Both the founder and many of the initial supporters received all kinds of insults, hate mail, personal threats, and even official legal threats from top lawyers in the country to desist. People with leadership positions in other organizations were asked to step down or were directly expelled simply for expressing their support towards Agora. We even faced internal sabotage and backstabbing. Any mention of Agora was censored, and the person posting was admonished. People were explicitly instructed not to talk about Agora and not to post about us. The events during this period would warrant a thriller book all by themselves. At one point, we had to involve our own legal counsel to issue a clear warning that we would not tolerate such harassment of our members to continue.
source https://wiki.agoraspeakers.org/Our+History
So Toastmasters International really sees a threat toward Agora Speakers to its business model and to its decline in membership due to the introduction of Pathways.
Even Agora Speakers is too polite to name Toastmasters as one the organizations to send threat.
Toastmasters International censor any communication towards Agora .
I do know that the existence of the organization is a sensitive matter. If you check our members’ Facebook page, you’ll also note how carefully people step when they make any suggestion of a mention of that organization. There’s a real reason for that, and I’ll do what i can to help keep people out of trouble.
Go to that organization’s site, and check out what they’re offering; it’s not simply “other speech improvement organizations (Improv, etc) “, as you try to describe. Imagine having an actual Toastmasters club that’s 100% free. (Just change the trademarked names; don’t call yourselves Toastmasters, Table Topics become Hot Topics, etc.) Now, bump it up a notch; instead of just emphasizing the very basic skills, like body language, vocal variety, and ums, imagine they go deeper and teach you to think, and develop excellent content.
I suspect that the only thing that keeps TI afloat is the fact that the competition’s educational program is still not fully complete and they lack the name recognition, so people aren’t aware there’s an alternative. I’d suspect TI wants it to stay that way.
Yet what’s there is starting to take a noticeable little bite out of the third world market, where not everyone can afford US$90 per year (plus exchange fees, etc.) just to get together with others and speak.
In the USA, where so many people think nothing of dropping 5 bucks just for a specialty coffee, they’re more likely to just pay for the complete educational program, even if it is pathways. But US membership is receding, and those other folks are making inroads into our growth market. That other organization currently has very few US clubs and they stay low key, but if that starts to change, we’re in for a shock.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Toastmasters/comments/hpx486/comment/fxyieei/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Toastmasters/comments/hpx486/comment/fxyieei/
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