Linda Harijan is vice president in charge of public relations for the Early Birds Club of Toastmasters International. She has been a member of the Butler club since 2003.

Butler County is filled with a variety of people doing interesting things. This weekly feature offers snapshots of some of them by asking five questions. The latest installment appears below.———Linda Harijan will tell anyone her membership in the Early Birds Club of Toastmasters International has made her a more successful person. That she's able to stand up in front of an audience and say so is a success in itself.Harijan, the accounts payable manager for Butler's Betres Group, the owner of nine Hallmark stores in Western Pa., joined the Butler club in 2003 and is presently the group's vice president in charge of public relations.She said when she joined Toastmasters “I lacked self-confidence. I could not talk to you right now without my lip trembling and my hand shaking.”But now, Harijan said, “I could speak at any meeting. That's how I was taught. I could do a five- to seven-minute speech in 10 minutes. I would never have been able to do that without Toastmasters.”The Butler Early Birds is in its 55th year and currently boasts 25 active members, Harijan said. Overall, Toastmasters International has 270,000 members in 13,000 clubs in 116 countries.She was able to effectively convey the group's benefits and how it works by answering five questions.

QUESTION: What is Toastmasters?ANSWER: Toastmasters is a communications and leadership program, the best self-improvement program around and the most inexpensive.We are mutually supportive. The Early Birds started out at the Y, where we are now, and then moved to Lifesteps, and we are back at the Y because of scheduling problems at Lifesteps. We are so lucky to have community support that places like the Y and Lifesteps allows us places to meet.We have many professionals in the club, but you don't have to be a professional to join. Everyone has their own reason to join.This group helps you communicate with everyone, your husband, your children, your children's teacher.Every day you communicate, and if you can do it effectively, your life is so much easier.

QUESTION: How does Toastmasters work?ANSWER: We actually work from manuals. You start out with “The Competent Communicator” that teaches you the basics. When you start out, you've got “The Competent Communicator” and “The Competent Leader.” These are the basics you work from, that's where everybody starts.And you are given a mentor, someone to help you when you start to work through the steps.In the first part of the meeting, we have our speeches and then evaluations, where the most experienced toastmasters evaluate the speeches and offer helpful suggestions and improvements.Each meeting has a different toastmaster that's in charge. That's where you work on your leadership skills. You assign roles and you keep to a schedule, set an agenda, all the things you need to hone your leadership skills.And at the end of the meeting, the toastmaster is evaluated on how they handle their leadership role.

QUESTION: How does a meeting run?ANSWER: There's an invocation and a pledge, then a humor segment and the word of the day.Then there are usually three speeches, from five to seven minutes a speech. Then there is table topics. A table topics master chooses a subject and asks five to eight members each a different question on the subject. The member has two minutes to complete his answer. It teaches you how to think on your feet.And then the evaluator, his job is to evaluate everything that has gone on so far at the meeting and he has assigned each speaker an evaluator.Finally, the toastmaster in charge of the meeting is evaluated on how well he's run the meeting.

QUESTION: What are the benefits of membership?ANSWER: You are surrounded by like-minded people who want to improve themselves and the community they live in. It's ongoing.You always have a toastmaster there when you need mentoring or support.When you go to district levels, you meet amazing people who have done amazing things with their lives. It's a great networking tool. It doesn't matter if your are on the right or the left if you want to improve your communication skills.Early Birds has put on a demo meeting for different businesses and groups on how a meeting works and how to improve their communication skills. We get a lot of new members from just showing what we do and how we do it.

QUESTION: What's the hardest part of public speaking?ANSWER: In my opinion, the hardest part of public speaking is always the butterflies in your stomach. That's never changed — although now they fly in formation.I don't think you ever want to lose the anticipation, but you are always a little anxious.