OK, you have seen the TED talks. You have watched people effortlessly promote themselves and their products on YouTube. And I am sure that we have all heard of someone who aced that interview to land their dream job.
As you ponder in awe at these achievements, you may find yourself asking: “How on earth do these people do it?”. If you don’t know the answer to that question, it may be that you are one of the estimated 75% of the population that is terrified of public speaking.
It’s such a common complaint that there is a specific name for it – GLOSSOPHOBIA. Symptoms range from mild anxiety to outright panic attacks. And these symptoms can be experienced regardless of whether you are addressing a crowded hall full of people or within the comparative intimacy of a job interview.
The good news is that if you live in the Worthing area, there is a convenient and low-cost way for you to learn the art of confident public speaking. Worthing Speakers Club meet twice a month at the Ardington Hotel. If you can ride a bicycle or bake a cake, you can learn how to confidently speak in any public situation!
Best of all, since 2013, the club has been affiliated to an amazing organisation called Toastmasters International. It’s headquartered in Colorado in the U.S. and it lies at the heart of a global network of public speaking and leadership clubs. And 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of its founding by a humble man by the name of Ralph Smedley.
Toastmasters was founded in response to a clear need, which was to ‘democratise’ the training of public speaking and to make it accessible to people of very modest means. This philosophy remains as true and as relevant today as it did a century ago. And it’s a service that Worthing Speakers Club has proudly provided to our local community for over a decade.
But before we explore that option, let’s take a step back in time to gain a historical perspective on how public speaking came to play such an important role in personal and public life. Then we will see how Toastmasters International was founded to meet a growing demand for public speaking and leadership skills in the early years of the 20th century.
It’s generally thought that as a distinct activity, public speaking started life in ancient Greek and Rome, where it was an important tool to explain and persuade – Aristotle and Cicero are two famous names that you may have come across. Proposed laws were debated in assemblies and then written down for courts to interpret. In this manner, the art of public speaking helped to shape the type of laws that we are all familiar with today.
The ancient Greeks in particular were famed for the nurturing of oratory skills. This is the ability to communicate effectively and persuasively through public speaking. A number of rhetorical devices were taught, the aim of which was to persuade an audience to embrace a particular idea or course of action:
- Logos uses logical reasoning, such as facts and statistics
- Ethos uses storytelling and vivid language to appeal to emotions
- Pathos offers evidence that the speaker is a credible authority
- Kairos shows that now is the right time for action
These ideas remain core to public speaking to this very day, though the Greek terminology is no longer in everyday use.
Surprisingly, it would take almost two thousand years before any major advances in the art of public speaking!
If you were an educated person living in the 18th century, you might well have been taught the various rhetorical devices (logos, ethos, pathos, kairos). But you would have noticed that individual speakers have differing qualities of voice. Furthermore, different types of voice bestowed on individuals a range of persuasive gifts. For example, a speaker with a shrill voice may sound less authoritative than a speaker with a deep voice. People had to wait until the early 19th century for an explanation of why this might be so.
James Rush (1786-1869 ) was an American physician who pioneered the scientific study of the human voice. In 1827, he published a ground-breaking book called “The Philosophy of the Human Voice”. This proved to be an extremely influential text that remained in print for most of the 19th century.
Rush devised a formal notation scheme that described the different sounds of human speech. It was widely adopted by teachers of elocution and members of the acting profession (for whom diction is supremely important). The ideas expressed in the book led to the establishment of speech education as an academic subject in several American universities.
The result is that by the close of the 19th century, the foundations had been laid for the modern practice of public speaking – explain and persuade, while making effective use of voice to enhance the message. What was lacking was a vehicle for bringing these techniques to a mass audience.
Enter one Ralph Chesnut Smedley: he was born in 1878, in the town of Waverley, Illinois to Thomas Braxton Smedley and Martha A. Smedley. He started his career as a teacher before later graduating from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1903
Upon graduation, he quickly landed a job as Education Director at the local YMCA in Bloomington. He soon concluded that the young men in his care would benefit from developing their ability to speak confidently in public and to demonstrate basic leadership skills.
In 1905, Smedley founded The Toastmasters Club. This took the form of a regular gathering at the YMCA, where young men could practice public speaking. Meetings took the format of speeches, evaluation of speeches by other members and attendees volunteering to help with organising and running the meeting.
The concept of ‘Toastmasters’ remained a very low-key affair until 1924, when Smedley moved to Santa Ana in California to assume a new position within the YMCA. The format of the meetings was enthusiastically embraced by the local business community. This group were keen to develop their own leadership and communication skills to use within their businesses.
The first formal meeting was held on October 24th, 1924. It is this meeting that is now universally recognised as the foundation of the Toastmasters International organisation that we are familiar with today.
By 1930, there were 30 Toastmasters clubs, including one in Canada. In 1935, Southport in the UK became the first Toastmasters club to be chartered outside of North America. Today, it has grown to be a truly global organisation, with more than 14,000 clubs in 144 countries. And 2024 marked the organisation’s centenary year. Given that this was the original idea of one humble man – Ralph Smedley – this is a truly remarkable achievement.
If you reflect on the historical perspective that I have just described – and the fact that nothing much changed for two thousand years – Smedley’s starring role in this story is nothing short of amazing!
How can we explain this phenomenal success? The short answer is that it works! The long-established meeting format of speeches, evaluation of speeches and members volunteering for leadership roles has proved remarkably effective over time.
Here at Worthing Speakers Club, we follow these principles to provide a safe and supportive environment in which members can develop confidence in public speaking and leadership. And we owe it all to the humble genius of one Ralph Chesnut Smedley.
So here’s wishing Happy 100th Birthday to Toastmasters International – and here’s to another century of helping to answer the question: “How on earth do these people do it?”. If you have ever wondered at the answer to that question, come along and join us. We meet twice a month at the Ardington Hotel, and you are assured of a warm and friendly welcome.