I always look back at the five years that I was involved with Toastmasters International with fond memories. I served as V.P of Education and Club President with a great group of officers, as an Area Governor and mentored several people. I’ve earned several awards, conducted speech contests and participated in a variety of Toastmasters related events. I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting some of the friendliest people (hundreds of them) within my own clubs, through events at the district level and even on-line through my blog, e-zine subscribers and other discussion groups.

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We all want our audiences to laugh with us, not at us and let’s face it – it just feels great to have the audience laugh at your jokes. Great speakers are able to entertain us while they educate us. There is also a perception that having the audience laugh with you throughout your talk means that it’s well received.

Humor is one of the best attention getting devices out there. If someone isn’t paying attention and the audience laughs, he or she will focus back on you to see what go the reaction. As a general rule, you want to put an attention getting device into your speech every three to five minutes to prevent losing your audience. In addition to humor, the other common ways to get attention include:

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