Session 141

Today was a lovely day.

Any Saturday is a lovely day because a Toastmasters session happens that day. But today was lovelier than usual. If for nothing else but for the fact that we had 4 guests and they said they had enjoyed their time in the club.

SAA TM Venkat, who had suddenly been conscripted, kicked off the session 2 minutes BEFORE time.

President TM Rajat welcomed all guests and related a story of a battleship captain in a stand-off with another ship in a fog, till he realised that the other ship was actually a lighthouse. So are we lighthouses, fixed on our principles and standing firm on a bedrock of values, or are we battleships, proud of our abilities but with enough sense to change course when we meet an immovable object? We need to be a bit of both, right?

TMOD Niral, playing the role for the first time, had chosen as her theme "Human Revolution". She started the session with a nice audience interaction about our wish for changing a particular aspect in our lives. She expanded on the topic with stories, poems and quotations and introduced every role player with their background and some interesting tit-bits of their lives. Overall an enjoyable and tightly run session from this debutante.

Timer role was played by MTM Kiran who introduced the time parameters for the various speeches.

Wordmaster role was played by MTM Usha who introduced the word RESILIENT to the group. This was an interesting word and the round robin produced some good sentences.

Jokemaster TM Muthu also played his first role today and had all of us in splits with his fresh from the oven jokes. Good job TM Muthu.

TM Bhaskar laid down the evaluation criteria for a Pathways Level 1 Project 2 Speech 1 to be delivered next.

TM Viswa delivered his speech on the theme of corruption, titled "Break the Chain". Having been at the receiving end, he inspired the audience to stand up to corruption and stare it down. Good speech TM.

TM Rajat described the criteria of a Pathways Level 2 Project 1 speech on Understanding Communication Styles. to be delivered next.

MTM Panna delivered the speech titled "Talk, talk, talk & talk"as part of her Path on Presentation Mastery. She identified her style as initiating and described various situations in life where it had stood her in good stead. However, she ended with an apt advice to all to "Stop, think, analyse and then communicate."

Table topics were conducted by MTM Swati, who used the pack of topics gifted by DTM Robin Anand after he returned from the TMI convention in the US. The topics were slightly anglicised, but our speaker made strong attempts to wade through foreign waters. A good round.

Evaluation on TM Viswa's speech was delivered by TM Bhaskar. While appreciating the speaker's choice of subject, he suggested a few specific improvements.

Evaluation of MTM Panna's speech was delivered by TM Rajat. Project requirements had been met adequately. Additionally, he appreciated the speech's opening and ending message and her use of visual aids, he suggested that she could have kept some dialogues to demonstrate the communication styles.

The role of Grammarian was played by TM Chaitanya, who in his inimitable professorial style, appreciated the good usage of English as well as corrected bad usage wherever noticed. It is always a pleasure to listen to your expositions, TM Chaitanya.

General Evaluator role was taken up by MTM Rita, who was at once detailed and meticulous, covering every role thoroughly. She had looked for a little more energy from the SAA.

Business session was conducted by the VP-E.

President closed the session with the following activities:

• He handed over Guest Welcome Kits to the 4 first-timer guests.
• He highlighted the importance of assigning Mentors (done already) and the need for Mentees to take advantage of the same.
• He distributed the evening's awards, which were:
• Best Speaker:      MTM Panna
• Best Evaluator:    TM Rajat
• Best Table Topic:  TM Sethuraman
• Best Role player:  TM Muthu (Jokemaster)

See you all on 13.10.18, same place.