“I came to Toastmasters because I wanted to learn something. This was preceded by an unfortunate experience in an international young entrepreneurs’ organization. I attended the world conference of this organization with a small delegation. We had planned to bring the next world conference to Germany. However, before we knew it, the next world conference had not been moved to Germany, but to Helsinki. What had happened? Why didn’t we get our proposal through?
We simply did not realize that the rules of procedure were not according to German association rules, but like in many other international organizations according to Robert’s Rules of Order. None of us had ever heard of this. We then did some research and after a little detour came across Toastmasters International. This was an organization where we could not only learn but also apply these rules of order that are used internationally.
I later even took part in a competition on the RRO and took an honorable third place out of three participants. The certificate for third place now hangs in my study. I have been with Toastmasters for over thirty years now and have participated in many speech contests during that time.”
Peter
