49th session

49th session had everything going for it. Attendance was good. The role-players had confirmed early. Two speeches were scheduled. Both Aji and Kumar were in town together. It was too good to be true. Well, MTM Panna had to drop out at the last minute due to an emergency and the role rolled over to the ever ready GK.

The session kicked off on the dot. SAA was very energetic today and the audience sat up and took notice at everything he said, as if hearing them for the first time.

President Aji Baskar had chosen Elon Musk as his model today and he extolled him as the "real life Iron Man", a miracle worker, with path-breaking projects like Paypal, Tesla Motors and Space-X under his belt. Space-X is in fact aimed at colonising Mars and the first step is an unmanned cargo flight going there every two years, like a bus. Elon's motto is hard work without worrying about the result. Aji ended by saying he was like a "real life James Bond". Well, it would be nice if we came to a decision about this, Aji.

TMOD Rajat Ray had chosen as his theme AUTOMOBILES. It is a vast subject of course, merely to be touched upon as an introduction. He introduced every role player talking about his or her favourite car and why. What gave it a twist was his assertion that there is a similarity between why a person chooses a car and why he chooses his or her life partner. The desires of the role players caused much amusement when viewed in the context of a life partner. The use of Powerpoint to aid in a TMOD speech was also a novelty.

Timekeeper of the day, TM Chaitanya, was totally on the ball, as usual. His feedback on times taken by role-players was impeccable and his continuous feedback to TMOD as to how late the session was running was also very helpful.

Wordmaster MTM Swati presented the word VALIANT for the day. A relatively friendly word, everyone could easily make sentences on it in round robin.

Jokemaster TM Karthik's jokes were, as he said, very clean and politically correct (TM Venkat later claimed joint authorship!). He ended with a nice story from Mr Abdul Kalam, as to how trees collect life around them and it is indeed worthwhile investing in them.

P-2 evaluation criteria were described by TM Kumar. He highlighted the expectation that a speech at this level was supposed to be structured (opening, body, and conclusion), interesting (attention-grabbing opening) and consistent (title, opening and closing should tie up). 

P-2 speech was delivered by TM Raja titled "Poised to Move". Based on his distrust of stock market speculation and a couple of real life experiences, he could drive home the argument quite forcibly. We all are wary of speculation nowadays, aren't we Raja?

P-3 evaluation criteria were described by TM Ramalingam. Apart from the basic requirement of having a general purpose and a specific purpose, he also asked the speaker to keep an eye on eye-contact, stage movement, delivery etc.

P-3 speech was delivered by MTM Rita titled "Are you Superstitious?". Yes, many of us are, madam. She made the point forcibly that there is actually no correlation between the voodoo we believe in and real life, and it is indeed a waste of time and intelligence. Thank you MTM, and we will discuss it with the black cat when it crosses my path next time!

Table topics were conducted by MTM Kavita and she adhered to the theme of Automobiles. Her topics were regarding cars or journeys. All the speakers were comfortable with the topics and TM Ramalingam in particular enjoyed his own speech about bike riding as much as the audience did. A good job, MTM, and your idea of pulling out topics from inside toy cars was innovative, though a little time-consuming!

TM Kumar gave his feedback on the P-2 speech. While appreciating the speaker's choice of subject, his structuring of the speech and easy style, he recommended that he spoke louder next time and reduce stage movement. Content, good. Delivery, to improve.

TM Ramalingam gave his feedback on the P-3 speech. He appreciated the choice of topic and said asserted that requirements of general purpose and specific purpose were met. He appreciated the speaker's delivery and stage movements. The only point of improvement mentioned was preparation.

Grammarian TM Ananth was on stage next. He gave a small homily on the requirements of grammar and a grammarian in life as well as in Toastmasters. We understood the importance of eliminating meaningless connecting conjunctions from our speeches and got worried at his suggestion that we be fined 100 Baiza for every Ah used. He finally pointed out a only few mistakes made by the role players and ended up a very popular Grammarian.

Harkmaster was played by our new member MTM Kaviya, who split the hall into two quiz teams and had a gala time. We also enjoyed it MTM. Which side won, by the way?

An Education session was conducted by TM Rajat on the CL manual - the vision behind it and how to maintain it. Many members had not filled it till now. They were advised to go to the blogsite (preferably on a PC/laptop, not phone), click on Role History and note down on which days they had played which role, and update the last page of the CL manual accordingly.

General Evaluator TM Venkat ran through his evaluation of every role. He appreciated the hurry of the Timekeeper (as we were already behind schedule), the innovation of the TMOD, the positive word of the Wordmaster, the clean humour of the Jokemaster, the clarity of the evaluators, the relevence of the speakers, and the little gimmick of the Tablemaster. Very few negatives there, GE, so it was a good session, right?

However, the session ended at 5.10 instead of at 4.54. This is something we have got to crack - analyse where we get late. Is the planning too tight, or some roles invariably over-run, or what?

President took the stage back from TMOD and closed it with a clap.

He reminded people that although the next session was our 50th, we were celebrating it on our 51st session on 15.10.16, which MUST NOT BE MISSED!

The day's winners were:

• Best Table speaker:       TM Ramalingam
• Best Evaluator:              TM Kumar
• Best Speaker:                 TM Raja and MTM Rita (joint)

See you all on 8.10.16. 

Please do fill up your CL manuals in the meanwhile (call me in case of difficulty)