Eye contact: The 181st Regular Meeting

The topic for "Here's My Trick" was Eye Contact. (To know what "Here's My Trick, this article may help.)

One of the experienced members, Marilyn, talked about how eye contact is important to make our speeches effective. She told us we might want to look into the listeners' eyes long enough to communicate their ideas and know how they are reacting to our message. She also mentioned that our eye contact should not be too long because that will make the listener uncomfortable.

She was not comfortable with eye contact at the beginning, though. She says eye contact is one of the first tricks she learned in Toastmasters. When she delivered her first speech, the Ice Breaker speech, she received feedback from one of the members, saying, "You were constantly gazing at the wall at the back of the room." She followed his advice and now she can use eye contact to engage the audience and see how they are reacting to her speech so that she is able to adjust the content of her speech to suit the audience.

Later in the meeting, General Evaluator Tenten provided feedback to the entire meeting on eye contact. He pointed out that some members were not keeping eye contact during their speeches. Some online attendees were looking away from the camera. Some in-person speakers were looking down on their manuscripts.

This can be said of the functionary role-takers as well. Every moment of our meeting is an opportunity to practice public speaking. When a role-taker explains his or her role, it is a public speaking moment. When a Toastmaster of the Day, the master of ceremonies, or a General Evaluator introduces speakers and evaluators, these are public speaking moments. We might want to use these opportunities to hone our public speaking skills. One thing we can do is to pay attention to what we learned at this meeting, eye contact.

Want to get comfortable with eye contact? Visit us at one of our meetings!