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Sometimes, for members of the Speakeasys of Silver Spring, it's getting up in front of a group of strangers and talking about time travel, Gandhi and autumn. Sometimes it's coming up with spontaneous opinions on Falcon Heene, Colorado's "Balloon Boy." Sometimes it involves cupcakes.

For the Speakeasys, a local faction of the public-speaking organization the Toastmasters International Club, there is no common way to achieve their common goal: improving their public-speaking skills to improve their job prospects and social behavior.

Or, as member Chris Sasiela bluntly puts it, "To not faint or puke or have some kind of adverse event as you are speaking in public."

Sasiela, a 40-year-old biomedical project manager from Laurel, never had a problem speaking in front of a group of people, as long as it was about science. But when she moved to the business side of her field, she found the informal speeches more nerve-racking.

So when she had to give a speech involving visual aids Thursday, Sasiela – a Speakeasy veteran who has given eight speeches with the club, all incorporating a different technique –didn't choose stem-cell research or genetic engineering, she chose autumn.

During her speech Sasiela answered rehearsed questions from other members like "What's your ideal Thanksgiving?" or "What images tell you autumn has begun?" She clearly and eloquently spoke about falling leaves, pumpkins and family memories. Her visual aids consisted of cardboard boxes with autumnal images and, to ensure a hearty applause at the end of her speech, Halloween cupcakes.

Sasiela's speech about autumn was sandwiched between a speech about time travel from 30-year-old software engineer Venkat Nindrai, of Arlington, Va., and a speech about famous Indian civil-rights leader Mohandas Gandhi from Kamla Tiwari, a database manager from Potomac in her late 50s.

Both Nindrai and Tiwari are originally from India and joined the Speakeasys to not only advance within their respective companies, but also to gain a firmer grasp on the English language. In India, Nindrai said, the culture focuses more on listening than speaking out. When he came to America, his coworkers thought he wasn't participating in meetings because he was so quiet.

It's a problem that faces many of the Speakeasy members, who come from varied ethnic backgrounds.

"This country allows us to express ourselves," said Lara Akinsanya, a 32-year-old Nigerian clinical trial specialist who now lives in Beltsville. "You have the freedom to do that, and that's not something encouraged at home."

When Nindrai joined the Speakeasys and stood at the podium for his first speech, his first thought was "What the hell did I get myself into?"

"You become very conscious of your breathing," Nindrai said. "When you're trying to breathe and speak at the same time, all your focus gets messed up."

Tiwari joined the Speakeasys when it began in 2006 because she would soon be up for a promotion that would require more managerial skills. Her first speech did not go well.

"Deep inside you are trembling with fear," said Tiwari. "You think you are prepared, and everything washes out. Your mind is blank."

She has since received her promotion.

But the club is not all success stories. During the "Table Topics" portion of the meeting, where one member picks a topic and other members have to respond spontaneously, the topic was Falcon Heene, the "Balloon Boy" who took the country by storm after it was believed he was trapped in a hot-air balloon in Colorado.

When asked, "Has anyone ever been part of a hoax?" one new member stood up instantly, eager to participate. Perhaps too eager, as he froze for about a minute, turned bright red and admitted he had never been part of a hoax.

At each meeting, three members are asked to check the grammar of each speaker, count the numbers of "ahs" or other idiosyncratic speech interjections and to time each speech. The timekeeper, who was attending her first meeting, stumbled through her routine tasks, eventually admitting that her stopwatch broke after the first speech.

"You speak one-on-one with people and you don't think there is anything wrong with them," said Nina Prescott, 37, the staff-development manager with Social and Scientific Systems Inc., the company that sponsors and hosts Speakeasys at their Georgia Avenue office. "But they get up in front of people and they make a fool of themselves.

"It takes a massive amount of practice and discipline."