A Letter from Our Founder

This message is to invite you to join a new Toastmasters Club; a Toastmasters Club that will be a little different than most. In case you are not familiar with Toastmasters International at all, let me tell you that Toastmasters is an international organization with thousands of clubs all over the world, devoted to encouraging and helping individuals improve their public speaking skills. Toastmasters is a wonderful organization that serves its members very well. Having said that, however, some of us get a little tired of motivational and inspirational speeches, or speeches about vacations, or why we should buy life insurance. Unfortunately, many members, and even whole clubs, discourage members from speaking on what is sometimes referred to as the "Taboos of Toastmasters"; i.e., religion, politics and sex.

Accordingly, it has long been my ambition to start a club, devoted exclusively to discussion, in a public speaking context, of those subjects. I want to create a forum where people with strikingly different viewpoints can come together and feel free to express strong opinions in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect; not necessarily for the ideas themselves, but for the speaker presenting those ideas. Speakers will feel free to test their ideas without having to preach to the choir. They will construct their speeches knowing full well that many, if not most in their audience do not agree with their position. Listeners will have an opportunity to knowingly subject themselves to ideas with which they may not agree; ideas that may be directly opposed to their own. The listener will be challenged to examine or reexamine his/her thinking on a viewpoint with which he or she is completely unfamiliar. All this will be accomplished within the context of Toastmasters and the framework of the manual system.

Ken Sisco, DTM