President
Ray Korns, DTM

This year's theme:

"Strong Voices Throughout The Land"

Let me ask you this, "Why is Public Speaking important?" As a Toastmaster of some sixteen years I have watched green speakers come into our club, dig into the projects from the excellent manuals, get their feet wet speaking, go off the deep end and fall in over their heads and come up sputtering, and go on to have successes within their lives, jobs and further. As more seasoned speakers and by constant practice they go on to reach into areas that are vital for them and for all of us in general. We have had a member of our club win the International Speech Contest and work in the area of Human Rights. We have had a member of our club address the British Parliment and do work to found clinics in Russia to de-toxify victims of the Cherynobl radiation disaster. We have had a member of our club go on to produce events to raise millions of dollars to assist the NYC Police and Firemen recover from ill effects of their help on 9/11. We have had a member of our club go on to address national TV and Press from the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on tax reform. And, recently this year, we have had a member go to Peru to provide relief and assistance to the earthquake victims there, then come back to share that experience with the club. I could go on and on. None of these people started in any of these kinds of forums, they all developed skills through Toastmasters that extended their reach into the society at large...and I'd love to see more!

Why is this important?

I had read an article by L. Ron Hubbard years ago from 1970 that covered it. Basically, it pointed out to me that the only real assurance that we have to maintain and preserve our freedoms as human beings is to have people who have the courage to "speak out" against tyranny, that is, Strong Voices willing to maintain and voice a position of reason siding with freedom for all against the tides of dominating vested interest. This is why I picked the theme for this year.

Here, now for the first time on the Internet is available the text of the article that so inspired me those many years ago, just click on the text below: