I was pondering this thought for sometime when I came across Sara’s Blog. In particular, her post on the implications of being a DTM. A DTM(Distinguished Toastmaster) in the Toastmasters society is the highest award/title a speaker can achieve. But somehow I feel the whole title-system is a little flawed. Don’t get me wrong, Toastmasters is great and I’m a true believer but like any good system there are loopholes. Being a DTM, as Sara points out through an example, doesn’t necessarily imply your a great speaker(while it should).
You would naturally expect a person who has gone through the rigors of progressing from CC(Competent Communicator) right upto the DTM to be a pro. You need to have achieved the ACG(Advanced Communicator Gold, which in turn requires the ACB, ACS(bronze and silver) and ALS(Advanced Leader Silver) statuses. Its no doubt difficult. But there isn’t anything stopping you. If you decide to go about the whole thing mechanically without really bothering to improve upon your speeches and activities, you still could achieve the above mentioned titles.
If you truly wish to benefit from the program though, you have to be dedicated and “want” to be good at speaking. You have to take your speeches seriously. You have to learn from your evaluations. You have to take up the roles assigned to you seriously. Toastmasters is entirely a voluntary program. People with the like-minded interest of improving their speaking skills run the show. There is no “official commitee” as such. You learn from the experience and skill of more advanced speakers and help out those learning from you. Its as simple and as effective as that.

The Toastmasters clubs in Kuwait though are amazing. Each one really strives to be good at what they are doing. We have 3 DTMs here in Kuwait (Its a pretty small country) and all of them are phenomenal speakers. One of them (Guy Jobidon) is even a member of my club.

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