Norwood Toastmasters Builds Public Speaking Skills in a Small Group Setting

The Norwood Toastmasters group met for its second meeting of 2026 on Jan. 27 in the Canton Public Library to give 16 people the opportunities to improve their public speaking and leadership skills in a small group.

Chartered in 1999, Norwood Toastmasters is a local club that is part of Toastmasters International, a global nonprofit organization founded in 1924, which helps people improve public speaking, communication leadership, and leadership skills through delivering speeches, facilitating meetings, and giving feedback in a “learn by doing” approach. The club usually meets in the Norwood Civic Center but meets in other locations as needed.

Kathy Moloy, an eighth-grade math teacher at Dover-Sherborn Middle School, from Westwood, joined last year, inspired by her mother’s Toastmasters membership.

“She didn’t share a ton,” Moloy said, “but she told stories about her experience and [I] thought it was cool.” Her speech for this meeting, “A Trip to Remember,” featured Moloy using a variety of vocal techniques, including voice inflections, pauses, and speaking pace to entertain and inform attendees about her experience chaperoning a school trip to the Galapagos Islands.

After a year in Toastmasters’ program, Moloy noticed that she’s making progress “with fewer ‘ahs’ and ‘ums’” as filler words in her speaking. She also used her improved speaking skills to deliver a toast at her son’s wedding last summer.

In addition to prepared speeches like Moloy’s, members spoke for one to two minutes in “Table Topics,” where they answered questions in an improvisational manner. Attendees usually answered the questions directly, but others, such as visiting Toastmasters Area 65 Director Loretta Connolly of Norwood, used the opportunity to create their own speech to practice their skills while staying on topic.

Connolly responded to the question of “What’s a challenge you’re currently preparing for?” by describing her experience driving on Route 3 from Harwich to an event in Canton, where she avoided colliding with a car stopped in traffic. Connolly noted that she now always gives five car lengths between her car and others in her lane to prepare for similar moments in the future. Connolly remarked, “I like to remind people not to tailgate.”

Other members gave evaluations for the meeting’s three prepared speeches, including Moloy’s, in a “sandwich approach,” noting where the speaker excelled, where the speaker could improve, and a challenge to take on for a speech. For Moloy, her evaluator noted that, her pauses and pace “complemented her story, which had a great ending.” Then, he noted that “you could have used more body language to emphasize a point” and challenged her to “use more vocal variety” to improve her skills in future speeches.

Matthew Fritz of Norwood, the club’s treasurer, evaluated another member’s speech at the meeting. He remarked, “A speech evaluation is really interesting because you can’t prepare ahead of time.” Fritz joined Norwood Toastmasters in Feb. 2025 and noted that preparing and giving evaluations is “a practice [that’s] helpful to forming thoughts” and an evaluator “holds a mirror” to speakers, to help them improve their skills. Fritz gave three prepared speeches in his time with the club, and he learned from the evaluations he received.

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Norwood Toastmasters’ president, Daryl Vanderburgh of Wayland, noted that the club grew significantly in the past year, from 19 members to 30. He also saw an opportunity for Toastmasters to grow in the age of artificial intelligence as people try to stand out to be noticed. Vanderburgh added, “If everyone can generate the same output with AI, it’s the people who will most be able to communicate those ideas that will rise to the top. Hence public speaking skills will become even more important going forward.”

Norwood Toastmasters’ next meeting will be on Tues., Feb. 10 in the Willett Room at the Norwood Civic Center at 165 Nahatan St., at 6:45 p.m. For more information, go to https://tinyurl.com/364hhppc

Note: The author was a member of Norwood Toastmasters from 2017 to 2024.