Toastmasters

Learning public speaking has been on my "To-Do" list for a looooong time... Talking confidently in front of a big crowd, giving presentations with great ease, capturing a group's attention to your conversation are a few examples of public speaking, which I am not really good at.... I think I just hate it when I am the centre of attention , I would rather be in the background and let my work talk. But over a period of time I have realized it isn't good enough, we need to sell present ourselves and present well.
I got my DL last week and there were no more excuses not to attend my local Toastmasters meets. So, I 'drove' to the Innovation park for my first club meeting and boy was I surprised. There were 8 sophisticated ladies, all in their late 30's and 40's, working women and this was just half the group. The president of the group, a very smart, polite woman named Cathy Gray said that half the group was not present that day due to other commitments. So, it was a large group of 15-16 members.....
The meeting was well divided into sections and ran smoothly... I really enjoyed the meet, there was another guest speaker on the team who was coming in for the 3rd time, she gave a speech on a table topic and since she was sitting next to me I could see she was nervous and shivering a bit... Aah, all the classic symptoms I will be having in my next meet when I will be speaking.
Since, it was my first meet I decided to enjoy and NOT speak... I dnt want to make a fool of myself in the first meet...there will be many more meets where I will be given enough time to do just that why hurry....
The president said they were going to have a pot luck lunch that day but had decided not to due to absence of many members... Sounds like just the kind of group I would like to be associated with... They love food!

So, my next meet will be on Feb 16th... Will come up with something to talk by then.... It's a START.