Ruwi Toastmasters Club: Session 146

Our hall looked so colourful with members dressed up in ethnic wear. This was Diwali season after all.

Stand-in SAA TM Chaitanya flagged off the session at 3.15 pm on the dot.

President TM Rajat welcomed all to this Diwali session, a season of new beginnings. When we do not renew ourselves we die little by little. He read out a poem by Pablo Neruda that ended with the exhortation that we should, at least once a year, run from sensible advice. So let us do that this year, shall we?

Today's TMOD was a young member TM Lawrence who took up the gauntlet and set a theme of "Enlighten", quite a double-meaning since it is the festival of lights. He introduced each role player mentioning what learning enlightened him or her in that person's life. A great job TM Lawrence; you really managed time well.

Wordmaster MTM Kiran introduced the word TREPIDATION to the audience. It was a familiar word to most and the situations described in the round robin displayed a lot of variety.

Jokemaster MTM Niral, taking up this role for the second time, did good justice and the audience responded with mirthfulness.

There were three speeches scheduled today - two Icebreaker speeches and one HPL report speech.

MTM Sandhya described the evaluation criteria for the Icebreaker to be delivered by TM Yashpal.

TM Yashpal delivered a smooth and confident account of his life, mysteriously titled "P.S.F.", viz his growing up years and his life in Muscat, ending with musings on what he wanted to be remembered as, which was finally summarised as PSF - Plain Simple Folk. A good speech to listen to TM Yashpal.

MTM Swati delivered the evaluation criteria for the next Icebreaker speech (actually the earlier description of criteria would have worked for this speech as well).

TM Venkat, who has already completed his CC, was starting on Pathways with his Icebreaker speech titled "Second Innings". He took us through his years in his usual humorous manner that had us laughing with him at the vagaries of his life.

TM Chaitanya described the evaluation criteria for the HPL project final speech, wherein the speaker is supposed to share his or her experience of working on the project and the learnings gleaned therefrom.

MTM Panna delivered her speech titled "Talk the Walk", where she related her experience of having worked on organising a Skit Competition for Division D, a competition quite different from those held earlier. The intense planning, the directions from the Guidance Committee, the assistance from the Task Force in implementation, the learnings absorbed in the course of the project, all contributed to a successful project execution and enhancement of the traits of leadership. Good show MTM Panna!

Table topics were taken up by TM Shahnavas, who presented head-scratching topics to the members, some of which were attacked well by the members and some of which forced them to retreat. All in all a fair battle, I guess.

All three evaluators gave their respective feedbacks to the three speakers, with due praise to their accomplishments and suggestions for their areas of improvement.

TM Rajat acted as Ah-counter and Grammarian, giving feedback on Word-of-the-day usage, Ah usage, good usage of language and not-so-good usage of language.

We were given a treat by the General Evaluation conducted by TM G Kumar. Criticism with warmth is his specialisation and he did not disappoint. Among his suggestions were -

Have a fixed backup SAA
Memorise jokes for better delivery
TT master should repeat the timing criteria
TT topics can be such that speakers can take a For or Against stand
TMOD can relax and deliver - no rush
Evaluators need not repeat the speech - dissect the speech

TM Chaitanya conducted the Business Session, fixing up MTM Kiran as TMOD. Speakers to confirm. Members please give your nominations for Tall Tales Contest to be held on 24.11.18.