Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 11/00) - While attending college four years ago, Jennifer Friesen stood to give a speech in class. She started trembling, her voice went flat and she blanked out.

Friesen is now a member of Yellowknife's Toastmaster club. Today she leads discussions at club meetings, gives speeches and says it's fun.

Toastmasters is celebrating its 30 years in Yellowknife this week, with an open house today at the Diavik Diamonds boardroom at 7:30 p.m.

The public is invited to attend and check out what the club is about.

For some people the fear of public speaking is worse than the fear of death. It grips at weddings during toasts, at work during presentations, at parties during introductions and at other social events that catch people in the spotlight of verbal performance.

Toastmasters is a club for people who don't want to be afraid of public speaking anymore. It was created to give people who fear the podium a place to grow along with others who share the terror.

"It's a good career move," said Friesen, 26, who joined Toastmasters for the first time in 1996 and rejoined after a second speech freeze-up the next year while attending University of Lethbridge in Alberta.

"I ended up with the highest marks for speaking in my class," said Friesen.

Toastmasters in Yellowknife began in 1960 when 20 people gathered at the Explorer Hotel.

Current Yellowknife Toastmasters president Mike McCallum said the club is currently in a membership dry spell.

"The club is always going through a cyclical phase, sometimes we have many, sometimes we have few," said McCallum who has been a Yellowknife chapter member for four years.

McCallum hopes the open house will bring in new members.

"We've had all sorts of people in the club, from home-makers to (Yellowknife Centre) MLA Jake Ootes and (Kam Lake) MLA Tony Whitford the speaker of the legislative assembly," said McCallum.

There are over 3,500 Toastmasters clubs around the world.

The club offers people a chance to heighten self-confidence through improved public speaking. The first one was founded in Santa Anna, California in 1924 by Dr. Ralph C. Smedley and has since expanded world-wide.

Membership is $100 for first-timers.

"My first time at a Toastmasters meeting, my legs were wobbly, I was so nervous," said McCallum, "I can really relate to people who are afraid."