Jim talks his way to LA

JIM Hegarty can talk for Ireland. He can talk for England, Scotland and Wales too.
The Newmarket-on-Fergus native is the district governor of Toastmasters for Ireland and the UK and is in Las Vegas, Nevada, representing District 71 at the annual Toastmasters International Convention, which began on Wednesday.
Jim was educated in St Flannan’s College, Ennis, before carving out his own career in second-level education and recently retired as the deputy principal of prestigious Glenstal Abbey boarding school where he taught maths, computing and Irish for 40 years.
He also spent two and a half years teaching in Africa, is a qualified badminton coach and is very involved in athletics.
“Glenstal is a beautiful place to work, an extraordinary place. In the school, people are treated as people. They are left with their dignity at all times. There was never an act of bullying or anything like that. It was a congregation of equals, if you like,” he said, and reflects the Benedictine ethos of the school since it opened in 1932 and that of Patrick Hederman, a former boarder at Glenstal, who was drawn back to life in the monastery, became school principal and is now the monastery’s abbot.
“He really believes that the freedom of a child to be the person that they are is what a school should provide. The whole concept is, ‘you are like a plant. You can grow a certain way and we’ll support you in what you are doing. But the bottom line is the space has to be given to you to sometimes make mistakes, to bark up the wrong tree or whatever.”
A long-term resident of Castletroy, Jim is married to Teresa, who is also a teacher, and while he always felt comfortable in a classroom, he was less than happy with his performance when it came to addressing his students’ parents.
“Parents’ associations had just come in about 15 years ago and although the message I was giving out was clear, I wasn’t at all happy with my performance when I was speaking to a group of parents. I felt that I could do a lot better and so I went along to Thomond Toastmasters Club in the Castletroy Park Hotel.”
It was a bit of a disaster and he recalls arriving late – a cardinal sin – and ended up leaving at the break. “I remember saying to myself, ‘this is too sophisticated for me’.
“I think a lot of people go along to their first meeting and the first thing they notice is the confidence with which people speak. They can see that people are given the floor, with nobody helping them and nobody interfering, and they feel that it would just terrify them to do that.”
Living close to UL, Jim adopted a different approach to boost his confidence and took on a series of degree courses and night classes but admits it didn’t make him a better speaker in front of an audience.
“It wasn’t the solution. I was sitting in the audience silently, taking down things or studying.
“So nearly three years later, I decided to give Toastmasters another go. But this time, I was determined to make it work. I did a few speeches, trying my best to make them interesting to the audiences, much as you would do for a class.”
This time, he stayed around long enough to get himself a mentor, someone who knew the ropes and the ins-and-outs of Toastmasters. “You’re better off to have somebody who has been through the system and who would advise you how to go about things. I found once I had a mentor who looked after me for a while that I settled in. A mentor gives you additional feedback on your speeches and explains the objectives and whether you had met these objectives. If you did achieve your objectives, he or she explains how it happened and suggests some things you might like to try on your next speech.”
As Jim’s confidence developed so did his involvement in Toastmasters and about three years after his return to the Thomond Club, he was encouraged to take on a leadership role by getting involved in setting up a new club in the ever-expanding area of Raheen.
“I was in charge of organising the speeches in the new club, getting to know the members, making sure I’d advise them of the meetings and if they had a speech to give, I might send them a note reminding them of the objectives of that speech. I enjoyed that very much and became resident of Raheen Toastmasters’ Club the following year. Two or three years later, I was in charge of four or five clubs and in another three years, I was in charge of something like 14 clubs.
“There are certain measures of achievement when you are in charge of an area – four or five clubs – and it gives you a sense of how you are getting on. So, when it came to the division, which was maybe on my eighth or ninth year, I was very comfortable and so I got the highest grade you could possibly get. The division had put on three new clubs. I was involved directly in all three and the number of clubs I would have been involved in seriously would be five.
“The leadership side of Toastmasters is about giving back something when you know you’ve received something and you believe in the organisation and what it can do for people. You’ve seen people blossom completely, doing things that they thought they could never do, maybe coming away from their daughter or son’s wedding having done a wonderful speech and being complimented by everybody at the wedding. They know that they did well.”
The old adage that it takes all sorts certainly applies to the membership of more than Toastmasters’ 100 clubs in Ireland and another 150 clubs in the UK. There are specialist clubs for lawyers, engineers and accountants but the majority are made up of people drawn to the clubs for their own reasons, whether it’s personal development or as a social outlet.
“If you go to Toastmasters, you are putting something rather nice onto your CV. There’s value in it in the real world and for example, there’s a Toastmasters’ club in Apple Computers in Cork. The atmosphere at Toastmasters meetings is not like a lecture. It could be described more as a workshop where you are free to participate.
“Toastmasters gives people a voice to say what they want to say and there is no allowance of contradiction or offering another view. All views are personal. You are entitled to hold them, it’s your view and it’s accepted and people are not trying to knock it out of you at all. The other thing about Toastmasters is that you decide your own pace. You determine the amount of energy and time you put into it to determine how quickly you will grow.
“After being in Toastmasters for four or five years, I couldn’t believe the difference it made to me. I never really thought of myself as a leader and now I find myself as the leader of District 71.
This is Jim’s third Toastmaster International Convention and while he is looking forward to the speaking competition between the 79 districts, he is also attending for a thorough grounding to help him in his role as divisional governor, which began on July 1. He is accompanied by assistant district governors for educational and training programmes, marketing and also the outgoing district governors, who knows the ropes and will be a mentor to him and the team in the year ahead.
For more information on District 71, log on to www.D71.org and for information on Toastmaster International, go to www.toastmasters.org.