Protoasties – A Toastmasters for Professionals Who Speak

Professionals join Protoasties, an advanced Toastmasters in Burlingame, Calif., because they are driven to make their presentations and speaking engagements stand out. They know that this is the fast-track to increasing their sales, raising venture capital money, motivating their employees, and getting an edge on their competition.

Members of Protoasties are professional speakers, presentation skills trainers or people who present in a professional capacity. They serve as CEO’s, corporate board members, entrepreneurs, published authors, sales/marketing executives, among other types of professionals.

Protoasties was launched in 1998 as a platform for members of the Northern California Chapter of the National Speakers Association to sharpen their speeches and presentations through peer feedback before hitting the road. Protoasties was founded by NSA Hall of Fame speaker Patricia Fripp and Craig Harrison, founding board president of Pro-Trac, NSA/NC’s speaker college.

As an advanced Toastmasters club, most Protoasties members have earned at least CC status (completed the Competent Communicator manual), through another Toastmasters club, or have already mastered certain public speaking fundamentals. Although you may not yet qualify for membership, if you aspire to join you are welcome to come as a guest.

Meeting Format: Unlike the traditional Toastmasters club, which splits time evenly between prepared speeches and table topics, Protoasties allows its members to rehearse longer than the typical 6-8 minute speech. In addition, a roundtable of members may verbally critique the speech, rather than a single evaluator, which is the norm at most Toastmasters clubs. This often reduces the amount of time available for table topics, an impromptu speaking exercise designed to sharpen skills in communicating under pressure.