Ruwi Toastmasters Club: 101st session

After a party, there is always a hangover.

After the grand celebrations of the 100th session last week, we expected a little slump in the market, a slight bearish tendency. True, there were no project speeches today, but in all other respects, we had a lively session, including an education session. What else can a club want?

The session started on time - well 1 minute late maybe. SAA, in an innovative spurt, asked an audience member to list the three taboo subjects, which she promptly did, thank the Lord.

The President, in a rare deviation from her script, did NOT relate an inspiring story, but chose instead to dwell once again on the glorious 100th session we had last week. Her speech ended with a few candid shots that were "behind the scenes" so to speak, with speech bubbles guessing at the conversation the snap-subjects must have been having. All good fun and a jolly start to the session.

TMOD Kamil had chosen as his theme "Pride", which he used to trace the history of Oman and its illustrious ruler through the years. Today being the 47th National Day of Oman, it was indeed an appropriate subject.

Timer TM Mathen introduced the timing criteria to a T.

Wordmaster MTM Kaviya introduced the word OBLIVION to the audience. She started her role by relating two stories that brought out the meaning of the word, an innovation all right. The round robin was easily dispensed with as the meaning of the word was pretty clear.

Jokemaster MTM Usha gave us a series of nice clean fresh jokes, mostly 2-liners. They were very refreshing.

Since there were no project speeches, VP-E had arranged the screening of last year's winning humorous speech, which was good fun.

Table topics were taken up by MTM Radha, who offered topics related to the theme of Pride. They were very user-friendly and people spoke with pride and without slipping into oblivion.

A special Education Session on Role-playing was conducted by TM Kumar, which was a brush-up on all the roles played in a club session, whether major or minor. There were a number of new members in the club and this acted as a good launching pad for them. It was also a revision for the older members who needed some light to shine in the darker corners of their knowledge.

Harkmaster role was played by TM Rajat with a difference. For one, there were chocolates as prizes. Secondly, the questions were projected on the wall as per the category or role-player chosen by the member of the audience. It was interesting indeed.

Grammarian role was played by TM Nagesh, who hovered between that and the GE role, finally touching ground as a Grammarian.

General Evaluator MTM Rita pointed out a number of pertinent issues, one of which was the personal/impersonal nature of the Grammarian's comments. It was finally decided that negative feedback would be given non-specific to the person whereas good usage of English should be applauded by name.

Business session saw TM Mathen exhorting members to rise to the occasion of the 102nd session. Finally he walked away with commitments from a TMOD and 2 speakers, a tired but happy man.

The President closed the session after announcing the 2 awards for the day: