It sounded like a nice -assignment -- an article on public speaking. Makes sense. Road shows are a basic part of every IPO, and Rotary Club appearances are an essential part of every-day business. You want a seat on the local board of education? Fine, but you'd -better know how to stand up and get your message across.

Where to start? I began my research on the Internet, which has long lists of books about public speaking and tips from people who have (or so they say) been there. Some are good, some bad. ("Don't drink alcohol," says one. "It will give you false courage, impaired articulation, and scrambled ideas." Uh, okay.) Then I stumbled across the site for Toastmasters International), a name I had always associated with the Model T. True, the group was founded 75 years ago, but it's not only alive and kicking, itís also absolutely thriving, with 175,000 active members spread over 8,800 clubs in 68 countries.

Rather than simply reporting on how others learn to give speeches, I decided that participating in the program was the way to go. I would actually get up and give a speech. So I visited three of Toastmastersí New York City chapters. You want how-to-give-a-speech training that works? You want a warm, nurturing environment where everyone smiles and goes out of his way to make you feel comfortable? You want people to applaud when you stand up and tell your name? You want one-liners? ("Everyone gets butterflies when they speak in public. The trick is to get them to fly in formation.") If you answered yes to any of the above questions, have I got the place for you.

Founded in October 1924 when Ralph Smedley, director of education at the YMCA in Santa Ana, Calif., decided that young men needed to learn how to stand up and deliver after-dinner remarks, the nonprofit Toastmasters International has since that time helped more than four million men and women conquer their fears of public speaking.

And rather than going the way of the buggy whip, as I had assumed, Toastmasters International has successfully transcended generations: The average age of members is between 35 and 40. Roughly half of the clubs are sponsored by corporations, which provide meeting rooms, amenities, and encouragement. The clubs are even part of the new economy (there are a number of chapters in Silicon Valley and other e-community outposts), which ought to say something. While State Farm is the biggest corporate sponsor, with 64 units, there are 23 Toastmasters clubs at AT&T; 14 at Hewlett-Packard; ten at Intel; nine at Motorola; seven at Texas Instruments; six at Digital Equipment and EDS; five at IBM; four at Dell, Lucent Technologies, and Sun Microsystems; three at Apple Computer; and two at Microsoft.

Every club has a different personality, and I was told it's best to visit a few before you join. At my first stop -- the Federal Toastmasters club in the downtown government center in New York City -- the people were friendly enough, but the metal detector on the ground floor of the building was a downer. The people at the Bryant Park club in Midtown were warm and cuddly too, but I jumped every time the "um counter" dropped a penny into the coffee can (stay with me -- I'll get back tothe counter later). So I eliminated those two.

I wanted to pick one that didnít seem threatening, so I joined the SEC Roughriders, which meets every Thursday at noon in the Bar Association building on 44th Street. Despite appearances, the group has nothing to do with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission or law. Founded 40 years ago by the heads of Emery Freight and Springs Mills, the original club was made up of sales executives who met in those days in the Roughrider room at the Roosevelt Hotel. The name stuck. Today's club has 70 members (including a few professional speakers, a clinical psychologist, some marketing and media types, and the heads of several small companies), roughly half of whom show up for each meeting.Regardless of where a Toastmasters club is located, all meetings follow the same general formula. They begin with a welcome from the presiding officer, who then turns things over to the toastmaster for the day. He or she greets the guests; outlines the schedule for the meeting; introduces the "um counter" (hang on, I'm almost there), grammarian, timer, and other members who will be working the room; and then brings out the presenters' the table topics master, the speakers, and the evaluators. The object is to get everyone involved in a speaking role, which is why guests are asked to stand and give their names and a line or two about themselves. All guests get a big round of applause. To an outsider, the first formal activity is terrifying.

It goes like this: The table topics master announces a theme for the day, then goes randomly around the room and asks members to stand and give a one- to two-minute, impromptu response to a specific question relating to the theme. Sometimes they're easy. The Federal Toastmasters table topics master chose "items in the news," and the questions were softballs such as Who's your favorite baseball player? and What would be good themes for Hillary's campaign?

More often, they're tough. The SEC Roughriders' table topics session I remember best took place on Bastille Day, and the questions were off the wall. One guy was asked to give us a two-minute dissertation on the French kiss, another to tell us how he learned to play the French horn. But the speakers all had fun, and I learned my first lesson. A woman who was asked to discuss her favorite French actor chose Charles Boyer and told us how she had been touched as a child by his performance in Gigi. Hey, get real. That wasn't Charles Boyer. That was Maurice Chevalier. But even though I knew she was wrong, and maybe others did too, the woman's presentation was so sincere and convincing it didnít matter. Lesson: Form wins out over substance.

After the table topics come three or four prepared speeches designed to achieve one of the ten ends covered in detail in the 84-page playbook that comes with the $36 Toastmasters annual membership fee. They're pretty much what you'd expect: Speak with sincerity, vary your voice, use props, persuade, inspire those kinds of things. After giving the ten speeches, which can be done within a year or spread out over a longer period, the member graduates into the advanced program (with its 14 manuals and five more-challenging speech projects in each).

A member's first speech, the icebreaker, is "your opportunity to give your first prepared talk, to introduce yourself to your fellow club members, and to give them information about your background, interests, and ambitions," says the good book. You'll be nervous, but nervousness is common to every speaker, no matter how experienced. The trick is to "put this nervous energy to work by using it to add excitement to your delivery." That was one of the key messages I got from Rande Davis Gedaliah, the Roughrider who was assigned to mentor me through my icebreaker.

Rande Davis Gedaliah, a speech consultant who runs how-to-communicate seminars with her husband, Robert Gedaliah, liked the subject I chose ("How I became a writer"), and she liked what I had written. But she offered suggestions: "Instead of beginning with, 'When I was a freshman in college,' you could add punch to your presentation if you said, "Let me take you back in time, back to when I was a freshman in college." Instead of talking about your professor, why don't you tell us his name? It's something people can hold on to and relate to." After I rehearsed a few times, Gedaliah zeroed in on my presentation. Be sure to make eye contact with everyone in the room, and don't forget the people closest to you. Try not to read your notes. Glance down, if you must, then look up and find a pair of eyes. Slow down every once in a while, and punch out a word. Watch your time cues. When the timer holds up a green card, it means you have two minutes left. Yellow means one minute. Red means your time is up. Don't end by saying thank you. We should be thanking you.

Three days before my D-day, I e-mailed bio material to Mike Landrum, who was scheduled to be the toastmaster for the session at which I would be speaking and who would introduce me to the group. Landrum, an actor who now specializes in promotional films and videos, wrote back, thanked me for the material, then added this: "May I coach you a little? One of the greatest irritations a speaker can suffer is a poor introduction. Either they praise you too much and set up impossible expectations, or they make a wisecrack at your expense. The best policy is to write out your introduction verbatim and instruct the introducer to stick to it. That way you control the event."

I am coachable. I wrote out an introduction and sent it to Landrum. Following Gedaliah's advice, I showed up at the Bar Association a half-hour early and did a dry run of my new material. At her suggestion, I walked to the head of the table to get a feel for how the room would look while I was talking. Instead of calming me down, it made me nervous. The room felt like a giant auditorium, and the table seemed to be longer than a football field. I skipped lunch. My butterflies were not in formation, and I didn't want to do anything to disrupt them further. (I later learned most people don't eat before speaking.)

Then it was showtime. As Landrum was reading my introduction, I stood up, buttoned my jacket, and walked to the front of the room. He smiled at me. We shook hands, and I moved to the lectern. I put my notes down and looked out at the audience. Everyone was smiling up at me. That sure helped. Gedaliah was sitting at the back of the room, right where she said she would be. If she could hear me, she had said, everyone would be able to. I took a deep breath and began: "Let me take you back in time." How did I do? Hard to tell. People laughed at the jokes I told. They nodded approvingly when I made points they agreed with. They applauded at the end. Much to my surprise, the nervousness I felt at the start disappeared after a minute or two. Using my hands and punching out key words two things that felt strange during rehearsals were easy. At some point, I morphed from a speaker to a performer. I felt in charge of things and actually enjoyed the experience.

Then it was over, and I was back in my seat, listening to the two other presenters, marveling at how together they seemed and wondering if I had come close. Cecilia Bapista, who had the job of giving the oral evaluation of my presentation, gave me a good grade. "The organization was perfect," she said. "The opening immediately grabbed our attention, and the ideas flowed smoothly toward an effective closing. The only suggestions: Use more vocal variety, speak louder, make sure those at the far end of the room can hear you." She ended on a nice note: "I look forward to your next speech."

Karol Ward, one of the other presenters, won the speaker-of-the-day award, thanks to a wonderfully funny and insightful takeoff on the world's love affair with cell phones. Then the official timer, who I had totally forgotten about, gave her report: My speech, which was supposed to run four to six minutes, ran a little north of seven, but the other two also went long. The "ums" and "you knows," those awful crutches that pour out the minute we open our mouths, weren't too bad.

And now, as I promised, the skinny on the "um counter." That's the person who counts and records all those transgressions. At Roughriders meetings, theyíre written quietly on a pad, not by dropping coins in a tin can. (That had me spooked at the other club.) The verdict: The counter said the three of us had each had about four.

In addition to Bapista's oral report, 17 of my fellow Roughriders handed in written critiques of my presentation. Ward ended her comments this way: "Your speech was well organized and personal. Your eye contact was good. Keep going. Maybe you have a second career in speaking to writers." I also liked this from Gedaliah: "Wonderful second draft. Needs more editing and a bit more vocal variety. It's great you weren't thrown when someone walked in late." Some-one walked in late? Never noticed. I was giving a speech.

Rather have someone stick bamboo shoots under your fingernails than give a speech? Youíre not alone. Here are some resources to help you sharpen your public speaking skills.

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