The Early years and the Continental Committee of European Toastmasters

Toastmasters were founded in 1924 in America. After that it took about thirty years, for the very first seeds of Toastmastering to float across the Atlantic to Europe. These initial seeds of Toastmasters were brought to Europe by members of the American Military, who spend time in Europe and who wanted to establish this familiar culture in the areas around their bases. European did not buy easily into the idea of improving their public speaking. Public speaking skills seemed to be of low importance to them at that time.

As Gavin Alexander, one of the first CCET chairmen recollects:

“… Except for American servicemen on US military bases who had heard about Toastmasters in the USA, it was virtually unknown in Europe. I think the average Belgian, German or French person tended to look askance at this new fangled "American" idea, probably seeing it as a rather typical part of "the American way of life", meaning an expression of their obsession with selling (both products and themselves), business, and making money. A lot of which had to do with the very different school system in the US, where social skills, particularly being able to get up and speak to audiences, were regarded as much more important than in Europe. European schools used to be (and possibly still are) quite conservative in this regard, although this may be changing. Another anecdote: I remember telling an English friend once that I was in Toastmasters, where up he replied, mockingly: "Oh that's the club where people like talking". Was it part of his British reserve when it came to people standing up on soap boxes and haranguing audiences. Anyway, I hastened to point out to him that this was far from the truth, in fact it was almost the opposite, that most Toastmasters have to overcome a great deal of fear to be able to get up and speak in public but I wasn't able to convince him, and he never joined.

To further illustrate this change of "climate" re. Toastmastering in Europe, I recall talking to German guests at the SITC, some of whom spoke reasonably good, if slightly "academic" English, but who, when I invited them to join, refused on the grounds that they felt their English wasn't good enough. Of course this often wasn’t true, but no amount of persuasion helped; they simply felt too shy about standing up and speaking in front of people who (to them) seemed so eloquent in the language, which I could sympathize with, since I went through the same agonies in my early years in Germany while I was still learning the language.

It's a very different matter being able to make yourself understood in everyday situations in a foreign language from holding a speech. And even though my German has improved since then, I still invest extra preparation before holding speeches in German, because, in the stress of an audience situation, I'm all too aware of the additional limitations that my less-than-perfect knowledge of the language places on my presentation. And it's also worth remembering in this context that, in general, it's rarely the confident, extroverted person with the "gift of the gab" who joins Toastmasters, but more often the shy and introverted ones who realize that Toastmasters offers them help in overcoming these difficulties.”

First Toastmasters appearing Continental Europe

This was the situation in Europe when the first Toastmasters started appearing here.
The History of Toastmasters in Europe dates back to the 1950s when the first Toastmaster clubs started to appear. In the beginning, these clubs seemed to focus less on developing rhetorical skills, as was the purpose in America, and rather more on having a great time! The First Toastmasters in Europe tended to meet over a dinner and enjoy listening to other members who had something to say. As one early European Toastmaster wrote in his recollections, for Europeans gathering together as toastmasters was not related so much to developing their own personalities or making business contacts, but to enjoy a meal and listen to their friends talking. During these first toastmasters’s meeting, the speeches were mainly delivered by American members of the Organization.

As former chairman of CCET, Gavin Alexander, recollected:

“Some members of the Paris TM club used to grumble in private about (mostly French) members who flatly refused to give speeches, seeing the club simply as a place to spend a pleasant evening over a nice meal while listening to others give speeches. I can still recall American Toastmasters (Bernie Pease for one) scornfully referring to the Paris club as a kind of "sewing circle", or words to this effect. Typical of Americans, Bernie saw Toastmasters not just as an enjoyable hobby but more as a way of bettering himself, of furthering his career, and of course of earning more money, which wasn't really, I believe, at that stage, so common among Europeans (nowadays with globalization all this is changing, of course).”

At that time all clubs that appeared in different parts of Europe had little or no contact to each other. As one of first active District Toastmasters recollects:

“Prior to this, even the aforesaid mainly American military TM clubs seemed a long way away, not like nowadays, when traveling around the country (or even to other countries) for Toastmasters meetings is normal (we had less money in those days). And we didn't have internet, faxes and mobile phones.
Added to which our present District 59 is now firmly established, and
Area Governors are doing their jobs servicing the clubs in their areas
(definitely NOT always the case 20-odd years ago). And there is now a
new spirit of mobility and shared experience among European Toastmasters that was only in it's infancy in my day.”

A handful of European clubs decided to join

In the year 1979 this small handful of European clubs decided to join together to try and propagate Toastmasters Europe wide. They decided to form a group, and decided on the name “the Continental Council of European Toastmasters” (CCET). At that time, it was almost possible to count all clubs in Europe using only the fingers of both hands. The process of uniting these few clubs was not an easy job, since it was difficult to attract many Europeans to improve their rhetorical skills, to grow clubs and, secondly, it was difficult to unite those disparate clubs into one organization.

Most toastmasters did not know anything about their toastmaster cousins in other countries and moreover about the CCET. As one of former chairmen of the CCET, Gavin Alexander, recollected:

“When I jointed the CCET as EVC in 1981, the average European Toastmaster hadn't even HEARD of the CCET. And even when they did begin hearing about it, they usually didn't have a clue what it was about as I didn't either, initially. And few non native English speaking members cared much, either, mainly because most of them were so busy just finding out what Toastmasters was all about in their own clubs, where they had enough problems to deal with. English language skills for them were far below what they are today, for which there are a number of reasons, including that in those days English didn't have much priority in schools, and it was quite poorly taught (up till sometime in the 1990s, English was the subject in schools that more students failed than any other), so that for the average German member, giving a speech could be something of a major operation. Even today it is probably a bit difficult for the new generation of young Toastmasters to fully appreciate this, since they are growing up in a globalized, capitalistic world, which is dramatically changing almost everything everywhere, not only in Europe. Increasing in Europe these days we are getting large numbers of well educated, highly competent and motivated young people, Germans and others, who are fully seized of how important it is for them to improve both their English as well as their communication skills if they are to be successful in their careers, especially internationally. This wasn't the case in my day.”