Ruwi Toastmasters Club: 61st session

By sixty-one, a working man would have retired. But nothing could be further from the truth about Ruwi Club. We were still a growing boy and the the activities of the day were frolicsome as usual.

The meeting was kicked off on schedule by SAA TM Ramalingam.

TM Kumar was once again in the role of acting president and declared himself connected to Aji through the e-medium. This enabled him to relate a story suggested by Aji about how, in a firm, employees had been invited to attend the funeral of the person "who had prevented your growth" and everybody was astounded, after a lot of conjecture as to who that could be, to find a mirror in the coffin reflecting his own image. We ourselves enable or extinguish our ability to grow, nobody else. A nice story, Kumar-Aji (like Salim-Javed) and quite impactful. He further added the beautiful example of an egg, which, when cracked by an outside force, extinguishes life but when cracked from within, sends out a new life. Let us use these competitions to come out of our shells and ignite new personality traits,

TMOD Vishwa had chosen SAVE ENERGY as the theme of the day and he conducted the stream of information beautifully, educating us on various aspects of the current focus on energy and introducing role-players while sharing what their views on energy conservation and alternate sources were. Very well-conducted, TM Vishwa. You arrived in the nick of time an completed on the click. Great job.

Timekeeper TM Saleem took us through the time criteria, with a difference. He showed the green flag and reeled off at what time this would be shown for all speakers. Then he showed the yellow flag and repeated the same. Is this a better method? We can debate.

Wordmaster TM Swati had chosen the word STELLAR for the day. Very positive word and applicable in various situations so people had it easy in the round robin. TM Swati also introduced the idea of showing a thumbs up whenever a speaker used the word, in order to encourage him. A great idea.

There were three speeches scheduled today - P1, P5 and P7, whose criteria were described by TM Ramalingam, TM Rajat and TM Dinesh respectively.

TM Shobha delivered her P1 speech "The girl who did not talk" with great confidence and aplomb.

TM Venkat delivered his P5 speech "Driving my life", about his experiences on obtaining a driving licence in Oman, with tremendous ease and packed with humour. This was a speech supposed to showcase Body Language, which he achieved to a great degree. Kudos TM Venkat.

TM Panna delivered her P7 speech, "Child from the heart", on the subject of adoption, with her usual dramatic opening and powerful delivery. She supported her speech with statistical data and quotes, as this speech was based on Research. A good speech, TM Panna.

Table topics were conducted by TM Alma, with topics related to the theme of energy. There were good speakers present in the audience like DTM Varma. TM Joy and guest Mrs Shilpa and we were treated to some impromptu gems.

Evaluations were carried out efficiently by all three evaluators, in the text-book manner. One could make out that the upcoming competitions were charging up the potential combatants.

Jokemaster role was played by TM Raja, who is a specialist on the husband-wife theme and kept us in splits with his short sallies.

Harkmaster was acted by TM Kumar. As usual, the questioned were varied but the audience was also wary and fielded all of them expertly.

Grammarian TM Mathen gave an extensive feedback on both uses of grammar as well as Ah-counts. The group seems to be improving continuously in rendering of the English language.

General Evaluator TM Ananth gave a very detailed feedback on the session, including mini speech-evaluations! It is always a pleasure to hear him speak because of his natural delivery and he took the sting out of whatever critical comments that he made.

TM Kumar closed the session with his concluding remarks and we adjourned for tea and snacks.