Toastmasters is a nonprofit organization where people practice public speaking and leadership in front of a small, supportive group. There are no instructors and no lectures. You learn by getting up and speaking, then receiving specific feedback from people who were sitting where you are now.
That is the whole idea. Everything else is structure built around it.
What happens at a meeting?
A meeting runs about 90 minutes and has three moving parts.
Prepared speeches. Two or three members deliver talks they wrote and rehearsed, usually five to seven minutes. Topics range widely. Someone might walk through a career change, argue a position, or tell a story that ends up being funnier than they intended.
Table Topics. This is the impromptu portion. A member poses a question and calls on people at random to answer for one to two minutes with no preparation. It is the part guests dread and the part most members credit with making them quicker on their feet in meetings at work.
Evaluations. Every speech gets a spoken evaluation from another member. The evaluator names what worked, then offers one or two specific things to try next time. It is direct, and it is kind. Those two things are not in conflict.
Running alongside all of it are the functionary roles. A Timer tracks the clock. A Grammarian listens for language use and hands out a word of the day. An Ah-Counter tallies filler words, which is humbling exactly once and then genuinely useful. Members rotate through these roles, so everyone practices listening and running a piece of a meeting, not just speaking.
At BrewMeisters we also run a debate segment, which not every club does. It is a fast way to practice thinking under pressure while someone is actively disagreeing with you.
What is Pathways?
Pathways is the curriculum. You choose one of six paths based on what you want to get better at:
- Dynamic Leadership
- Engaging Humor
- Motivational Strategies
- Persuasive Influence
- Presentation Mastery
- Visionary Communication
Each path has five levels of increasing difficulty, with two to three projects per level and at least 14 projects in total. Each project pairs a bit of reading with a speech that puts the idea into practice.
Your first assignment is a short talk introducing yourself. No research, no slides, nothing to prove. It exists so you can get the first one behind you.
Who is this for?
Most people arrive for one of three reasons. They have a presentation coming up and are dreading it. They want a promotion that requires speaking to a room. Or they have simply avoided this their entire adult life and decided to stop.
You do not need experience. You do not need to be outgoing. A fair number of our strongest speakers describe themselves as introverts who got tired of freezing up.
What does it cost?
Membership has two parts: dues paid to Toastmasters International, and a small club fee that covers renting our meeting room. Dues are prorated, so joining partway through a six-month cycle costs less than joining at the start of one.
Our membership page has a calculator that gives you an exact figure based on the month you join.
Visiting is free. There is no cost and no obligation to attend as a guest, and no one will push you to join.
Come see one
BrewMeisters meets the first and third Wednesday of each month at Brea United Methodist Church in the Wesley Room. We serve North Orange County, including Brea, Fullerton, Placentia, and Yorba Linda.
Reading about Toastmasters only gets you so far. The format sounds strange written down and makes immediate sense once you watch it happen. Come sit in the back, say nothing, and see what you think.
Check our meeting dates and join us for the next one.
Updated Aug 19, 2026