36th session - Joint session with MMTC - 1

Joint session.

In my college days, this would conjure up an image of a dimly lit room, sweet-smelling smoke and relaxed bodies. But the joint session we had on 19th June was totally different, though no less intoxicating and heady.

The 350 session old MMTC club had a joint club session with the 35 session old Ruwi Club at the MMTC club venue. This was a first for Ruwi Club and there was a lot of curiosity to know how a matured club like MMTC conducts itself. There was also a fair amount of excitement because, being a young club, there was a point to be proved and a mark to be made.

No two clubs conduct sessions in exactly the same manner, inspite of the guidelines set by the organisation. We noted differences and we also noted good practices that might be worth emulating. We can check these out as we go along.

The session started at 7.00 pm (Note: There is a first-bell second-bell concept like the movie halls of yore). 

After the SAA's address, the President TM Chetlur Prasad welcomed all toastmasters and guests, highlighting that this was a memorable session on account of being a joint session. Many senior members of MMTC club were present. He mentioned that today's theme EDUCATION is more relevent than ever since there is no end to learning.

TMOD Uma Maheswara Rao Ganti started the session with a 2-minute video on MMTC club, which made Ruwi Club members familiar with their history. He then embarked on his theme of Education, the need for non-book learning and the different ways learning is looked at nowadays. He would be running this theme throughout the session (Note: We noticed that TMOD runs an independent script, not connecting the theme to the role-player being introduced, like we do nowadays).

Time Keeper TM Gomati Sankaran was introduced and related the rules (Note: We saw later that at the end of speeches, apart from saying whether any speaker disqualified, time taken by every speaker is also read out).

Word Master TM Sunil Pnyatt introduced the word EXUBERANT, mentioning that it was very appropriate for this sort of joint session (Note: There is no round robin conducted by the Wordmaster using the word of the day).

Ah-counter and Grammarian was TM Suryakant, who introduced his role to the gathering.

General Evaluator TM Donald Pinto was announced. (Note: This is not done by us)

Guests were requested to introduce themselves, including the TMs from Ruwi Club, for the familiarity of all.

There was a Round Robin session conducted by the TMOD based on the theme. Usually each member of the audience is asked to speak for 20 secs on some aspect of the theme. Today, TMOD asked members to mention two words that come to mind when he thinks of Education. So it was a shorter session than usual, but very revealing. It was obvious everybody had varied views on the subject.(Note: This is different from our round robin, which uses the word of the day).

Joke Master TM Venkat went on stage to relate a number of funnies in his inimitable style. The audience were thoroughly amused. (Note: This was an additional contribution from the Ruwi Club as MMTC normally does not have this role).

Then started the main session of the meeting - three project speeches - P3, P4 and P6.

Evaluation criteria for the P3 speech were related by TM Bipin Kurlakose, which is mainly about Getting to the point and being clear about the general purpose and the specific purpose of the speech.

P3 speech was delivered by TM Rajat. "A Perfect Paradox" was a good speech that achieved the project purposes and added some punch through humour. Since the theme was incompatibility, he could probably speak with a free mind because his wife was in India on holiday!

Evaluation criteria for the P4 speech were related by TM Senthil Kumar, which teaches How to say it, with good words, sentence structure and rhetorical devices.

P4 speech was delivered by TM Raghuram.  "The Problem of the Centre of the Universe" was a thought-provoking speech that addressed the issue of our self-centred thinking and how this lack of social responsibility is slowly destroying our world. A good natural delivery, with excellent usage of words.

P6 speech was delivered by MTM Ganti Lavanya. We had all heard her P5 speech at our club and she did justice to the P6 speech, "No shortcuts in life", dramatically achieving the requirement for Vocal variety. An intelligently chosen story-based script enabled her to showcase this to the hilt. A great effort.

After voting for the Best Speaker there was a snacks break, (Note: The SAA collects the voting slips in a small container, which is a good idea. Moreover, the voting page is actually a number of tear-off slips, pre-printed with comments on the speakers, and voting slips for Speaker, Evaluator and Topic. The slips for speakers are used for audience feedback directly to the speakers, which is also a good idea).

Snackmaster was TM Aji Bhaskar, in absentia, because he could not return from India in time. We all missed you in this session Aji. However, the layout of snacks was lavish and members were finding it difficult to return to their seats inspite of the second bell ringing away.

Table Topics were held right after, to counteract the effects of the food. DTM Rajendra Varma was, for once, on the other side of the table (or in this case stage), and he offered the members very thought-provoking topics, though sometimes too long to remember. Both TM Mathen and TM Chaitanya spoke extremely well and I think they missed being best topic speaker by a whisker. (Note: MMTC follows the classical method of giving a topic of the Topicmaster's choice to the member called upon - no slips being picked).

TM Donald Pinto was called upon to conduct the General Evaluation session. (Note: This is as per the book since all Evaluators, Word master, Time-keeper and Grammarian are supposed to be part of the General Evaluator's team. So all these feedbacks are co-ordinated by the GE, not TMOD).

All the three speeches had been of high quality and the speech evaluators could find little fault to pick in most of the cases. 

Voting for the best evaluator took place.

Wordmaster gave a report on the number of times Exuberant had been used. In fact he upped the count to 96 by asking all members to repeat the word three times right there and then!

Grammarian also gave his report, which was quite generous and mild on all speakers.

GE gave his final report on the proceedings. His report was mostly laudatory as every role player had played their roles exuberantly and to perfection and there was hardly anything adverse to comment.

Voting for the Big Three took place (Note: The big 3, viz, TMOD, Topicmaster and GE compete with each other for the best role played that session).

The awards for the day were as follows:

• Best Evaluator:         TM Bipin
• Best Topic speaker:  TM Balachandran
• Best Speaker:            TM Rajat
• Big Three:                 TM Uma (TMOD)

(Note: Apart from the certificates and ribbons, small rolling trophies are also presented that are taken back at the end of the session)

President wrapped up the session at 9.10pm and there was a group photograph.

All in all, it was a very good experience, especially for Ruwi Club role-players as they performed in a different venue than they are used to and with a club so much senior than themselves.

Congratulations to all the role-players for their sincere and superlative performances and to all the club members who attended and gave their heart-warming support.

We look forward to hosting the next joint session of MMTC and Ruwi Club at the Ruwi Club premises on 25.6.2016 at the usual time.