice your speech in front of a friend, the family or even the mirror.
• Don’t put too much pressure on yourself, especially at the beginning of the manual.
• Learn and always use the Toastmasters greeting “Good evening Mr (Madam) President, Mr (Madam) Toastmaster, Fellow Toastmasters and welcome guests”. If you don’t need to think about your first sentence, you’ll immediately become more relaxed.
• Turn up early and do a site survey of the room. Practice your speech in the room before the audience arrives.
• If the Table Topics session is held before the speeches, ask to take part. You'll find that having spoken one, you'll be less nervous when the time comes to deliver your speech.
• After your introduction by the Toastmasters, don’t speak as soon as the clapping stops. Take a few seconds to survey the room, take a deep breath, and then say the Toastmasters greeting.
• Try to make eye contact with everyone in the room at least once.
• Stay within the timing requirements of your speech.
• At the end of your speech, don’t say ‘thank you’. Finish your sentence, pause, look at the Toastmaster and say Mr (Madam) Toastmaster. Then enjoy your well earned applause!