One trick done well used to be enough to get by in journalism, whether writing clean copy or humping a TV camera in the heat. But with the media in a state of upheaval, even old dogs are now challenged to learn new tricks.

Can a cameraman make it on the other end of a lens? Can a keyboard jockey learn to do lede and six graphs orally at one go? Can an Italian do it coherently in English?
It’s second nature to broadcast veterans, but doing a tight, coherent two-minute stand-up speech is a skill that takes work to learn – especially in a foreign tongue.

Getting camera-ready is just one of many skills the 35 members of FCCJ Toastmasters set out to master at the June 15 charter meeting of this “club-within-a-club.”

“Toastmastering” is a group self-teaching method, evolved over 80 years, for developing public-speaking and leadership skills. Members learn by doing, and by evaluating each others’ efforts.

As public-speaking skills are directly relevant to journalism, FCCJ past-president Catherine Makino spearheaded the effort to bring Toastmastering to the FCCJ as part of the Club’s “Journalist Training Program.”

This required interested FCCJ members to form an organizing committee and recruit at least 20 people to join. It took several demonstration meetings, but by late May organizers were confident they had the numbers.

The next step was to set up an independent “club-within-a-club,” with finances and policies managed by a committee of six FCCJ members and membership limited to FCCJ members (of all classes) in good standing.

With this in place, “FCCJ Toastmasters Club” (FCCJ TMs) was ready to apply for a charter to Toastmasters International, the California-based non-profit foundation that issues the Toastmasters’ curriculum.

This charter gives FCCJ TMs and its members access to a vast array of learning tools. It also obliges FCCJ TMs to adhere to a constitution and bylaws that ensure thousands of Toastmasters clubs worldwide operate in a uniformly honorable, fair and transparent way. This precludes, for example, use of the curriculum by hate-speech groups.

Thanks to such safeguards, Toastmasters’ clubs thrive even inside organizations hyper-sensitive to political correctness and risk of embarrassment. The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, for instance, has a club called “Star-Spangled Banter.”

With the paperwork in place, all that remained was to gather prospective members to sign the charter application and fork over ¥10,000 each to cover initiation fees and dues for the first six-month term.

And so the call went out to FCCJ members at the beginning of June: “Join us June 15 and be among those whom history may honor as charter members of FCCJ Toastmasters.”
This grandiose marketing gambit must have worked, as response exceeded all expectations. Hopes were to hit at least the 20-member minimum needed to apply for a charter – but no more than the 40 members recommended as the maximum.

As luck would have it, 35 people signed the FCCJ TMs’ charter application over lunch on Monday, June 15. (Mondays being the least busy weekday at FCCJ, TMs is helping the Club’s bottom line by making this its regular time slot).
Catherine Makino kindly filled in for this reporter, who also happens to be president of FCCJ TMs, after he was appalled to find himself in hospital that day.

Veteran Toastmaster Shuji Yoshida hosted the day’s program, which included an impromptu speaking exercise led by Doug Jackson and speeches by Roslyn Hayman and James Cole.
At the finale, Treasurer Dan Tsukamoto received the charter members’ dues and Secretary Roslyn Hayman oversaw the signing of the charter. Then, all present gathered for what is hoped will be a historic photo – given that many TMs clubs last for decades.

Happily, FCCJ TMs’ charter application has since been accepted by the intergalactic headquarters in California, and Toastmasters instruction manuals for each member plus other tools have now arrived.

At the next meeting – scheduled for 12:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 31, in the FCCJ Media Room – the club’s members will get down to business in earnest, manuals in hand.

A few places are still available for those interested in joining. Preference will be given to FCCJ Regular Members and those with a high level of English skills. For more information contact Makino, the FCCJ
TMs recruiting officer. ❶