VAST, the Virginia Advanced Speakers Toastmasters club, is "where good speakers go to get better." It's the club where you can try out new material for presentations at work, practice for contests, or try something new to take your speaking to the next level. We're all experienced speakers — some with a little experience and some with a lot — but we're not all great speakers (yet). Our goal is to become better speakers, and to have fun along the way!

Meetings

VAST meets the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month, 7:00-9:00 pm, at the Kena Shriners Building on Route 50 in Fairfax. Doors open at 6:30 pm. See the Directions link on the left for the address and building entrance information.

Meetings are open to members and to those interested in joining. We also welcome guests from other Toastmasters clubs. No cost, no pre-registration, but if you'd like to let us know you're coming, please email Bennie Bough at bennie@vastclub.org.

VAST is dynamically and continually distinctive. Each VAST meeting is centered upon speech education, speech presentation and speech evaluation.

A typical meeting begins with the Sergeant-At-Arms gaveling the meeting open and leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Our club president then greets visitors and members, briefly goes over announcements, reviews any club business, and then turns control of the meeting over to that nights' Toastmaster of the Evening (TMOE).

The TMOE introduces the presenter of the meeting's Educational Interlude. This session (15-20 minutes) addresses philosophies, strategies, insights and theories to promote public speaking excellence. Recent Educational Interludes have looked at Sounding Out Vowels and Consonants, The Speaker as an Actor, and Using Magic to Make your Speech Sparkle.

We then turn to formal speech presentations (4 or 5 at each meeting), similar to those you hear in most Toastmasters clubs. These speeches are, as is the Toastmasters custom, evaluated verbally and in writing by an assigned speech evaluator. This is where VAST demonstrates its very strong commitment to providing intense, extremely focused and precise evaluations.

Immediately after the speaker finishes, the assigned evaluator gives a standard 2-3 minute evaluation, and then randomly calls upon three other Toastmasters to offer a 60- to 90-second evaluation of the speech. At the end, the speaker is asked to comment on the four evaluations just received.

When the speeches and evaluations are finished, we return to educational mode with our "Ask the Expert" segment. Our designated expert spends 3-5 minutes providing us with insights and observations on any public speaking topic of his or her choosing, followed by a 5-minute Q & A session. Recent Ask the Expert topics include The Power of a Pause, Impromptu Speaking, and Making Your Speech Conclusion Linger in the Minds of Your Audience,

Those who regularly attend VAST meetings find this format a stimulating and parameter- shattering adventure! We know that once you visit us here at VAST, you will find this to be true as well. We look forward to seeing you at the next meeting of VAST!

History

In the early 1970s, Toastmasters of District 36 who were doing projects from the advanced manuals gathered for a breakfast meeting. The format was entirely different from that of a regular club, with each speaker receiving extensive evaluations from those present. This group became known as the “Speaker’s Forum.” At that time Past District Governor Chuck Waterman coined the phrase “twenty minute speeches – twenty minute evaluations.” 

The Speaker’s Forum became known as the Advanced Speakers Toastmasters Club #4036 and was chartered on March 17, 1982.

A Virginia chapter of this club (#4036) started to meet in various Northern Virginia locations. In 1984 the Advanced Speakers Toastmasters Club was split into three advanced clubs: one meeting in The District of Columbia, another in Maryland and the third in Virginia.

The Virginia Club took the name Virginia Advanced Speaker’s Toastmasters (VAST) Club and was chartered February 17, 1984 and assigned the number 5387.

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