•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Public speaking used to give Jessica Kawilirang butterflies. But a year after joining the Sudirman Central Business District Toastmasters Club, the 24-year-old proudly says she has gotten over her anxiety.

Jessica’s road to public speaking success began with a bet. A friend had challenged her to lose weight. The penalty for failure? Joining a public speaking club. Eager to shed a few kilos, Jessica agreed to the bet but promptly lost. As a consequence, she signed up with the SCBD Toastmasters Club.

“It wasn’t easy at first,” she says, explaining that her speeches used to be interspersed with “ums” and “ers” as she grappled with what to say next. “I feel more confident now. This, in turn, helps the words flow.”

Toastmasters is a nonprofit organization established in the United States in 1924 with the goal of helping people become competent and comfortable public speakers. It allows people around the world to set up their own Toastmasters clubs based on a set of terms and conditions. Today, the organization boasts more than 250,000 members in over 12,500 clubs in 106 countries.

Erika Dianasari, 29, secretary of the SCBD Toastmasters Club, says there are 64 Toastmasters clubs in Indonesia, including in Aceh, Kalimantan and Bali.

The SCBD club was founded by former Education Minister Wardiman Djojonegoro on April 6, 2005. The more than 30 members range in age from 25 to 30, and most are executives working in Jakarta. Applicants must be over the age of 18, and members are required to pay an initial fee of $20, a monthly due of $4.50 and Rp 10,000 ($1) for each meeting. New members are given a book that contains the club’s rules and guidelines.

The club meets every other Tuesday at the Indonesia Stock Exchange building. At each meeting, four members deliver a speech in English on a predetermined topic. A toastmaster presides over the meeting, with a grammarian highlighting and correcting language mistakes.

There is also an evaluator, who analyzes the delivery and content of the speeches. A table topic master gives club guests a chance to deliver short speeches on a selection of subjects. A counter takes note of how many times a speaker uses the meeting’s word of the day. The rest of the members make up the audience, and they score the speeches and submit their votes for best speech to the ballot counter.

Erika says it is this positive and constructive environment that sets the Toastmasters apart from other public-speaking clubs.

Monica Jo, 26, the club’s vice president of education, is proof of this. Though she has only been a member since April 2009, she says Toastmasters has helped her shake off her shyness to become a confident orator who is able speak in front of hundreds of people. She points out, however, that this kind of transformation takes time.

“You can’t become a good public speaker overnight,” she says.

As with most skills, practice makes perfect. “You should just seize every opportunity to speak in front of an audience,” Monica says. She adds that while preparing a draft before making a speech can help, “you don’t need to memorize the speech word by word.”

“Just remember the big picture,” she says, adding that it is important to keep the speech simple and to be conscious of your body language.

Jessica agrees. “There’s no need to use difficult words to impress people,” she says.

Sugeng Riyadi, 43, says he used to have trouble understanding spoken English. This was a serious issue for him because he works with a lot of foreign nationals.

He says his mind used to go blank during a speech and he would stumble for words. “Now, though, I’m improving and I already feel more confident,” he says.