The world’s “best cheap leadership course” has been restarted in Jasper, and has already collected a group of members that meet each week to work on their communication skills in a fun, supportive atmosphere. 

Toastmasters has returned to town after a hiatus, and a new group of Jasperites is hoping to reinvigorate the leadership course and to support people in developing communication skills. 

The theme for the March 14 meeting was spring, and it began with Helen Kelleher-Empey reading a prepared speech about spring as the evening’s Toastmaster. Each group member who spoke had to fit the night’s word in – burgeoning – selected by Claude Boocock, who acted as Grammarian for the evening.

The structured evening involves members of the group getting up to do impromptu speeches, which are rated, timed and checked for grammatical errors and filler words. Those words include “ums” or “ahs”. Each group member has a specific task for the evening, such as the Quizmaster, who takes notes and writes down questions to ask those that are not speaking to see how well they were paying attention. 

The group has been meeting for several weeks in Jasper, and they have already learned some key skills about public speaking. Those were reiterated by group member Greg Van Tighem, who was providing feedback on the impromptu speeches. He discouraged speakers from acknowledging any mistakes they do make, because the general public will most likely not notice. He suggested speakers move around and use the space they have, or the podium if one is available. Making eye contact with each person at least once is important to engage an audience. 

To get the Jasper Toastmasters Club up and running, members of the Hinton club have been visiting Jasper for the past few weeks. They have since turned the reins over to Jasperite Bert Journault, who was a member of the original Toastmasters Club in Jasper. Journault plans to attend a few meetings in case the newer members have any questions, and is happy to see the club return to Jasper. 

While Journault can’t remember when the Toastmasters club left Jasper, he remembers it being a valuable asset to the community. He used the club as a way to meet people while working on his leadership skills when he first arrived in Jasper. 

Journault said he had done a lot of leadership and speech preparation courses in the past before joining Toastmasters, but was still nervous when getting up to speak in front of people. He also noticed a lot of speeches were not being properly prepared. 

Toastmasters members often attend the club for a few years and get what they need out of it, and eventually drop out, Journault said. He hopes the club can continue to attract new memberships to keep the program going for a long time to come. 

There is a small membership fee, which goes to the Toastmasters International and to pay for the space each week. The group meets every Monday at 7 p.m. at the Habitat for the Arts. More information on Toastmasters can be found online at toastmasters.org