Ruwi Toastmasters Club: 117th session

The mercury is climbing and today at 3 pm it was 40 degC. But that did not deter the cool cats of RTC from having a successful session at their new venue at Qurm.

The session kicked off at 3.20 pm, led by the SAA TM Saleem. There were two very young guests who added some cuteness to the proceedings.

Acting President TM Rajat entertained the audience with a funny story about his drunken friend who put band-aids on the mirror instead of on his face, which led to the thought that we are always keen to try and change the outside world instead of our own mind. A point to ponder indeed.

TMOD Sabu had chosen as his theme "Retirement Plans", a subject at the forefront of the minds of all people upward of 40. He shared with us broad retirement plan options that are available and individual role players shared what they had in mind post-retirement. An informative theme, delivered in the serene manner typical to TM Sabu,

Timer role was played by MTM Khathija, who was a master of the game by now.

Wordmaster was played by TM Somakumar who introduced the word INNATE to the audience. It was a word that was well used by the audience during the round robin and innovation was visible.

Jokemaster MTM Swati reeled off some one-liners and some longer jokes. Her delivery was so full of laughter that the audience enjoyed the jokes even more.

There was only one speech planned today, an ACB speech on storytelling, a story that has a moral. TM Natan as evaluator described the speech criteria.

MTM Panna delivered her ACB speech "Where there is a will", that spoke about her love for animals and how in various stages in her life she had had to make special efforts to ensure the animals and pets in her life were well cared for. An inspiring speech, MTM.

Table topics were conducted by TM Bhaskar, who stunned the speakers with his range of topics that varied from retirement to concept of beauty to a film and so on. However, all speakers rose to the challenge and justified their 2 minutes of fame.

Evaluation on the ACB speech was given by TM Natan.

TM Sethuraman gave the Grammarian's report, a more perfect example of which would be hard to find. He appreciated both good usages of English (usually missed by this role-player) as well as doubtful usages and gave his recommendations. A good job indeed TM.

General Evaluator TM Ramalingam gave a comprehensive report. He recommended that role-players use the word of the day more since they get to know it beforehand and have time to incorporate it into their script. A valid point GE.

Acting President held the business session. Since the Division Contest is scheduled next Friday (6th Apr), our Saturday (7th Apr) session was cancelled. However, members were requested to turn up for the Division Contest in large numbers as RTC members were contestants, the venue at ABA was very good and the contests were followed by dinner. What more could a reasonable person want?

The session was declared closed with a group photo and snacks/tea.