What we’re about
If you want to improve your communication for any reason - please join us for a meeting. The Gopher Toastmasters Club is the right place for you. Public speaking requires practice, an education plan, and a supportive environment. Toastmasters is a great place to practice your speaking skills. Many of today's successful and respected leaders need to know how to communicate to others. By using your public speaking skills to effectively convey who you are and what you're about, you can expand your circle of influence while making a great impression and/or advancing your career.
Toastmasters International -Why Toastmasters?
As the club has been around since 1941, there is a long history of Toastmasters excellence. All are welcome to our Toastmasters meetings the first and third Tuesdays of each month at 6 pm, occasionally moving to second or fourth Tuesday to work around holidays, or to Mondays based on venue availability. We hold combined in-person / online meetings. Our in-person venue is Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, usually room S-275, occasionally N-280 if S-275 is not available. After you RSVP, please let Jamie Richter or Paul Lubinski know if you'll attend in-person or online. If the latter, please tell us where the Zoom link can be sent. (Please note that we cannot send the meeting agenda or other files via Meetup; we'll need an email address to do that.) Contact us with ANY questions. See you at our next meeting.
Here are answers that hopefully clear up some common potential misconceptions:
(1) The "Toast" in the international organization name "Toastmasters" should not imply anything about raising adult beverages. While socializing and building friendships are a benefit of our speaking and leadership skill-building program, our meetings are not a 100% informal chit-chat session. We have an agenda of prepared speaking, impromptu speaking, and evaluations, which, thanks to theme selection and the members' mutual support, is also fun!
(2) Regarding our club in particular (one of >14,000 Toastmasters clubs worldwide), the name 'Gopher' does not imply affiliation with the University of Minnesota. As the club was founded in 1941, current members don't know the full story about the selection of the name. Anyone who would feel more comfortable in a group comprised mainly of U of M staff, faculty, and/or students is welcome to visit Golden Toasters (awesome club!), who meet on Wednesdays in the noon hour.
(3) There is no correlation between being signed up for our Meetup and being a registered member of Toastmasters International and our club. Becoming a 'member' of our Meetup does not automatically make you a member of our club. Additionally, not all of our club's registered members use Meetup. We'll gladly explain what is involved in membership of our club and the Toastmasters education program.
