About Toastcrackers

Kiev Toastcrackers Club – is the first Toastmasters Club in Ukraine. Collective member of Toastmasters International (a large worldwide non-commercial organization) chartered on March 30, 1999 under No 8278-U. We are neither a usual conversational club, nor a language school. Toastmasters is much more intersting, prestigious and useful!

Here you will be able to:

• Get regular English speaking practice
• Receive international certificates, manuals and magazines from the USA
• Develop your public speaking skills
• Overcome fear of the audience
• Participate in debates, parties, role-plays, speech contests and other activities.
  
• Spend time with pleasure
• Meet interesting people and find new friends
  

Each our meeting is like a game, where each participant has a role. The roles are not for ever – just for one meeting. You can take any other role you want at the next meeting!  The roles are the following:

Chairperson – the leader of the meeting

Speech of Insiration – presents a short speech (2-3 min), whose task is to inspire the audience.

Speaker – presents a project (a speech for 5-7 minutes)

Evaluator – evaluates the speech and gives useful comments – what and how to improve.

Table Topic master – leads the Impromptu speech session (Table Topic session)- he/she can call any person from the audience and ask a question, and this person must come to the rostrum and give a 1-2 minute speech. This is a very intriguing and useful part of the meeting (also often organized as a role-play session – role-plays instead of speeches – even more interesting! )

Table Topic Evaluator – evaluates the Table Topic session as a whole and each speaker personally.

Grammarian – evaluates the grammar and pronounciation of all the participants.

Ah-counter – evaluates, how clean the speech of all the participants was – to please him you must not use crutch words and such sounds as a-aaa, h-mmm, e-eee etc.

Timer – watches that all particiapnts speak not more than the schedule of the meeting forsees. Has a stopwatch, and 3 cards – green, yellow and red – in his/her arsenal.

Joke-master – presents a joke

Quotation of the day – presents a quotation and a short speech dedicated to it.

News in brief – presents a piece of news.

This is called standard format meeting. Instead of such meetings we often have debates or other events, which are also very interesting and beneficial!

Members of our club can take absolutely any role without any restrictions. Guests can take any roles except Chairperson, Speaker, Evaluators, Table Topic master, Grammarian. Guest participation costs 20 UAH for 1 visit. First time is free! Membership costs 35$ for 6 month (a semester). As you can see, membership is much more advantageous, but you can come as a guest at first untill you make a decision.

And the most important thing – our club is known for it’s friendly, mutually supportive environment. If you are a new member or a guest, more experienced participants will always help you and give useful advise, because the mission of our club is to provide a mutually supportive and friendly environment allowing every member the opportunity to develop communication and leadership skills which, in turn, foster self-confidence and personal growth.

Come and make sure yourself!