Toastmasters Clubs for speakers in London, England? Singapore? Or Worldwide?

In London I belong to two Toastmasters International clubs:

Harrovians meets the first and third Monday evenings each month (unless some national holiday or other event takes precedence - always phone or sent them an email to check). They meet in a church near Harrow on the Hill station on the fast Metropolitan line from Baker Street station (by Madame Tussauds).

HOD meets the first and third Thursday evening at The Bridge in the car park of the Leisure centre near Harrow and Wealdstone station. A short walk. the station is on the overground train line from Euston and national rail.

Both clubs are on:
Meetup
Facebook
Toastmasters International find a club website.

In central London you will find many more club which welcome visitors. Several meet in rooms above pubs where you can have a drink or meal before or after the meeting, on your own or with the members you meet.

Most clubs are open to visitors, whether members of other Toastmasters clubs in the UK or overseas, as well as welcoming visitors who are not yet a member of a Toastmasters club and are potential members.

In-house clubs include one for employees of the tube line (underground railway), and banks, and a breakfast club. You would be better able to get an invitation from them if you worked for an overseas branch of the same company or industry and were already a member of Toastmasters.

One club which meets frequently during the term time is the London Business School, near Baker Street.

At this time of year, March to June, the clubs are holding speech contests, which means members will invite family members and supporters.

Singapore
In Singapore if you are visiting a club in a skyscraper in the financial district, you will have to get your name on the list to get admitted by security, who will want to photograph your passport or national identity cards before opening the turnstile to let you through. Toastmasters clubs are in many major companies such as Paypal, Google, IBM and other household names.  If your first language is English, and you are from the UK or the USA, you will be extra welcome.

UK
In the UK, it is a bit different. You have to register because of space considerations. If an auditorium has 100 seats,  the organizers will allocate 100 tickets, even if the tickets are free. If 105 people turn up in hope, 5 people will not be allowed to stand at the back or in the doorway nor to sit on the stairs, because that is blocking the fire exits. So make sure you register early for a major contest.

USA and Worldwide
Toastmasters started in the USA. So the USA has many toastmasters clubs, speaking English and sometimes Spanish.

French
Canada has French speaking clubs. So do London, England, (bilingual) and Singapore (all in French).

Useful Websites
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several more posts on Toastmasters clubs, speaking languages, Singapore, the UK and the USA. Please share links to your favourite posts.

QUICK TIPS FOR TRAVELLERS On travel, postcodes, delays, and e-tickets

Problems
1 DIRECTIONS
You want directions of buses and trains to a venue for yourself or a colleague. You need the postcode. However, the organization's website has three addresses. (For example, London Business School.)

2 E-TICKETS & PRINTING
You book the event though Eventbrite. You can save paper by not printing it.
However, when you reach the venue, you need a code to log onto their wifi, so you can't show your e-ticket on your phone.
The person with the list of attendees is in another room. Other visitors don't know the name of the person you need to find.

3TIMING
You have timed the route. However, there are delays.

4 DEALING WITH DELAYS
Your route has unexpected delays.

5 ARRIVAL - now what?
You arrive at a huge venue. Nobody knows anything about your event.

Answers
1 DIRECTIONS
Write the postcode of the venue in your diary.
 Add it to the contact details in your phone.

2 E-TICKETS - To print or not to print?
Print out the e-ticket in advance. To save paper and printing ink:
Copy the section which is relevant.
Cut the part with your number from the paper. Stick in in your diary or keep it in your right-hand pocket, in a see-through cover which makes it large enough to find in a hurry.
Find out who has the list of attendees. Put their name and phone number in your phone. Find out what time they will arrive and where they will be.

3 TIMING
Allow extra time in case of delays. Arrive early. Find out where you can wait if the room is locked.
Have your own food and water, in case you are left standing alone in a corridor or lobby.
Know the name of the event, which might be different from your session.

4 DELAYS
Allow time before setting off to check on delays, alternative routes, and messages to tell anybody who needs to know that you are setting off and of any delays.

5 ARRIVAL
Know the name of the entire day's event. Know the orgnization organizing the event.
Know the divison or number of your club because there could be events worldwide on any one day, so you need something specifici for an internet search. Note the name of the person who sent the email inviting you to the event.

Find out the room of the event. Conference centres are big. The welcome desk may be unattended by the time you arrive late. In the lift which floor are you looking floor, Basement, lower basement, ground, 1, 2, 3? Is it in the basement, the auditorium, the conference centre, on the 3rd floor.

TOILETS
Where are the toilets for men and women, same floor or upstairs or downstairs. (When retinring from the toilets, are you going downstairs or upstairs.

FOOD
Should you grab a coffee at the station or the supermarket you pass? Will the college cafeteira be open at the weekend, and at the end of the coference at lunchtime, 4 pm or 6 pm?

You may need cash to grab a sandwich in a hurry in the interval. How much are the sandwiches? If you are a group, can one of you buy sandwiches for everybody. If so, will they all eat meat or do you need egg or cheese (not for vegans).

Who will pay for the food, you, your club or oganization, the people giving you orders? (Get them to write their name and food choice. Meat only, meat or egg and cheese, no shellfish, any. If no sandwiches, will they want cakes, donuts, etc? Price limit - £2.50, £5, £7.50. £10, any.)

Find out what latecomers should do. Sneak in at the back? Wait until the interval to avoid using the door which open onto or beside the stag.

Wave to signal to the chairman on stage that you have arrived. Pass the usher a note to hand to the organiser on stage.

Information on delays
https://tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/#line-tfl-rail

Author
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

How To Find Toastmasters In Italy (and worldwide) and translate Italian (and other languages)

Problem
I'm probably going to Italy in the next year and would like to find some people who speak English and attend a social and networking meeting. Are there any Toastmasters clubs in big cities or near holiday destinations? Any point looking now, when I don't yet have a trip planned? (And the same goes for a couple of other countries.)

Yes, because :
1 SAVE TIME & MONEY
When I do plan to go to Italy or another country I shall be in a rush so researching the Toastmasters clubs several months in advance will come in handy. It's a rush at home to research when you are busy at the last minute booking hotels and travel tickets. It's a rush to research on the day when you should be catching a coach tour or co-ordinating meeting colleagues.

2 LANGUAGE PROBLEMS SOLVED
Last time in a hotel I found I had to pay for the three-day internet access to go onto a website in a hotel for three minutes to get a phone number. Finally, the websites assume you are Italian (or German in Switzerland) and send everything in a foreign language so you will wish you researched earlier at home in an English speaking country.

Looking at a website in English, one club has said it meets Giovedi. Help! I know hundreds of Italian words and can read whole pages of Italian and get the gist but I am suddenly stumped. I could be missing breakfast in a hotel trying to check all this before a 15 minutes free internet session times out. Giovedi is Thursday.

I have also learned or been reminded about placenames: that the Italian for Florence is Firenze. Milan is Milano. Rome is Roma. Genova is Genoa. I have noticed some abbreviations. RM is Rome. MI is Milan. TO is Torino. GE is Genova. VI is Vicenza. CO is Como. FI is Florence.

Veneto is not the city of Venice but a region of Northern Italy.

I have picked up some general vocabulary. Costa is not cost but coast. Di is of.

I clicked on some placenames and up came Wikipedia in Italian. No sign of the English flag or the word English which you might see on the top of page one of a tourist site or hotel website or a blog or blog post created in Wordpress.

So I googled 'translate Wikipedia into English'. It said look on the sidebar (on the left of the screen). Nothing useful appeared in the first few lines.  I had almost given up when, at the end of the column, I found:

In altre linge (meaning in other language)
Deutsch
English (Hurray! We found it.)
Hrvatski (I looked that up. It's Croatian.)
Portuguese (It appeared with an accent too small for me to identify so I have given the English.)

2 TRIP PLANNING
It could help you re-route your trip before booking. Just looking at the website has already taught me some handy things, such as that there are four clubs in Milan - which would make it worthwhile staying overnight in Milan on a side trip from Switzerland (which I did to see opera at La Scala).

If I had told my family the days of the week when I could visit Toastmasters, and written to the clubs to find out if they were still meeting, I could have told my family that a Toastmasters meets in Milan on Thursday. Then we could have booked months in advance for expensive opera seats when they were still available at the cheaper price which we were willing to pay, for the in demand day, Friday.

Answer
Using the website Toastmasters International Find A Club I found twenty clubs in Italy. 20! If you are alone in Rome or nervous in Naples, go to a club which welcomes and helps potential speakers. (Do you have to give a speech at a wedding? Here's the place to go for help.) It's great entertainment. In Rome there's one every Tuesday.

How To Make Contact
No need to hunt for the right person in the club to contact. On the Toastmasters International website you just click on email.
That's the theory. Sometimes it works like a dream and if you've included your own phone number they ring back five minutes later!

However, I suggest you do this at least a week in advance, not on the day. You occasionally find a club where the person listed is away on business. Or the committee has just changed and they have not updated the website. You might find the club has closed for Xmas or summer holidays or forever.

If I don't get a reply from a club within 24 hours, I email another club in the area. I sometimes end up going there instead or in addition. You might even hear of a new club which is starting and not yet listed on websites.

I have listed the following in alphabetical order by city:

BOLOGNA
Toastmasters Two Towers, Bologna, BO, Italy. 6.30. One Monday our of three.

COMO
The Como Lakers, Como, CO, Italy. The first and third Thursday of each month at 7.30-9.30 pm.
Lake Como is a tourist destination in summer.

FLORENCE
1 Firenze Toastmasters, FL, Italy. On the second and fourth Thursday at 6.45 pm.
2 Toastmasters Academy, Florence, FI, Italy, 7.30pm -9pm Wednesday. I presume that's every Wednesday and not just one Wednesday a month but you'd better ring to be sure.
Florence, known for art and the bridge.

GENOA
Erzelli Toastmasters, Genova, GE, Italy. First and third Wednesdays from 6 to 8 pm.

MILAN
1 The Milliners, Milan, MI, Italy. Every other Monday at 7 pm.
2 Milan-Easy Toastmasters Club, second and fourth Tuesday at 6.45 pm.
3 Navigli District Toastmasters, Milano, Ml, Italy. 7.30 every other Monday.
4 The Xplorers, MI, Italy. 6.45 Every month, first and third Tuesdays.
MONZA
Next to Milan, 9 miles from city centre of Milan but the outskirts of the two cities are only three miles apart if you are driving. Speaking of driving, Monza is famous as the centre for Italy's Formula one.

NAPLES
Naples Toastmasters Club, Naples, NA, Italy. On the first and third Tuesdays at 6.30 pm.

ROME
1 Toastmasters INAIL, Roma, RM, Italy. 12.30-2.30, 1st and 3rd Wednesday.
2 SPQRs, Rome, RM, Italy. On Wednesday lunchtime, 12-1 pm. Sounds like a company club.
3 Toastmasters Roma, RM, Italy. 6.45 every Tuesday. Contact them through the website.

TURIN
1 Radiant Rhetoric, T o r i n o, on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 7.15 pm.
2 Toasting in the Sky, Torino.
3 Trucks and Tricks in Torino.
4 Toastmasters Torino, Giovedi (Thursday) first and third Thursdays at 7 pm.
It took me a while, plus a few searches, to find out that Torino is called Turin in English - and it's famous for the Turin shroud, reputed to show Jesus! Four Toastmasters clubs in a tourist destination.

VERONA
Toastmasters Monza, The Verona, San Massimio, (VR), Italy Milan-Easy Toastmasters Club.; Vicenza Toastmasters Club, Costabissara, VI, Italy, second and fourth Thursday.

Toastmasters in Italy and Worldwide
If you are already a Toastmaster (many clubs many members worldwide, you could start a club with the help of a new members' pack available free from head office if you can muster about twenty potential members from your company or just by advertising and getting everybody together at a restaurant or coffee bar. A good place to advertise is on MeetUp.

If you are on holiday or business anywhere in the world, you can join a Toastmasters club, attend a meeting, mentor a member by Skype, go to the annual contests for serious speeches in autumn and humorous speeches in Springtime.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, member of HOD and Harrovians in London, England and Braddell Heights Advanced club in Singapore. I am the winner of more than 50 ribbons for Best Speaker, Best Evaluator and Table Topic (impromptu speech). I won three ribbons in one evening this month at Harrovians. I have judged competitions and run workshops on public speaking and attended meeting in China, the Czech Republic, Singapore, Thailand and the UK and attended the world finals in Las Vegas, USA.

Speakers' contest at the Business School near Baker Street station in central London, England.

This post was compiled Feb 2018. Please bookmark this page but update on the Toastmasters website if you wish to attend a meeting. Share your favourite posts with friends. I have several more posts on Toastmasters on this website and on my Toastmasters blogs, and posts on Italy, St Valentine in Terni and waterfalls, and the Osteria Modigliani Restaurant in London, England. Also see my other websites: Luxury for less and luxury travel for less.