35th session

Today was our 35th session, as important as the 350th one of older clubs. We were proud to have achieved much in this short stint, although we were still a bit informal, perhaps, in our conduct of meetings. All in all, a great gang and great going!

SAA TM Ramalingam kicked us on our way on the dot at 3.14pm. 

President Aji Bhaskar, in his address, related the story of the unborn child remembering her brother's singing while she was still in the womb, and recovering miraculously in post-natal care on the strength of his tuneful voice. Don't stint on giving out love and kindness, concludes the anecdote, because they have tremendous healing power. A great example, Aji.

TMOD Raja had chosen as theme FAITH VS FEAR. These two aspects of our mind and emotions affect our actions and the directions in which we travel in life. When one is there, the other cannot exist. TMOD planned to introduce us to each role-player relating that person's moments of greatest faith and fear, giving us another insight into their personalities. A good theme indeed, TM Raja.

Timekeeper TM Ramalingam did an efficient job as usual, introducing us to the time limits of the various speakers.

Grammarian role was played by TM Chaitanya, who acted as Wordmaster as well. As he pointed out, these two roles are supposed to be played by the Grammarian only, as per the manual. (Clubs follow different practices; I attended MMTC meeting and found they also assign Grammarian and Wordmaster roles to different people). The word of the day were actually words. TM Chaitanya wanted us to know the difference in pronunciation and application of ADVICE and ADVISE. An interesting variation to the usual wordmastery, TM Chaitanya.

Jokemaster TM Mathen indeed cracked five funny jokes, inspite of his trepidation that we might cry instead of laughing. You need not have worried TM Mathen. Every bit of humour is savored and appreciated in a TM meeting.

There were two project speeches scheduled today - a P3 speech being evaluated by TM Raghuram and a P5 speech being evaluated by TM Kumar. They both elucidated on the evaluation criteria before the respective speeches.

The P3 speech, A BAR OF CHOCOLATE, was delivered by TM Venkat. Loving & giving, sharing & caring and being humble were his main thrust points and he used the prop of a chocolate bar (converted to chocolate mousse in his pocket) as an effective prop for the same. His speech was fluent and powerful, and his message went through clearly to the audience.

The P5 speech, POWER OF M, was delivered by guest speaker MTM Lavanya, who spoke about the power of motivation as a tool for encouraging people to succeed, even under high stress situations. A good speech that graphically demonstrated the P5 objectives of using body movements.

Table topics were conducted by TM Rajat, following the theme of Faith and Fear. The topics were a bit philosophical, given the nature of the theme, but the speakers did justice to them.

Feedback on both speeches were given by the evaluators. 

Harkmaster Rhea gleefully took the stage and fired real toughies at the audience. I think overall they scored 50% marks or so and were admonished suitably by the Harkmaster.

Grammarian TM Chaitanya gave meticulous feedback on the usage of English. A keen ear and eye for detail, TM Chaitanya, and we are really impressed. 

General Evaluation was given by TM John. He did cover all aspects of the session, but if we were to give an evaluation of his evaluation, we would have to say that he was more appreciative than critical with every single roleplayer. We will not mind you mentioning points for improvement, TM John.

Business session was conducted by MTM Panna. The next two sessions are to be joint sessions with MMTC club, on on 19th (at Hatat House) and 25th (at Zubair building), so the speakers and role-players were to be clearly assigned. Moreover, since she (VPE) would be away till Aug, she was doing her best to finalise as many agendas as possible. A good effort MTM Panna.

Concluding remarks from the President ended the session, with no tea and snacks unfortunately, because of Ramadan.

The day's awards were:
Best Evaluator:           TM Kumar
Best Table Topic:        TM Kaushik
Best Speaker:              MTM Lavanya

See you all at MMTC Hall on 19.6.16 
There will be no session at Zubair on 18.6.16