Storysharing: Before Our Humble Beginnings

I delivered a prepared speech to my fellow Toastmasters during our regular club meeting yesterday. Then, a new member was inducted into our club, with her two friends—who had come at her invitation—also in attendance. Incidentally, all three were my former colleagues, and I was thrilled to see them again—now in the fourth year of my retirement.

We had a timely and meaningful meeting theme that everyone could relate to: World Environment Day (June 5th)—"Do you make good use of resources?" To this, my answer is: I always try to minimize the waste and carbon footprint I generate by making double-sided copies, using my own bottle for purchased coffee, and using public transportation to get around. Therefore, I am conscious of environmental issues, though I'm not sure if that’s good enough. With that awareness, however, I'm sure I’ll do better day by day.

After the meeting, we had a group meal together as usual. This is my favorite part because we can mingle and get to know each other better in person. That’s why we call it “the second round”—a continuation of learning from one another even after the meeting.

Despite the heavy rain, it was another uplifting and fulfilling Saturday. Here is the script for my speech.

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Before Our Humble Beginnings

Do you know what an MC is? 

Do you know what a Toastmaster is?

Good morning, everyone!

Having been a Toastmaster for some time, I suddenly realized that I still knew little about our club when we celebrated our 100th anniversary on October 22nd last year. So I decided to learn more about our club, Toastmasters International, and the term "toastmaster" in general.

Therefore, I started exploring our website and related sources on-line. Along the way, I have stumbled upon a few stories and history that I found very interesting, and would like to share with you today. And, as I will focus on only those that occurred before the establishment of our club in 1924, I made my speech title as “Before our Humble Beginnings.”

To start with—and, before coming to the term Toastmaster—let me first talk about the term MC, which stands for master of ceremonies, as the first question I raised in my opening. 

An MC, or emcee, is the official host of a ceremony, a conference, a convention, a performance, or any similar social event. You probably knew this already. But do you know this: the term MC was first documented in the 5th century—1600 years ago? It was used in the Catholic Church, where the master of ceremonies was an official responsible for the proper and smooth conduct of church rituals and other sacred tasks.

Centuries later—no one knows when exactly—the term "toastmaster" appeared, taking in the form of an MC. The term consists of two words: toast and master, and here comes the tricky part, particularly for us as non native English speakers: the word "toast" here is not the sliced bread that we eat every day—here it means an expression of good will or honor, observed all the time in social gatherings, which the MC has to introduce at the event; that's where the term Toastmaster was coined.

Later, the so-called Toastmaster's Glass was introduced: it was specially made, with about the size of an ordinary drinking glass but only about one-quarter of its capacity. Using this special glass to introduce every toast, the toastmaster, could remain sober enough to carry out his job at the event. 

In this connection, there was even a famous actor, George Jessel, who earned the nickname "The Toastmaster General of the United States," for his frequent role as an MC at political and entertainment gatherings.

Fast forward to October 22nd, 1924, Dr. Ralph C. Smedley founded our first club at the YMCA in Santa Ana, California, with the aim of improving communication skills of its members, marking the arrival of Toastmasters Club, now known as Toastmasters International. Before that, however, he had failed for many times to sustain a speaking club. 

Dr. Smedley joined YMCA in Bloomington, IL. after graduating from university in 1903. Two years later, he started his first speaking club in Bloomington. However, he had to relocate to a YMCA in Freeport, IL, so the club did not survive due to the lack of proper leadership. In Freeport, he tried again to start a new club, but it failed again upon his next job transfer. The same club efforts were tried and failed repeatedly with his future transfers within YMCA to Rock Island, Illinois, and San Jose, California. Only after all these failures—19 years in the making—our humble beginnings finally arrived at the YMCA in Santa Ana, California, in 1924, and the rest is history.

To conclude, I Just shared with you some stories and history about the terms "MC" and "toastmaster", as well as Dr. Smedley—before he founded our club successfully in 1924. To me, these stories are interesting and inspirational, and they also helped me know our club better. I hope you find them interesting, too. Thank you!

Toastmaster of the Day!