As someone that love to speak, I sometimes find myself being asked to make a speech at family gatherings etc. Ok, sometimes I do volunteer also. Nevertheless, I always admired how the more experienced Master of Ceremonies can make such an impact on their audiences. With this desire in mind, and also serving as President within our local Toastmasters club (Northern Star Toastmasters), in Cape Town, South Africa I wanted to learn how to make a memorable, meaningful, and/or personal Toast. That is when I came across the article in December month Toastmasters magazine called, “Cheers to new beginnings, by Laura Amann”. In this blog I am going to share some tips from this article that will help you make a memorable speech at any occasion.
Firstly tip, The author recommends that a toast should be the ideal length of time. It should not be less than 2 minutes and not more than 5 minutes and needs to be memorable, meaningful, and/or personal speech. It should only be a thoughtful acknowledgement of a time, person, or an occasion. Don’t be tempted to talk for long period of time.
Secondly you need to find your purpose and structure. To do this you have to make sure you understand what the occasion is eg: someone’s retirement or end of year work party. You need to know what or who you are elevating. You also need to know who your audience is. This information will help you set up your structure of your speech eg: Introduction, body and conclusion. You start with who you are and why you been asked to give the speech. Then you move into the body sharing a anecdote or story summarizing the person or time? The conclusion can simple be in now lets raise our glasses.
Thirdly, “toast, dont roast” as Laura puts it. In other words be relevant, entertaining and inclusive to everyone. The toast needs to be similar to the praise part of an evaluation. People want to know that the person or event is moving on to something better or is getting better, don’t over emphasize here, stick to the facts. The toast should make the audience feel that they experienced a closure or tribute. Meaning that they understand how the value of someone or how meaningful the event was or is going to be.
Fourthly, “Add a light touch” as mentioned by Laura. Meaning that you follow your natural style of speaking, eg humor, story telling, using quotes, or anything that is personal to you that lightens the mood.
Lastly, she recommends writing your toast down, and memorizing it. Memorizing is best since their is usually a lot of emotions around an event. She also mention that you can take some notes with you, as you might need to make some last minute additions or subtractions to your speech, she recommends using note cards instead of big piece of paper.
To conclude, do your speech early at the event, their is no rules to when a toast must occur. Get the audience attention, click a glass. Give a brief introduction. Raise your glass, or hold the glass at waist level while you making the toast, raise the glass at the end while encouraging other to do the same. End your toast with a brief summary with a brief summation or call to action eg: “To Melly’s new adventure” or “to the coming year”
Let me know what your thoughts are of these tips, and would you add anything on top of this to make your Toast more memorable?