Ruwi Toastmasters Club: 53rd session

Listen and Silent are anagrams.

And both apply to husbands!

Thus spake our SAA Ramalingam today as he kicked off the session, bang on time as usual. Good attendance, mind you, with 20 members, and 5 guests as well. We additionally had two special guests for the evening, both from SBG Club - TM Sherif (President) and TM Madlani (Humour King). It was a pleasure to see almost all chairs occupied.

President Aji Baskar, without any further ado, launched straightaway into his story about two literary groups in University of Winsconsin. One of them, comprising of men, named Stranglers, followed a dissecting and critical approach when giving feedback to their budding talents, while the other, comprising of women, named Wranglers, following an encouraging and supportive approach. At the end of a couple of decades, the Wranglers had produced far more successful writers, proving the point that encouragement produces more successful events than critical feedback. The Toastmaster forum is an encouraging one and we should practice this approach, not only within these four walls, but also outside them in our daily interaction with other people in our lives. Good one, Aji.

TMOD Nagesh had chosen as his theme of the day "School Days", which made us all very nostalgic. Although he started with Vedic times, we were very quickly thrown into our memories of class-bunking, teacher-baiting, pure friendship and rigorous discipline. He also introduced each role-player mentioning their specific memories of school days, which found strong resonance in all of us. Thank you, Nagesh, for the spurts of time travel that you packed us off to.

Timekeeper MTM Kavita announced the time criteria adequately and the gong was struck.

Wordmaster TM Viswanath had chosen the word INGENIOUS. The word had been announced a day earlier, and the audience possibly had some preparation. The round-robin was efficiently dealt with by the audience, showing their confidence with this word.

Jokemaster TM Pramod presented a number of jokes that lightened the atmosphere.

There were two project speeches scheduled today. TM Venkat gave the evaluation criteria for the P-4 speech and TM Vignesh gave the evaluation criteria for the P-6 speech.

P-4 speech was presented by TM Mathen, titled "Building Up On a Dream", demonstrating How to Say It. Based on his life story on trying to become a structural engineer, he ended the speech with an advice to draw upon the experience of elders and not to reject them out of hand. A nice message and a great P-4 speech, TM Mathen.

P-6 speech was delivered by MTM Panna, titled "X is equal to Y", showcasing Vocal Variety. The speech dealt with the issue of gender discrimination. While satisfying the project criteria, this powerful speech also delivered a strong message. An international speech in the making, perhaps?

An attraction for today was a Humorous Speech delivered by TM Kirit Madlani, well-known for his humorous speeches in SBG club and area competitions. His speech "P and P", describing the various troubles that numerous Pins and Passwords of electronic dealings used to get him into, was indeed hilarious. Apart from entertaining us, the speech acted as a good example of what makes a speech humorous, for the benefit of possible contenders for that category in the upcoming contests.

Table Topics were conducted by MTM Kaviya. As expected, she had introduced a twist in the proceedings by first asking the speaker to choose a facility in the school, based on which the further situation would be given. All the speakers could relate to their personal experiences and really enjoyed speaking on whatever the draw of lot produced. Good job, MTM Kaviya.

TM Venkat and TM Vignesh gave their feedback on the two speeches, highlighting the strong points and weak points of both speeches.

Harkmaster MTM Vaishali quizzed the audience dutifully, but it was a foregone conclusion as the audience answered everything with gusto. No one was sleeping in class, it seems!

Grammarian role was played by MTM Rita and she did a very meticulous job, addressing not only outright mistakes but also a better way of expressing the same. Kudos madam, on a well-conducted session.

General Evaluation was carried out by TM Kamil, in his usual thorough, gentlemanly style. One could make out that he was overall happy with the session.

TMOD mentioned two takeaways that he had noticed from his various interactions with the role-players regarding their school days. One was that everyone was wistful about the friendships forged in schools, possibly because no one had an axe to grind at that time and all friendships were without expectations. Secondly, the enjoyments were very high, possibly because at that age they were all enjoying the moment, without any worries about the past or the future. Why don't we try to revive these two aspects in our daily lives - act without expectations and live in the present moment? Wise advice, TM Nagesh, very wise advice indeed.

President Aji Baskar invited TM Sherif to say a few words of wisdom and he literally did a table topic on "Wisdom", a major point being not to assume anything in life to be permanent. Good advice sir.

The session was declared closed and everyone adjourned for snacks and tea.