Toastmasters Club in an Antique Store

Boaz and Ruth

At the very back of an antique and used-furniture store in Richmond, Va., a Toastmasters meeting begins. Here, people get practice at becoming better public speakers.

Most of the twenty-five men and women in the store, seated around a heavy wooden table, have recently come out of prisons.

Off to the side, Martha Rollins sits and listens. She started this place, and now calls it her Robin Hood idea. She already had one antique store, then added this one with the purpose of selling to the rich and giving jobs to the poor.

Not many rich people show up at this store in the inner city. So to keep the place going, Rollins gets grants to hire ex-offenders and help them develop skills, such as speaking in public.

Rollins named this place Boaz and Ruth, after the Bible story of the wealthy landowner who married the homeless and hungry foreigner. Rollins remembers that both of the characters in the story ended up giving to one another.

"Release of gifts. That's what we're really about," Rollins says."It's looking at all the gifts, all the human gifts locked up in prison, waiting to be released. We're about releasing those gifts back to society."


Ruth Cosby, 48, is in the Toastmasters group. She is impeccably dressed in a blue print dress and pearl necklace. Her hair is tied back in a tight bun. She is one of the few at the table who has never been to prison. But she spent years in psychiatric institutions. She's the mother of a 7-year-old daughter. When she came to Boaz and Ruth nearly three years ago, she didn't think she had any talents.

But Martha Rollins helped her discover them.

Rollins put Cosby in charge of the Boaz and Ruth satellite store in downtown Richmond, and both soon saw Collins' talents as a saleswoman.

"Boaz and Ruth gave me a second chance. I would have been dead. I was suicidal, and just didn't want to live," Cosby says. "When I came to Boaz and Ruth, they got me a psychiatrist. They got me into group therapy. And that's why I'm standing here today, because they invested in my life."

Cosby had held more than twenty jobs, and never for a long time. If a boss or a co-worker made a remark she didn't like, or if she had a bad day at work, she'd just walk away and never return. When she tried to walk away from Boaz and Ruth, Martha Rollins showed up at her home.


"What she wanted me to know is, we can bend in life but we don't have to break," Cosby says. "And she taught me a valuable lesson: You don't have to run away all the time. There is help."

Rollins is 63. She doesn't have to be working 80 hours a week, but she started thinking about her life and what she wanted to accomplish.

"Time is drawing shorter. And I have all these things I haven't done and I see all these needs and things that I have some kind of gift or talent I can give to it," Rollins says. "So I just work real fast and I work real hard."
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This article was reprinted from the National Public Radio site.  You can read the original, listen to the audios and see the photos at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5751248
**Public domain image Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld: Ruth in Boaz's Field, 1828

ToastMasters Might Have Helped?

I am somewhat sorry for using the young woman in the video as an example of 'public speaking' gone awry, but... well, she is easy to look at.  I do hope she has picked up and gone on to take some public speaking training of some sort-- I hope that watching this video over and over on Youtube has not become an obsession...

Vocal Warm-ups that Actors Use-- Great for Public Speaking

When I was in school and college I did a fair amount of acting and am so very happy that I have a recollection of some of the vocal warm-ups when I need to do a bit of the old public speaking. Vocal warm-ups are so helpful in releasing tensions from your throat and face. If you have a tight throat or even a tense tongue(!) it can result in a very unattractive tone of voice-- something akin to strangulation. Watch this little clip to get a good idea of some things that can be done to warm up your vocal apparatus!

Joe Vitale Talks About How EFT Helped with Public Speaking Anxiety and Many Other Issues

When we are stressed and phobic we sometimes feel like we are "the only one"-- it's pretty inspiring to hear that people like dynamic speaker Joe Vitale was also "afraid of public speaking"-- he had answers to people's problems around wealth-building, but he was terrified of public speaking. In the video that follows he talks about going to Toastmasters or to the Rotary Club, etc., and before getting up in front of others, it is useful to state what the belief behind the block (the limiting belief) and then apply the Emotional Freedom Technique so as to release the limiting belief.

Building your Vocabulary for Great Speech-Making

When I was a young child my teachers often marveled at my expansive vocabulary when my parents went to the Parent-Teacher meetings-- we lived on a farm in rural Canada, but my parents were both voracious readers. Dad read aloud to all of us (including my mother) at bedtime. Early books included "Winnie the Pooh" and "Mill on the Floss". I had very little understanding of George Elliot's "Mill on the Floss" but was delighted when it turned up on my first year English reading list when I went to College.

I do believe that the growth rate of my vocabulary has diminished as I grow older. I play on the computer more and read less, particularly fiction. I have no stats to prove it, but I hunch that reading good fiction-- literature, if you will-- is an organic, osmotic way to go about increasing your vocabulary. Take a look at this video clip and start developing your vocabulary today:

Exercises for the Face Muscles for Public Speaking

Have you ever noticed how pleasant it is to listen to people who have a relaxed, smiling face? One of my Toastmaster buddies was really focused on telling people how their voices lifted and warmed and got colorful when they smiled. That was certainly one of the most important tips I received from him. Sometimes when my dh is on the phone and very sombre I will jump around with my fingers at the corners of my mouth to cue him to smile... he is such a great sport, and I DO notice how it changes his voice color and quality.

It's Not What You Say, But How...

This week's tip is about: THE MESSAGE IS NOT WHAT YOU SAY; THE MESSAGE IS WHAT OTHERS GET FROM IT.

Do you have just 2 minutes? That's all the time it takes to read the following article. But if you're really short on time, just read the first paragraph. It summarizes the whole text.

Enjoy!

J.A. Gamache
http://www.jagamache.com

P.S.: DO SOMETHING WONDERFUL FOR YOUR FRIENDS!
Send them tomy website to sign up for this FREE Electronic
Magazine at http://www.jagamache.com/en/tm/newsletter.php

Free article no. 29
THE MESSAGE IS NOT WHAT YOU SAY;
THE MESSAGE IS WHAT OTHERS GET FROM IT.
by J.A. Gamache
Third place Champion at the 2001 Toastmasters International
World Championship of Public Speaking

Avoid the frustration of being misinterpreted by an audience. Practice your speech in front of a group and ask them what they think your message is.

My experience has been that, no matter what my initial intentions, the only message I end up conveying is not what I said but what others understood.

Sometimes, all it takes is one word to change an audience's perception. For example, and this is from personal experience, there's a huge difference between saying: "I like your dress," and "I like your dress today." The second comment got this question: "What? You didn't like my dress yesterday?" If only I had left out one word, she would have understood that I was trying to pay her a compliment.

The meaning of your message can be unintentionally changed by other factors besides words. Your tone of voice and gestures can also influence the perception of an audience. Try the following experiment. Laugh and say, "That's very funny!".
You'll notice that your message has a single meaning--that it was very funny.

Now say it seriously, "That's ve-e-ry-y-y funny-y-y!" Use your best nasal tone. What did you just say? Exactly the opposite--that it was not funny at all. That's what's called irony--saying something to express the opposite.

Finally, repeat the sentence, using the same ironic tone and curling your upper lip. Look up (try it! Look at yourself in a mirror). Now your message is: "You're an idiot!"It may surprise you to see how little details like these can change your message so much that you can be misinterpreted.

That's why I strongly suggest that you check the meaning people get from your message. Test it in front of a group before you give your speech in public. Your test audience can be just one person. It's not important.

Ask the people in your test group what they think your message is. You'll avoid the frustration of being misinterpreted during your next speech. Remember: The message
is not what you say; the message is what others get from it.

Happy speech!

©MMIX J.A. Gamache www.jagamache.com. All rights reserved.

---------------------------------
PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE in whole or in part if a copy of the reproduced text is sent to J.A. Gamache at info@jagamache.com after publication and also provided that this byline, including the following paragraph, appears along with the reproduced text:

This article was reproduced from "Speaking in Public with J.A.", a FREE electronic magazine authored by J.A. Gamache, International Inspirational Speaker. To subscribe to his FREE e-zine or to find out more about his presentations, visit: http://www.jagamache.com.
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Experiencing Satisfaction following your Speech

by J.A. Gamache
3rd place Champion in 2001 at Toastmasters International's
World Championship of Public Speaking

Are you often dissatisfied with your speeches? Maybe your expectations are unrealistic. Stop being hard on yourself, and schedule your own learning goals.

When I first started, I was always disappointed after giving a speech. No matter how much people praised me I was still unsatisfied with my performance.

Do you feel the same? Do you require perfection from yourself? Are you under the impression that unless you receive a standing ovation, your speech was a failure?

One day I realized that my feelings of failure were due to the fact that I was comparing myself to some of the public speaking stars who earned thousands of dollars for each performance. Of course the comparison was unfair, but I had
yet to realize that my heroes had taken years to get where they are today.

I understood then that my goal of being a public speaking virtuoso was still a good goal, but a long-term one. Accepting that I was still an apprentice, I came to realize that I needed short-term goals in order to progress towards my dream of becoming a star performer. That's when I decided to schedule learning goals for myself.

What is a learning goal? A simple, measurable goal that touches only one aspect of public speaking.

Try it! For each speech, challenge yourself to improve one aspect of your performance... but only one! Promise yourself you'll be satisfied if you succeed at that one goal.

Here are a few examples of challenges I gave myself:

- Speak without notes
- Stop rocking back and forth
- Look the audience in the eye
- Smile throughout my speech
- Speak slower to breathe easier
- Be more expressive
- Dare to talk about a difficult subject--the kind that usually makes me cry
- Make more pauses
- Stay within the time limit
- Use my voice in a variety of ways
- Have fun during my presentation

And so on...

For your next speech, stop expecting perfection of yourself. Instead, challenge yourself to meet a learning goal like those mentioned above. Since these objectives are easier to reach, you'll be satisfied with your progress after each speech.

Happy writing!

©MMVIII J.A. Gamache http://www.jagamache.com
All rights reserved.

---------------------------------
PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE
in whole or in part if a copy of the reproduction is sent to
J.A. Gamache at info@jagamache.com after publication and also
provided that the following byline appears along with the
reproduction:

This article was reproduced from the "Speaking in public with
J.A." FREE electronic magazine, authored by J.A. Gamache,
International Inspirational Speaker. To subscribe to his FREE
e-zine or to find out more about his presentations, visit
http://www.jagamache.com .
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