Toastmasters Advanced Manuals: Specialty Speeches

AKA the miscellaneous manual. I think they made this manual for people who just finished their Competent Communicator awards and don’t know where to go next. It’s like a sampler of some of the other manuals.

The projects in Specialty Speeches are:

1. Impromptu speaking – 5-7 minutes – This was fun. You give the evaluator a list of topics, and when it’s time to speak they tell you which topic they picked. You could cheat and prepare five whole speeches instead of just thinking about what you want to say, but who wants to write five speeches at once? I didn’t feel that I did very well at this–my speech wasn’t very organized. I plan to try it again the next time a speaker cancels at the last minute.

2. Uplift the spirit – 8-10 minutes – Motivate people to change. Basically the same as CC project 10. I’m doing this project on Thursday and not looking forward to it–It’s a good project, though not one I have a natural talent for or interest in. But it’s a good skill for people to have, so I’m glad to see it included.

3. Sell a product – 10-12 minutes

4. Read out loud – 12-15 minutes – Now you see why I chose to do this manual. This project is a little longer than the Read a story project from Interpretive Reading, but it’s otherwise the same.

5. Introduce the speaker – whole meeting – This is a weird project. Instead of giving a speech, you are the Toastmaster for the meeting, and you’re evaluated on how well you introduce the speakers. This is a useful skill to learn, but it seems like it belongs in the leadership manual rather than a speech manual.

This is a good manual for someone who isn’t sure what they want to focus on, or, to be honest, someone who’s looking for an easy manual, since there’s somewhat less preparation required for projects 1 and 5.

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