By Matters India Reporter

Kochi: At a time when communicative skills are considered an art form, 30­-year­-old Neil Gonsalves is becoming a master at it.

Recently, Neil took part in the annual district 92 conference, ‘Coronation­2017,’ of the Toastmasters at Mysuru (formerly Mysore) and became the first from Kerala, to win a prize in the international table topics contest. His topic: ‘Freedom comes with responsibility.’

Toastmasters International helps people to become confident speakers, communicators and leaders.

Neil joined the Toastmasters Club three years ago. Thereafter, he made steady progress. “There are three levels, namely, area, division and district,” he says.

Two people selected in the area level proceed to Division G and H and from there, one person represents in the district level, both for Kerala and Karnataka.

Asked why he joined Toastmaters, Neil says, “My dad, a journalist, encouraged me to develop my personality and take part in competitions. I must also thank my mentors at Toastmasters, who supported me a lot. As a result, I am able to communicate effectively with people.”

As for tips on public speaking, Neil says, “Like the proverb goes, ‘Practice makes a man perfect’, people should practice a lot before making a speech.”

Neil is the younger of two sons of the Kochi-based veteran journalist Ignatius Gonsalves.

Toastmasters International is headquartered at Rancho Santa Margarita, California and has more than 345,000 members in more than 15,900 clubs in 142 countries. Since 1924, Toastmasters International has helped people from diverse backgrounds become more confident speakers, communicators and leaders.

Nearly one-third of all Fortune 500 companies now offer in-house Toastmasters clubs to help employees become better communicators and leaders. Industry giants such as Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, The Coca-Cola Company, Exxon Mobil, Google, Microsoft and The Walt Disney Company have found the Toastmasters International program to be an effective staff development tool that benefits their organization in a meaningful way.

During the past year, more than 600 new corporate Toastmasters clubs were chartered worldwide. The growth of corporate clubs has stemmed from companies seeing the value in having employees with the ability to communicate and lead effectively.

Speech contests are a Toastmasters tradition. Each year thousands of Toastmasters compete to become the world champion of public speaking. It’s like the Olympics of public speaking. Competition begins with club contests and winners continue competing through the area, division and district levels.

The Toastmasters movement had been in active in Kerala for more than 15 years. Kerala falls under district 92 that also includes Karnataka. Its annual district conference “coronation2017” was held at Mysore on May 26-27. Neil became the first runner up in Table topics.