A community district podcast: news, interviews and tips

1. Why do we need a podcast about our Toastmaster community?

Most of us live in our club bubble, so we do not apply for leadership roles or attend group events because nobody explains them in our clubs. This podcast will prevent that to happen again. Through interviews of relevant figures of our Toastmaster community, we will explain district positions and how to apply to them, promote division and district contests, and provide tips about speeches and club management.

2. How can I help?

You can be a presenter, a voicer, Portuguese-to-Spanish/Spanish-to-Portuguese translator or an audio editor. To give chances to any member, there will be a new group of people for each episode (or every two episodes).

We are also looking for a journalist, a lawyer and a graphic designer who can advise us.

3. Can I be the presenter of an episode?

Yes, any Toastmaster member can be the presenter of an episode. But, we will give preference to members who are working on the Pathways project “Create a podcast”.

4. How long will it take me to prepare and present an episode?

We will help you as much as possible, so it should take you as preparing and presenting a Toastmaster meeting. We will provide you guests and documentation. But, you’ll need to learn about district, how to write for the ear, plan interviews, and record all sections.

5. When will the first episode be published?

Beginning of November, and there will be a new episode every two weeks.

We are currently designing the intro/outro of the podcast, testing music beds, experimenting with the audio editor software, and preparing documentation for the presenters.

6. How will episodes be?

Episodes will have a radio magazine format with several sections and should last around 30 minutes. Sections will be informative for listeners and instructive for presenters.

Each episode could consist of the following sections:

A 3-minute district bulletin news
A 4-minute presenter’s reflection
A 15-minute interview of a significant member of our Toastmasters community
A 7-minute Q&A with a club president about speeches and club management

The podcast will have two versions: one in Portuguese and another in Spanish.

7. Can I contribute to the Q&A?

Yes. Any club president can participate and any club member can send questions about speeches, meeting roles and club management

Club presidents will know the questions in advance, so they have time to prepare the answers.

8. Which program are we going to use to record interviews?

Zencastr. It records better quality sound than Zoom or Skype, and it is free up to 8 hours of interviews.

9. Which program are we going to use to edit episodes?

Audacity. It is free, open-source and available to Mac, Windows and Linux.

10. Which hosting are we going to use?

Anchor. It is free and makes it very easy to publish episodes in most popular podcast sites.

11. Which music tracks and sound effects are we going to use?

We will use music tracks and sound effects whose licence is CC0, CC-BY or CC-BY-SA. We may also use other licences such as CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-SA-NC or RemArc (BBC’s licence).

We will choose music tracks and sound effects from the Free Music Archive () and Freesound.

12. Are we going to do other podcasts?

Yes. But, firstly we will use this podcast to practice and learn. We have several ideas for other podcasts, but they are technically (e.g radio dramas) or journalistically (e.g. documentaries) more complex.