Should you say “thank you, Toastmasters” at the end of your speech?

We are celebrating Thanksgiving here in the United States this week. It’s a time to think about the things we’re grateful for and express our gratitude to those who have blessed us.

I am extremely grateful to many Toastmasters I have met over the years. My life has been blessed by men and women who have demonstrated public speaking skills and leadership skills. And frankly, they’ve made my life a lot more fun. Where else would I have learned about self-priming jiggle pumps?

I should thank my club for teaching me about painting with diamonds or why your arteries are like pumpkin roll pastries – neither of which I knew before tonight.

Yes, an audience should thank the speaker. But what about the speaker thanking the audience?

It’s a Toastmasters controversy.

INTRO

Do you want to learn to be a great public speaker? Do you develop your leadership skills? Then Toastmasters is for you. We will give you the opportunities to learn and grow in an hour a week! This is Toastmasters 101 and I’m your host, Kim Krajci.

Say Thank You, Toastmasters?

I was watching a webinar yesterday and the host introduced the speaker who immediately said,

“Good afternoon. Like the host said, my name is Dr. X and I would like to tell you why I’m leading this webinar.”

Then, her feed froze and we looked at her stationary PowerPoint slide presentation for about 3 minutes till the host came back to the meeting. Then the speaker restarted her speech and ran long, concluding with “thank you.”

Evaluation Mode

You know what I did. I went into Toastmasters mode. The evaluation mode. Why didn’t the host have a better introduction? Why did the speaker waste our attention on details that the introduction should have covered? What happened to the feed? What could both of them have done better? What challenges do they have?

It’s the danger of being in Toastmasters. Most people don’t expect an evaluation of the technical aspects of public speaking. Fortunately, I had to leave before I succumbed to the temptation to make some comments.

People do not say thank you Toastmasters when you point out their points of improvement when they don’t ask.

Since I wasn’t really getting into the material of the webinar and focusing more on the style of presentation, quite honestly, I wasn’t very grateful to the presenter. When she got to the conclusion and said “thank you,” it caught me up. “You’re not supposed to say thank you. The audience is supposed to thank you.”

The Controversy of Thank You, Toastmasters

There are some Toastmasters who will always point out when a speaker thanks t...