26 Jan 2021

Gaborone Breakfast Toastmasters club held its first meeting of the year over the weekend to keep alive the club’s mandate of helping individuals learn and enhance their public speaking in a practical way.

In an interview, Gaborone Breakfast Toastmasters Club President, Mr Fhoster Manyaapelo, said their focus was to help people improve their personal and professional development through practical learning of public speaking, communication and leadership skills.

“The great thing about this club is that it is custom made for the shy person who never grew up speaking in front of people and wants to develop their public and leadership skills on a platform that provides positive feedback to better one’s speech without attacking one’s character,” he explained. Moreover, Mr Manyaapelo who is also an international speech champion said the breakfast club was open to individuals of all ages.

He said the club which is part of Toastmasters International had a diverse curriculum that addressed and enabled various aspects of environments such as speaking on the spot in a wedding for example.

“We believe in teaching people how to fish rather than giving them fish as it lasts longer and allows people to take the skills wherever they go,” he explained.

He also noted that the club also provided networking opportunities the club was part of an organisation that had affiliate clubs across SADC region and the world.

One of the members, Ms Lisa Fraser, who presented a speech at the event, said she wanted to sharpen her speech content in order to become a superior public speaker.

“Since joining the club, my leadership and speaking skills have grown tremendously and I highly recommend my peers to join the programme as it is a wonderful platform for self-development,” she said.

Club meetings are held twice a month. ENDS