Denis MacDonald is a self-employed contract carpet cleaner and a member of the Blarney Toastmasters. He is also director of the Toastmaster Conference to be held at Fitzpatrick's Silver Spring, Cork, 9-11 May.
There is a public conception of Toastmasters being a boring middle-class organisation for public speakers. A lot of that comes from the name, Toastmaster, but it's nothing like that. The one thing we don't do is make toasts.
Over here we have a confusion over the name which does not exist in the States, where it originated. What Toastmasters is really about is building self confidence. They use public speaking as a tool, because most people become more confident if you can get them to work on a fear. And the biggest fear for most people is standing up and speaking public.
I was looking for something different to do. I had done night classes and Toastmasters was a social outlet was well - without the pressure of exams at the end. We have meetings every two weeks during the school year. In the first half of the meeting we usually have four people speaking on a prearranged topic that they choose themselves. We work with a manual that you are given when you pay the joining fee (about £30). Every time you speak, there are certain objectives you try and achieve. In the early stages it might be just to use eye contact or do something with your voice. Then as you go along you are asked complete a more difficult task every time. The other half of the meeting is totally off the cuff. You are asked to speak for two minutes on any given topic. Anyone at the meeting is fair game to be asked, but it's only for two minutes.
You could be lucky and be asked about something you're familiar with, or you could ge a topic where you don't have a clue. It could gardening , or space exploration - recently I was asked to do two minutes on the mating habits of marshmallows.
The only real way to gain confidence is to do it regularly so that you lose the fear. It's amazing when you have to stand up and hear our own voice, speaking out loud. All the fears are there then, you have to overcome that. And the only way to overcome it is by doing it. It doesn't happen overnight. It does take a while, like learning to swim. I was in Toastmasters about three years before I was confident. There is a lot of positive affirmation, a lot of applause.
When you give a prepared speech from the manual , you will be assessed by somebody, and they will judge how you met the objectives set by that particular speech. In Blarney we have a bus driver, a barrister, a lawyer, teachers, nurses, a washing machine repairman, there's a whole range of people. The youngest is 24 and the oldest is 72 but most people would be 30-40.
We have one man who used to just come along and listen, he said it entertained him. And after six months he said 'Okay, I'll do something now,' and he went on to become one of our best speakers. He's had stories and articles published. He always had these things in his head, but because he got up and spoke, wrote out a speech, he found he could flesh it out a bit more and get an article out of it. It's the discipline that helps.
Most people stay because they enjoy the social side. Twice a year we have competitions, built into the conference that is taking place next weekend. The highlight will be the international speech contest. We hope to have 400-500 Toastmasters from Britain and Ireland. Britain and Ireland are one unit in the Toastmasters organisation, but funnily enough there are more Toastmasters in Ireland than in England. Perhaps it's because we like to talk?
I could guarantee that anybody who joins Toastmasters will get promotion or a change of job to a higher level at a better salary within two years. Not everyone would agree, but I think it has a huge effect on people. It brings out the good in you, and it makes you think what you're doing with your life.
I know. I wandered around for about 25, 30 years with no particular ambition. It makes you realise that somebody else who is successful isn't any better than you are, they've just done something about it. It makes you take action.
In conversation with Alannah Hopkin of 'The Examiner' May 1997