Here's to Foyle Speakers Toastmaster club

Anne McFarland is getting through Covid-19 with the support of the Foyle Speakers Toastmaster Club.

Speaking to Donegal Live from her home in Carrigans, an upbeat Anne, who is the organisation's area director, said: “This is how I am getting through Covid-19 because I have this group. We are on WhatsApp and there are regular Zoom meetings.

“Our membership would be very much 50-50 Inishowen and Derry, with our Inishowen members coming from Carndonagh down to Carrigans, in fact right down to Lifford.

“Toastmasters was an organisation set up in the US many years ago to help unemployed young men at that time to improve their leadership and speaking skills. There are Toastmaster clubs are all over the world today, with four in our vicinity.

“A typical meeting would consist of about three prepared speeches. These speeches can be serious, like building a social media presence or sometimes they are quite comic, we had one recently on corgi racing,” said Anne.

Toastmasters follows 'Pathways to an Educational Programme' which teaches members how to develop their speaking and leadership skills.

Members can go at whatever pace they want.

Anne said: “Members can dip in and dip out, for instance we have a member who has made about two speeches in six years but just enjoys the environment of the club.

“One part of our meeting would be the prepared speeches. The other part of the meeting is practising impromptu speaking, which we call table topics. Members can be asked to speak for two to three minutes on something quite simple like your favourite place or it could be a much more difficult topic such as, interpret a quotation such as the Amelia Earhart quotation: 'The most effective way to do it is to do it'. I would then ask a member to speak on the topic for two or three minutes. Sometimes they can be quite comic. The light relief comes from asking two people to play out a scenario.

“For example, last week two people were asked to play out a pest control company which has arrived at a luxury restaurant on a call out. One was a very irate restaurant owner and the other was Mr Pest Control who was insisting he was going to get his job.

“Everything that happens in a meeting is evaluated but it is not marks out of ten, it's just people's opinion. We encourage people to be positive when being critical,” said Anne.

During Covid-19, Toastmasters offers friendship, as well as support and mentoring’.

According to Anne, in this new Covid world, making presentations and speaking on line has become increasingly important be it for students, for people in the work place, for those seeking employment or simply for those who enjoy the communication.

She said: “ Foyle Speakers and Toastmaster give training to help members improve their Zoom skills, as well as leadership and public speaking skills.

“We recently celebrated our 5th Birthday. In addition, we achieved

Toastmasters’ Presidents Distinguished Club award. This is the highest award that a Toastmasters club can achieve in a year and highlights the achievements of individual members.

“But what stands out is that Foyle Speakers is a lively, thoughtful group of people of different backgrounds and nationalities, who stand together to support each other during this crisis,” said Anne with evident pride.

Foyle Speakers can be contacted at: https://www.facebook.com/FoyleSpeakers/ and meets on the second and the fourth Wednesday of each month.