ROSWELL—The YAM Toastmasters Club celebrated its 10th anniversary in June.

A banner, draped with ribbons, hangs in the YAM Toastmasters Club meeting room at St. Andrew Church in Roswell. The ribbons signify various distinctions earned by the club over the years. They also recognize achievement in club education and leadership goals, membership growth, and service by club members as district officers. The club is celebrating its 10th anniversary of existence. Photo By Michael Alexander

Lisa Ryan began the club to connect with fellow Catholics and as a tool for her own professional development. Her vision was that it would be a place where people could speak freely about the Catholic faith, but also learn to speak effectively.

“In YAM TM, we must practice, we must speak, we must build fellowship, and we must be confidently Catholic,” she wrote in an email.

Meeting with other young adults, attending Theology on Tap programs in Atlanta and the archdiocesan Eucharistic Congress spurred her to move forward with the idea.

“The whisper led to buzz, which seemed to ignite a fire in our small group,” she wrote.

Affiliated with the archdiocesan YAM (Young Adult Ministry) and hosted by St. Andrew Church, Roswell, the club was chartered with 22 members and five officers. Three of the original members remain close to the club, and two charter members are active in its leadership, said Ryan, who has stepped back from the club to focus on her family.

Toastmasters International teaches women and men to be effective communicators and leaders. There are nearly 300,000 members across 122 countries in the organization, which began in 1924 and is based in California.

There are two clubs with a connection to local parishes, YAM Toastmasters and a Navigators club meeting in Cumming that includes members from St. Brendan the Navigator Church.

Club members learn by doing. Participants practice speaking and leadership skills at every meeting. Other members evaluate the speeches and the feedback aims to encourage people to keep improving. There are also other opportunities for impromptu speeches to sharpen speaking skills.

Wes Cross of Dunwoody uses the board as he gives a speech on government contracts for small businesses. Cross, who works for his father’s general contracting business in Cumming, has been a member of the YAM Toastmasters Club for a year. Photo By Michael Alexander

YAM Toastmasters has nearly 30 members, drawing from Alpharetta, Roswell, Smyrna and Marietta, in particular. About a dozen typically attend each meeting, from students to business people. It isn’t necessary to be Catholic to attend, but most are. The club gives people the freedom to speak about matters of faith, which may not be welcomed in a corporate Toastmasters’ environment.

One of the charter members believes the skills learned at Toastmasters are applicable to faith, in addition to career pursuits.

“It has a direct relevance to what a person of faith does in ministry, whatever the ministry is,” said John Hartwell, 45.

The club has a culture of being “serious about what we do, but we try to be casual and laid back. It is not so serious and button-down that we’d intimidate someone,” he said.

Hartwell joined the Catholic Church after meeting with Catholics at the YAM Toastmasters Club. He attends Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta. He’s given speeches on everything from fasting during Lent to making the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Now he considers it his ministry since the community he met at the club drew him into the church.

Nicky Stogner of Lilburn presents a speech entitled “What’s in a Name?” Stogner, who works with the Atlanta chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, joined the club in 2013. Photo By Michael Alexander

In his personal life, the club helped his career as a graphic artist at his own firm, Hartwell Studio Works, which specializes in sports branding. It taught him to lead discussions as he designed the sports mascot of a Colonial-era baron for the athletics program at Franciscan University of Steubenville, he said.

“You are going out in the world to see those skills be effective. That’s the best feeling in the world,” he said.

And the skills are key for ministry, he said, from running a meeting of ministry leaders to talking to people about the faith.

He quoted a saying, often credited to St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel. When necessary, use words.”

“What about those times when words are necessary?” he said. “That’s a situation that can be make or break” about sharing the faith, he said.

“With some training, with some experience in how to communicate, those moments of evangelization can be less frightening,” he said.