September, 2014: My Presidential Address for Koramanagala Toastmasters Club Newsletter

Dear Readers,

Public speaking and leadership skills cannot be learned by just reading textbooks and listening to seminars. For that matter, it is nearly impossible to learn anything without doing it yourself, by experimenting along the way, and by recovering from the inevitable mistakes. You can’t learn to play soccer by reading rulebook, you can’t learn to play the piano by studying sheets of music, and you can’t learn to cook by reading recipes. Likewise, you can read as many books on speech as you want, but until you experience the challenges that face a real public speaking, you will never be prepared to take charge.

We at Koramangala Toastmasters club believe in the principle that practice makes us perfect. Our meetings provide our members with opportunities to speak before an audience and exert leadership by taking roles every meeting. If we look back at the history of our club, we would be proud to see that we have produced not only great speakers but also great leaders. On public speaking front, people from our club have won several speech contests and they have challenged speakers from india as well as other neighboring countries. On leadership front, we have produced 3 area governors in less than 3 years of our foundation. If we look at our achievements in terms of Toastmasters certification – we have had two DTMs in our club. We have won the status of Distinguished Toastmasters Club twice and Select Distinguished Toastmasters Club once. And I am proud to say that this year we are planning to get the highest possible award for a club, Golden Gavel+. It also means the determination, dedication and devotion our members have exhibited to make our club one of the best in town.

Mistake is inevitable, and that the key to success is not going down with every mistake but to learn from it and recover quickly. I saw a lot of club members who were obviously unsettled and awkward at the first speech have completely transformed into great speakers after finishing the initial 10 speech projects. Several thousand people across countries have discovered the benefits of Toastmasters. They have honed their public speaking and leadership skills by regularly participating in Toastmasters meetings. If you have same ambition to become a great speaker, a great leader – let your passion drive you!

Your Servant Leader,

Nitesh Ambuj
President,
Koramangala Toastmasters Club,
Bangalore, India