Ruwi Toastmasters Club: 37th session - Joint session with MMTC

Joint session returns.

This time it was at the Ruwi Club venue and we were excited to be the host to a well-established club like MMTC. Those of us who had attended the earlier joint session were already familiar with the attending members and others quickly got introduced.

The session kicked off in time at 3.15pm, with TM Venkat standing in as SAA since TM John was unable to attend.

President Aji Bhaskar piqued everyone's interesting by displaying clear liquid in a beer glass, but it turned out to be an inspiring speech as to how we must consciously put down all the load that we are carrying in order to enhance joy in our lives (not sure how putting down a beer glass will enhance joy, though). He also requested the guests as well as the MMTC toastmasters to introduce themselves for easy familiarity.

TMOD Nagesh had chosen JOY as the theme of the day. How to ensure that we feel joy in everything that we do, on every single day of our lives, was the secret to be discovered. Enjoying the smallest of things and living in the present moment seemed to be the key and we have to find our own ways of practicing them. He introduced each speaker by sharing what he or she thought joy was all about and what was the most joyful moment in the speaker's life. We could see that similar things give great joy - birth of a child, graduation, success in a difficult endeavor like giving a speech and so on. So the answers already lie within us and we just have to extrapolate.

Time keeper TM Kamil was introduced and he explained the rules of timekeeping efficiently to us.

Wordmaster-cum-Grammarian was being played by MTM Rita. She introduced the word RAPTURE to the audience and all the members had a chance to use it in a sentence made up on the spot. Nobody found any difficulty being enraptured.

Jokemaster TM Raja concentrated his jokes on the marital theme and we had a couple of hearty laughs, especially at his effort at being an evaluator of his wife's cooking.

There were three project speeches lined up today - a P2 speech being evaluated by TM Chetlur Prasad, a P3 speech being evaluated by TM Mathen and a P9 speech being evaluated by TM Saiju Victor, who we were seeing in the club after a long time (Welcome back)! All the evaluators related the purposes of the project speeches and the bases on which they will be judged.

The P2 speech "A Mother's Melancholy" was delivered by TM Chaitanya. With the goal Organise your speech, it had good structure, excellent language and delivery, and theme had an emotional content.

The P3 speech "Fizzy vs Fresh" was delivered by TM Prasanna. With the goal Get to the point, it exhibited a clear general purpose and specific purpose. The speaker restricted the scope of the speech intelligently.

The P9 speech "Be the Reason to Light a Lamp" was delivered by MTM Lavanya. With the goal Persuade with power, it achieved that goal succinctly and efficiently in the allotted seven minutes, a tough task as per the evaluator. We all felt energised and willing to respond, so the speech was a great success.

The highlight of the session was definitely the Table Topic round. Conducted by MTM Rhea, she had a field day with the choicest of speakers from the experienced MMTC to call upon. Speakers like TM Antony Isaac, TM Chetlur Prasad, TM Rajendra Varma and TM Suryakanth spoke confidently on the topics given. It was indeed a treat and a lesson to see the smooth approaches of these seasoned toastmasters.

The project speech evaluators gave their congratulatory feedback to all the three speakers, with suggestions for small improvements.

Harkmaster MTM Swati also had a good time. She had questions to which the audience did not have answers and she wagged her finger at all of us. Luckily we could do better for questions on the later sessions otherwise she would have asked us to reorganise today's event completely for sure.

MTM Rita gave her feedback as Ah-counter and Grammarian, regarding various ineffective uses of English. She pointed out various examples which we hope to remember (It is still a moot point whether we should mention examples by the speaker's name, for a better connect, or give a general example to be tactful, like she did. We can debate on this).

General Evaluator TM Ananth did a great job, with humorous poultice on his critical barbs to take out the sting. Well covered, TM, though this was your first attempt.

President's closing comments were preceded by a few remarks from MMTC president-elect TM Chetlur Prasad. He expressed his happiness with the concept of the joint session and the way the logistics had been worked out. President Aji suggested that it might be the forerunner of a few more such sessions, maybe similar or in the debate format. The idea was welcomed by all and will be worked out sometime in August.

We adjourned at 5.05 pm.