The Toastmasters organization is an international public speaking non-profit that was founded over 100 years ago, created to provide a supportive and positive environment for people eager to develop leadership and communication skills. The goal of TMU Toastmasters is to help young students build confidence in their communication and apply it in their studies and career.
The chapter has come incredibly far over the last few years. It has grown from not even being a part of the Ted Rogers Students’ Society to now hosting workshops for BMO employees. Here is what two members of TMU Toastmasters had to say about the partnership with BMO:
Zayed Pasha (3rd year, Business Technology Management)
President, TMU Toastmasters (2024-25)
Every week, we come together as a group and have beginners step out of their comfort zone by speaking in front of peers, challenging their presentation skills and quick thinking. At the end of each meeting, we provide valuable feedback to our attendees on areas of improvement, and work with them by giving useful tips on how to target their weaker spots.
A few months into the Fall semester, one of our team members (Zain Malik), had brought forward the opportunity to partner with the new BMO branch that had just opened in Eaton Centre. Hearing this, I was both shocked and excited. Things went incredibly quickly from there: I met with Shirley Breen, Branch Manager at BMO, and she expressed her interest in collaborating with us, where she wanted us to host workshops for her employees. The purpose of the workshops was to build self-confidence, and encourage self-reflection, which would in turn allow individuals to be the best versions of themselves both inside and outside of the workplace.
Each workshop was designed to build on the last. The first one was about self-recognition and appreciation, the second was on the fear of speaking up and why it is so important to do so, followed by the third which focused on learning how to navigate difficult scenarios, and the final one was about how everything they learned expands beyond the workplace and can help them in their daily lives.
Elizaveta Vasileva (3rd year, International Economics and Finance)
Executive Vice President, TMU Toastmasters (2024-25)
The workshops focused on the Power of Speaking Up, where we looked deeper into the sources of fear that all people experience and how to battle them effectively. Fear of public speaking, be that in the professional or personal life, is something that starts from a young age and follows many into their professional career, where it feels like an issue too late to battle. To deliver the message of encouragement to the attendees, we delved into the benefits of making one’s voice be heard: matters of personal development, such as more honest connections and relationships, authenticity and confidence growth from stepping out of the comfort zone; as well as professional efficiency, like quicker problem resolution and collaboration, brand building and attracting more opportunities of interest.
But ultimately, we came to the BMO branch not to just look deeper into the reasons for this issue, but also battle it. With the help of the manager at the Eaton Centre BMO branch, we came up with specific, on the spot questions and issues that customers at BMO would visit with, as well as the different attitudes and emotions that they bring, which the employees need to mitigate daily. We provided a ready framework of how to deal with customers of any kind, focusing on response phrasing, body language and incorporation of empathy, so that any customer is left happy with the service provided.
This was done through table topics, which is an integral part of our weekly meetings, where attendees are given a question on the spot and have only 30 seconds to plan their speech in response. In this interactive section with BMO, we added a twist to the well-known concept, where the employees got to role-play as customers and front-line agents, that way challenging their colleagues to give the best answer and mitigate the various made-up issues that their fellow “customers” had. The session resulted in a variety of positive emotions between the colleagues, but also proved insightful as they would give each other advice and reflect on what would have been the best way to respond in each case.
At the end, all attendees felt more prepared for any future experience that would come their way. They had the opportunity to practice challenging scenarios using new techniques and information provided by the TMU Toastmasters team, and this will forever help them be confident in any difficult situation – be that a customer, or their personal life.
Valuable experience
Being a part of these workshops was an absolutely surreal experience for the TMU Toastmasters team. Speaking to a room of seasoned professionals and having them value the opinion of a 21-year-old student is unthinkable, especially when seeing how – from the start of the first workshop to the end of the last – everyone was incredibly engaged.
We watched individuals come out of their shell and go beyond their comfort zone because of their desire to learn, observing how each week attendees improved and experienced a transformative journey through these four lessons. Ultimately, being able to lead these workshops was not only a privilege, but also an unforgettable experience that I know we’ll cherish for the rest of our careers.
