Dear editor:

Having been a member of a Toastmasters club in Toronto in the 1960s, I considered joining the startup NOTL club when I first learned of it, but didn’t fancy trekking in a snowstorm from the Old Town to the club’s location in the boonies. Sorry, Glendale.

That’s probably for the best, because Brittany Carter’s story (“All hail the toastmaster,” July 30) made it all sound as serious as an MBA seminar. It needn’t be. 

The Toronto club met at lunchtime in the Franz Josef Room of the Walker House Hotel at the foot of University Avenue, now the site of a 19-storey tower. It was the perfect spot for four editors at Maclean-Hunter just up the street.

We had no idea we were pushing our comfort zone because the phrase wasn’t in the lexicon. The club was portrayed as a way to overcome the jitters when speaking in public and be gently corrected and advised by a sympathetic audience. And it was to be fun.

Sympathetic or not, we would bait each other when one was speaking. I don’t remember whether that was allowed but a toastmaster should be prepared for hecklers.

One editor habitually wore toe rubbers even when no rain was forecast. He never heard the end of it. When the district director was in the audience we were particularly careful to avoid “ums,” “ahs” or “I means.” He was unforgiving about those “word whiskers,” as he called them.

A pleasure at every meeting was, on short notice, having to talk for one minute on a topic. None of us became a Kenneth Williams or Clement Freud of the long-running BBC program “Just a Minute,” but we did learn to avoid hesitation, repetition and deviation. 

One of my colleagues, upset with the unsalted butter served with the buns, always managed to insert into his presentations a swipe at “this cow grease.” OK, that would have been deviation.

Speaking of repetition, in his interview, Distinguished Toastmaster Miguel Mori used “move forward” three times. He would not have got away with even the second mention in the Franz Josef Room. Gently of course, but mercilessly. 

Toastmasters gave me confidence to address groups of various sizes with no qualms. When my boss, who taught a university evening class in journalism, asked me to sub for him I didn’t hesitate — even though the subject that night was editorial writing and I had never written an editorial.

He supplied me with enough examples so I was able to wing it. None of my students threw a bun at me, something I had done to a colleague at a Toastmasters session, so I was ready for anything.

Ah yes, things were different then.

Don Cameron
NOTL