18 November 2005
Toastmasters Ice Breaker Speech
Posted by Jeremy under: Business; Personal; Toastmasters; Vancouver .
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve recently joined Toastmasters in Vancouver. On Wednesday, my fourth Toastmasters meeting, I prepared and delivered a 4-6 minute “Ice Breaker Speech”.
Usually this would have been a fairly terrifying experience, but after having spent four Wednesdays with Toastmasters I felt pretty comfortable delivering the speech.
I realized at the end of my speech that I’d missed a part in my intro that really would’ve allowed me to nail the conclusion of my speech - but the beauty of Toastmasters is that I can speak again next week and make improvements.
I had a number of “ums” and “ahhhs”, could’ve used pauses more effectively, and should have spoken a little louder. I’m looking forward to next week so I can work on improving in these areas.
I’m having a lot of fun with Vancore Toastmasters and am really impressed with the quality people who are involved.
3 Comments so far...
Crystal
Says:
27 July 2006 at 11:50 am.
I have recently joined Toastmasters in Edmonton and I am searching sites looking for pointers or ideas from others who have already done their ice breaker speech. Do you have any pointers?
Jeremy Latham
Says:
27 July 2006 at 1:03 pm.
Crystal,
If I were you I would start off by reading the Toastmasters manual about the Ice Breaker Speech.
The beauty of the Ice Breaker is that you’re really just introducing yourself and telling the group about what makes you you.
As always, I’d recommend that you figure out the main point that you’re trying to communicate and then break into three sub points. Once you’ve figured that out all you have to do is remember the stories that support each sub point.
Here are some Ice Breaker Resources:
The biggest thing is to just relax - go up there and tell the group about yourself the same way you would tell an individual you just met. Sum up the important parts of your life until now into three or four “chapters” and then tell the story.
Smile and have fun.
Mike
Says:
9 August 2006 at 7:22 am.
Hi Jeremy:
Thanks for linking to the Mile Square Toastmasters’ Web site!
Unfortunately, your link to my Toastmasters club’s Ice Breaker cheat sheet is about to become invalid, because we’re going to move the site to Freetoasthost. While I’ve enjoyed being our club’s Webmaster for the past several years, I wanted to open up that role to successor club members. Freetoasthost may be limited its look and feel, but it will allow non-techies to update and maintain the club’s Web site.
Anyway, you’ll want to revisit http://www.milesquare.org when the domain name is moved (sometime after August 9, 2006) and relink to our Ice Breaker cheat sheet’s new location (on our Resources page).
Unfortunately (there’s the “U” word again), the cheat sheets are now in Word format. That wasn’t my idea; we’re limited as to how many new custom pages we can create on the site, so one of the club officers made the cheat sheets into downloadable Word docs.
Anyway, thanks again–and happy Toastmastering!
– Mike
