Want to become a better speaker?
Perhaps you would like to deliver a better standard of presentation, or communicate more effectively in a leadership position, or simply be able to speak with greater confidence? Pretoria Advanced Toastmasters provides a supportive environment where you can practice speaking, receive constructive feedback and gradually develop your communication and leadership skills.
At our in-person meetings in the capital of South Africa, Pretoria Advanced offers both:
• Supportive public speaking training for beginners and less experienced speakers - assisting you with experienced mentors.
• Real challenge for advanced workplace speakers and professional public speakers. Iron sharpens iron and you can expect detailed feedback, exposure to a range of professionals, and an extraordinarily varied program designed for executive speech coaching.
Our central location in Lynnwood, Pretoria East makes us accessible to much of the capital's population - we are within 30 minutes drive time of most of Pretoria's suburbs. A 45 min drive from Sandton, Bryanston, northern Johannesburg ... you won't regret your trip.
Based at PHSOB (a busy venue with secure parking), we have a restaurant and bar on site. With an incredible range of speech topics, workplace-relevant workshops, life-relevant communications training, invited experts and keynote speakers, why not take advantage of the most diverse communications training program available in South Africa?
We pride ourselves on being a very friendly club (4.9/5 ★★★★★ — read what our visitors & members say on our Google Reviews !).
So whether you are nervous and the idea of improving your public speaking abilities has become a necessary concern for you ...... or whether you are a seasoned professional speaker looking to sharpen your skills in a more advanced environment, you are welcome to visit Pretoria Advanced.
You don't need to prepare anything. Guests are welcome
Come along, meet the members and see how a meeting works.
You can simply sit and watch. When the penny drops, and you recognise the presentation skills benefits YOU will gain from membership, then chat to a committee volunteer and they will help you with information about joining Pretoria Advanced.
Every fortnight on Thursday evening (see calendar below) 18:15 for 18:30
at PHSOB, 378 Queens Crescent, Lynnwood, PTA - click to open in Google Maps.
Free, secure parking available on-site. We are accessible in Pretoria East and within 30 mins drivetime of most Pretoria suburbs.
Our meetings are practical. Members learn by observing ..... listening .....actually speaking ....... and then receiving feedback.
Members give prepared speeches and practice communicating ideas clearly and confidently to an audience.
Short, impromptu speaking exercises help members develop the ability to think clearly and respond confidently without preparation.
Members receive constructive feedback from other speakers, helping them understand what works and where they can improve.
When you visit for the first time, you can simply sit back and observe. You won't be expected to give a speech. Our members are friendly and come from a wide range of ages, backgrounds and professions. We have access to a wide range of gifted teachers, mentors and experts in public speaking.
Talk to us about what you would like to achieve and we can explain how the club works and how you can get involved.
Who is Pretoria Advanced Toastmasters for?
Anyone who wants to become a more capable and confident communicator.
You don't need to arrive as a confident speaker. You develop confidence by practicing.
Students & Postgrads
Build your confidence when speaking in front of others. Practise defence of your thesis or delivery of an abstract. Develop communication skills that will be valuable at university ....and throughout your career.
Professionals
Give better presentations, contribute more effectively in meetings and communicate ideas with greater clarity and confidence.
Leaders
Develop the ability to communicate, persuade, motivate and lead more effectively.
Experienced public speakers
Continue developing your speaking skills with high level feedback. Increase your exposure to a diverse range of communication practices from different professions. Learn & support through teaching.
Why choose Pretoria Advanced Toastmasters?
Pretoria Advanced founded the methodology of offering separate classes for beginners and/or less experienced speakers. You benefit from experienced mentors, with some classes held in a smaller separate room.... a less intimidating space with a smaller audience comprising other beginners to start out. You will practice speaking more regularly and receive broader feedback.
Members help one another improve. Feedback is constructive, encouraging and focused on helping you become a better communicator. Feedback is progressive as you progress, helping you build reflection, skills in receiving advice and resilience.
If you already have speaking experience, there are most definitely opportunities to challenge yourself, refine your skills and continue your development. We organise the most diverse range of communication skills training available anywhere. You benefit through the offered collective experience.
Whether you are a beginner or an expert, you can practice here, you can belong here. The key is simply that you want to improve.
We developed our "fast track, least stress" approach to give first-time and nervous speakers a supportive place to begin.
Sessions provide experienced mentors, a smaller group environment and practical exercises designed to get you speaking from the outset.
The emphasis is on DOING, not simply learning about public speaking. You practice in a supportive environment, receive feedback and gradually build confidence.
Our workshops are unique. Developed with advanced speakers and professionals in the relevant fields, they provide close simulations of real-world experiences in difficult settings.
We offer highly diverse and cross-disciplinary advanced communications training. Our mentors include professional speakers, as well as advanced speakers from a range of professions (including politics, law, science, engineering, marketing, C-suite executives, entrepreneurs & academics). Our club members encourage and undertake speaking competitions, including prepared speeches, evaluation deliveries, impromptu contests as well as debate contests. Experienced mentors from Pretoria Advanced assist other local Toastmaster clubs, as well as running corporate Speechcraft courses and helping local schools with Youth Leadership and Public Speaking Training.
We don't just hold club meetings. We have social nights. From film nights, through to social dinners, to "after party" nights in the bar, though to networking events across Gauteng .... come enhance your evenings and your network with Pretoria Advanced. Check out our Google reviews and specifically check out the comments on the friendliness of our club and the approachability of the mentors we select. Or even better ... come and visit & check us out in person.
Any questions?
No. Guests are welcome to simply come along, sit back and observe a meeting. There is no expectation that you have to deliver a speech.
No. You can visit whether you are completely new to public speaking or already an experienced speaker.
YES we can help you improve. It's a perfectly normal and COMMONPLACE fear. Whether you clam up, can't find your words, flush red, start sweating, stutter, shake, become breathless or say the wrong thing at the wrong time .... yes we can help you get past this. The founder of Toastmasters (Ralph Smedley) set up this non-profit organisation to support and build confidence in young men .... over 100 years ago. The same rationales may in fact be of greater relevance in this modern digital and increasingly socially disconnected world. Toastmasters now helps build communication skills and reduce fear of speaking for both men and women. The best way to do this is not online, it's through IN PERSON meetings. With a small audience. In a supportive environment. With experienced mentors. We will help you build up from there. This way, you will be able to handle both real world person-to-person or person-to-group meetings, as well as online remote presentations.
We are an Advanced Club, and so we provide an arena for highly experienced presenters, already confident speakers, professional public speakers including Keynote speakers and professional MCs to practice their own material. Members join for many different reasons — sharpening their work presentations, becoming more persuasive, enhancing their leadership communication or simply becoming a more capable communicator. These experienced members also help teach and mentor our beginners. Our strength is the multi-disciplinary professional background that our club provides - from experienced lawyers to business people, to academics to entrepreneurs to C-suite individuals to actors to politicians !
Absolutely. We encourage prospective members to visit as guests, experience a meeting and decide afterwards whether the club is right for them. We are easy to find in Lynnwood covering Pretoria East and within 30mins drivetime of most of Pretoria.
Fortunately, dinner is available at the club during the meeting. The on-site restaurant at PHSOB offers a very reasonably priced menu, including vegetarian options. The dinner price helps support our host venue and thus covers your entry to the meeting. There is also a bar on site. The restaurant and bar accept card payments.
PHSOB is a busy club facility in Lynnwood with families and other groups using the venue in the evenings. There is controlled entry and secure, well-lit parking immediately adjacent to the clubhouse.
This is a long answer. So pour yourself a drink and read on ! The answer is in 3 key parts:
1. We are consistently awarded the Toastmasters International designation of a top-flight club (the President's Distinguished Award) over many years.
2. Speaking competitions - our club members have an excellent track record every year ... from area to division to district winners and finalists. We also have a network of highly awarded competition speakers (both in and out of Toastmasters, at the national and international level) who present at our club.
3. But the main reason we are the lead club in Southern Africa is that we have pioneered a number of new teaching techniques for BOTH beginners and advanced speakers ... and these are quite unique (even on the global stage). In the first instance, you should compare the pros & cons of standard TM clubs and then see what AI says specifically about Pretoria Advanced in comparison e.g. Google AI:
"Pretoria Advanced Toastmasters Club actively breaks away from traditional Toastmasters limitations. It operates as a highly specialized "Communications Centre of Excellence," making it a unique global anomaly in the network. Here is a look at how Pretoria Advanced actively solves the standard complaints about Toastmasters:
(i) Replaced "Rigid Protocols" with Highly Tailored Coaching. A standard "one-size-fits-all" Toastmasters journey can fail because beginners get overwhelmed and advanced speakers get bored. Pretoria Advanced bypasses this completely by running two separate streams under one roof:
* The Tutorial Room: Instead of throwing beginners into a standard meeting structure that can be quite intimidating for new presenters (to be immediately confronted with having to speak in front of experienced speakers), Pretoria Advanced Club instead runs a private, small audience (beginners only e.g. 4 to 8 in a class) and supportive tutorial room where rotating tutors expose new members to completely different teaching and mentorship styles.
* The Main Room: Reserved for advanced speakers who are pushing boundaries. Pretoria Advanced have streamlined their meetings resulting in more speaking time, more focussed meetings, and completely avoiding the predictable and tedious repetition which can be a common complaint in standard clubs.
(ii) High-Level Professional Realism. A major criticism of standard clubs is that a 5-to-7 minute speech about a personal hobby doesn't help you in a real world workplace setting. Pretoria Advanced addresses this by pivoting to high-stakes corporate and academic formats, specifically covering:
* Executive Communications: Training people for clear, concise, top-tier corporate & professional reporting and presentations.
* Academic Formats: Preparing professionals for highly structured academic abstract presentations and thesis defences—skills crucial for Pretoria's large academic and research community.
* Extended Formats: Moving past the short 7-minute limit to test speakers with content rich, longer-form speeches from professional presentations, to interesting stories, TED talks, PechaKucha as well as lectures ... all with interactive Q&A and panel discussions that are simply not found in standard Toastmaster clubs.
(iii) Hyper-Specific Workshops. Instead of just repeating standard educational manuals, their calendar functions like an executive business school, featuring targeted modules on:
* Investor Pitching: Training entrepreneurs to pitch to Venture Capital (VC), Private Equity (PE), High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWI) and Family Offices.
* Corporate Navigation: Dealing with conflict resolution (e.g. mentored by an employment lawyer) and managing difficult negotiations (e.g. with C-suite executives)
* Modern Media: Training for social media marketing with real-world social media influencers.
* Evaluations - Pretoria Advanced both conducts evaluations and teaches evaluation methods that go far deeper than the standard, sometimes overly soft "sandwich method", where the latter standard Toastmaster practice can be seen to reward an "over-rehearsed" or theatrical style. A style that does not translate well in the boardroom or professional evaluation setting for example.
* Small talk workshop and how to network.
* Life skills impromptu speaking e.g. wedding speeches, best man speeches, eulogies, retirement speeches, awards presentations.
(iv) Interactive and Modern Media Formats. Standard clubs often ignore technology, but their program actively integrates modern platform tools:
* Oxford/Cambridge Style Debates: Hosting highly controversial debates (often against other premier clubs) that force speakers to think dynamically under intense pressure.
* Media & Interview Pressures: Simulating high-pressure media panel interviews where speakers are grilled on the spot.
* Audio & Tech Savvy: Providing dedicated workshops for podcast hosting and physical microphone training, moving speakers away from standard lecterns.
*Training in how to improve your Powerpoint presentations as well as other presentation software packages (e.g. Prezi and Genially).
(v) Massive Scale Masterclasses. Many clubs struggle with small membership numbers that can make it difficult to run standard Toastmaster roles within a meeting (especially where there are only 6 to 12 people in a typical meeting). Pretoria Advanced utilizes its position to train members for large-audience (>100 people) real-world MC (Master of Ceremonies) duties, giving speakers true exposure to command massive crowds.
The Verdict
If you are looking at Pretoria Advanced Toastmasters, the standard internet complaints about routine Toastmaster clubs simply do not apply. They have consciously re-engineered the club to function as a premium accelerator for corporate, entrepreneurial, academic and life skills communications."
Maybe you've visited already. Maybe you just know we're the right club for you. Great. Pretoria Advanced Toastmasters is a volunteer organisation and we always need action-oriented volunteers. Just reach out. Press one of the buttons below (best) or email us: toastmasters.pretoria.advanced@gmail.com
Ready to become a better speaker?
The best way to find out whether Pretoria Advanced Toastmasters is right for you is simply to come and experience a meeting.
You don't need to prepare a speech. You don't need any previous experience to attend.
But if you know that you want to get better ... whether it is presenting at work, increasing sales or simply feeling less nervous about that forthcoming wedding speech ...... then the first step is to come and visit us as a guest. Just RSVP by pressing a button below.
📍 PHSOB, 378 Queens Crescent, Lynnwood, Pretoria. Every fortnight, Thursday, 18:15 for 18:30.