Session 169 - Election Day

It was a festive look all around RTC today as 25 members showed up to extend their solid support to the incoming club officers

The election session started couple of minutes late not because the SAA’s late arrival but more due to the exchange of greetings with one another👍

As usual Viswa the SAA did his role to the T and handed over to our founder President Aji who brought his better half also to the meeting. (Current VPM, pls make note for a prospective member)

Aji in his usual style come out with an excellent story emphasizing that the leader should have a heart for gratitude. Welcome back Aji. We love you and of course the cub needs your experience

DTM Rajendra Varma, the election officer, the club sponsor and the division director elect for Division D showed us how to conduct an election  in  an entertaining way.

Highly educative and entertaining. Kudos and thanks to you sirji for bringing the best today.

Each officer elect came with a 2 mts prepared speech. I was astonished by the way each one understood and deliver their speech laying down what they plan for the next year. I’m sure they are going to set the club standards to the next level.

Congratulations to the elected officers.

Chaitanya - President
Venkat - VPE
Saleem - VPM
Viswa - VP PR
Baskar - treasurer
Raja - secretary
Lawrence- SAA

Yours truly surprisingly put across my points within 2 mts thanking DTM Varma and urging members to attend at least 3 weeks in a month which will help the members as well as the club to grow. And it will be a fitting return to the efforts put by the Rays family to Ruwi Club

Business session found a TMOD - Sumesh and 3 speeches for next session. Good beginning

TM Aji concluded by saying that each member is talented enough to fill the vaccum and one of them can be a winner next year at district level. Absolutely right.

A group photo is taken with all the members sitting comfortably backed by the super 7 officers who promised to guide, entertain, educate and elevate our club

Let us mutually and positively support them and prove the mission of TMs

Good evening and see you next week.

DTAC 2019 - 25th to 27th April

DTAC comes but once a year. It seemed only yesterday that we were hosting DTAC 2018 at Muscat with DTM Gurbindar Punn as DTAC chair. This time it was at Dubai, UAE, at the Le Meridien Hotel near the airport.

Most of the Oman contingent (around 50 in numbers as I counted in a group picture taken at the venue) arrived 24th night, that being a working day. Panna and I, who had travelled from India, arrived 24th mid-day. Some of us had put up at Hotel City Season Towers at Burjuman, with a shuttle to the venue, well-arranged remotely by TM Suryakanth. Others were staying with friends or at Le Meridien itself.

Registration on 25th was a high energy time as usual, with Toastmasters greeting each other like long lost brothers while grabbing their name tags and goody bags. As usual, the events were spread out over the 3 days, with the 4 semifinals in 2 groups scheduled for 25th, Evaluation and Humorous finals on 26th, and Table topics and International finals on 27th. These were interspersed with some external speakers giving addresses, as is usual.

There were a few things to comment on about this DTAC. One was they had a theme called "Communicating Happiness", which all role players kept emphasising throughout the three days. There was even a Happiness Dance that all the audience learnt over time. 

Secondly, the external speakers were not the usual motivational speakers, but of a different flavour - the first being a 10-year old girl who was a motivational speaker, the second was an astronaut who has been chosen as the first 100 people selected for a manned mission to Mars and third was the daughter of Mohd Murad (past International President) who was a parkour trainer. Thought, dream and action - all contributed to the spirit of Toastmastering. 

Thirdly, the food was good and in too much abundance I felt, especially the snacks given in the tea breaks. But no complaints there.

The following were the contestants in the Oman contingent who qualified for the finals:

Evaluation:

Lisa Waite (3rd in finals)

Bipin Kuriakose

Humorous:

Shair Al Balushi (1st in finals)

Pratyusha (2nd in finals)

Nitish Kumar

Table topics:

Rajat Ray (2nd in finals)

International:

Bipin (3rd in finals)

Saiju

Our congratulations to all the finalists, whatever be the results in the finals.

Apart from these 5 awards in English, Oman's Arabic contingent won 6 awards as well. It was a good year for Oman and surely 2020 will be an even better year.

MTM Panna was awarded Vibrant HPL award for an outstanding HPL project.

DTAC is a great occasion to make friends, to increase networking (if you are so minded) and to simply be awestruck at the high levels of speeches that are rolled out there. Do plan to visit a DTAC meet sometimes, if you have not done so. Next year, it is likely to be in Beirut, Lebanon, if all goes well.

165th session

This was a very special session.

Rajat and Panna Ray have decided to relocate to India and a major purpose of this session was to share memories of their stay here and to wish them the best in their future endeavours in India.

The audience was embellished by the presence of many dignitaries from other clubs, starting from District PQD Robin Anand, DTM Rajendra Varma, DTM Salar, DTM Saiju, DTM Babu Srinivasan, Area Directors Murthy and Lakshmi, past AD Nilofer, Founder President Aji, Presidents Vignesh and Safiullah and many more.

The session started 5 minutes late, kicked off by our ever-dependable SAA TM Viswa.

Acting President TM Chaitanya welcomed all guests and told the story of the Curie couple who brought such accolades to their name and their country's name. Any similarity with any couple we know?

TMOD Yashpal Mehta had taken up as his theme "Figures of Speech" and in an innovative twist, had assigned different FOS to different role-players, almost like homework, to be prepared and brought to the session. We learnt quite a few of the 27 figures of speech, thanks to the enthusiasm of TM Yashpal.

Timer role was played by MTM Shoba, an experienced hand, and she explained all the rules in a jiffy.

Wordmaster MTM Khathija had chosen as the word RAYS, being a take-off on the couple whose departure was imminent. It was an easy word of course, and the members and guests had no trouble with the round robin.

Jokemaster TM Venkat related a long joke about an even longer password attempt on the computer. Not to worry TM Venkat, abc123 works the best as password.

Evaluation criteria about today's Level 2 Project 3 speech were laid down succinctly by MTM Panna.

Today;s speech, delivered by TM Rajat on mentoring was titled "Let the Cycle Go". TM Rajat covered his protege journey first under his father and then under Toastmasters from multiple mentors. He ended describing the mentoring role that he himself had played in the club.

Table topics were conducted by TM Kamil, who had linked a topic to each of the currency notes that he had in his purse. Although the topics were simple, surely the speakers would have preferred the currency note instead.

MTM Panna gave her feedback on the speech delivered by TM Rajat, lauding his inclusion of his father as mentor and the linkage to Toastmasters, while suggesting that he used vocal variety more and paced the stage better for segmentation.

Grammarian MTM Rita punctiliously pointed out places of improvement in usage of English, both in pronunciation and in grammar and we sat suitably chastised.

GE TM Saleem,  from his own kind point of view, praised everyone's efforts in today's role plays. 

Felicitation session was taken over by our evergreen master of ceremonies TM G Kumar. He introduced all the dignitaries present today and invited each of them to share a few words regarding Rajat and Panna Ray, which they all did generously (in spite of the 2 min time limit) and in full kindness. Finally TMs Panna and Rajat also spoke a few words as their farewell speech, highlighting the strong bond they felt with Toastmasters Oman in general and RTC in particular. They were presented with a goodbye memento by the club.

TM Chaitanya wound up the session with an announcement of the day's awards:

• Best Speaker:               TM Rajat (default)
• Best Evaluator:             MTM Panna (default)
• Best Table topic:           MTM Usha
• Best Role-player:          MTM Rita as Grammarian

Next session will be at our usual venue at Abeer Hospital.

Those who are interested in taking up positions in Ex-com 2019-20, please send your name (nomination) to TM G Kumar or to TM Rajendra Varma who are the nomination chair, by 8th April latest.

Session 164

We were still in a state of euphoria as the aftermath of a very successful Family Day held on Thursday evening at Passage to India. Games, singing, good food, full moon, outdoor setting - what more could one want...

SAA Raja started the session at 3.16 pm, taking a leaf out of MTM Panna's playbook of Fish-Bird-Rabbit as he gave his welcome intro. An innovative twist, SAA.

Acting President TM Chaitanya told the story of King Arthur as he struggled to find the answer to the question "What do women really want?" The answer, not surprisingly, was "To have control over their lives". We husbands had learnt that long ago. 

TMOD Bhaskar, being keen on food and cooking, had chosen as theme "Spice and benefits" and kept us engaged with the benefits of various spices. He even made jeera-water and methi-water on stage and kept them ready for drinking after the session. Good show, TMOD.

Timer MTM Khatija explained the timing criteria, assisted by Raja with the flags, like an Engine-driver with a Guard.

Wordmaster TM Senthil, taking up a role for the first time here, introduced the word OUTREACH to the audience. It may have outreached the audience's capability because apart from TM Chaitanya, no many could use the word in their speeches. But very well presented, TM Senthil.

Jokemaster TM Venkat, always ready to don the garb of humour-king, reeled off a few new ones, very enjoyable too.

There was a Level 2 Project 2 speech scheduled today, with the theme "Understanding your Audience". TM Chaitanya, as evaluator, explained the requirements of the project, which was to present an unfamiliar subject to the audience in an interesting manner.

TM Rajat delivered a speech titled "Lust for Life", based on his experience of learning oil-painting and encouraged the audience to pick up new learnings in order to satisfy their own lust for life.

Table topics were conducted by TM Yashpal, who introduced a thinking hat to help the speakers get ideas for their speeches. His topics were thought-provoking yet easy to speak on and all the speakers did justice to them.

TM Chaitanya gave a feedback on TM Rajat's speech, saying oil-painting was an unfamiliar enough topic for most of us so it met the speech criteria. He suggested speech improvement in tonal quality in order to dramatise portions of the speech.

Harkmaster MTM Panna did a rapid fire round that had the audience up and running. Not that they had been sleeping anyway as the plethora of answers showed.

Grammarian MTM Sandhya focussed more on how the role-players spoke rather than on specific points of grammar, which could have been brought into play.

GE TM Saleem, being a kind-hearted soul, was all praise for every role-player.

TM Chaitanya conducted the business session, grabbing a TMOD and 3 speakers for the next session. He also requested all to pay the membership fees for the next 6 months (RO 30/-) to the Treasurer before coming weekend, as the TMI site had to be updated with renewal names.

The day's awards were:

• Best Speaker:      TM Rajat (default)
• Best Evaluator:    TM Chaitanya (default)
• Best TT speaker:  Mr Manas (guest)
• Best role player:   MTM Panna (Harkmaster)

Next Saturday 30th March is the Division D speech contest, where Area 8 is represented by TM Rajat (TT and Evaluation) and MTM Panna (Humorous and International). Your presence and applause will make a large difference to the results. So please roll up and encourage the contestants.

Area 8 Contest 2018-19

The Area 8 contest has always been a strong contest as it had strong clubs. Currently 5 clubs constitute Area 8 and the AD had taken up as a theme the 5 elements that constitute creation - fire, water, air, earth, space.

The following clubs constitute Area 8:

1. SBG Toastmasters Club
2. Ruwi Toastmasters Club
3. Pioneer Toastmasters Club
4. Sur Toastmasters Club
5. Asyad Toastmasters Club (new club)

This time, since the area had more than 4 clubs, only one contestant from each club (the Winner) was eligible to participate in the Area contest. Asyad did not send any representation, so each contest had only 4 contestants so each contest was a short and sweet one, though well-contested.

The Table Topic contest, chaired by TM Raja from Ruwi, had as a topic "Judge a man by the questions he asks, rather than by the answers he gives". The contestants did justice to this juicy topic and the winners were:

1. TM Rajat Ray (Ruwi)
2. TM Vignesh (SBG)
3. TM Safiulla (Pioneer)

The Humorous Speech contest, chaired by TM Subodh Kumar from SBG, was again a popular contest were there were stalwarts giving speeches, aimed at our funny bones. The winners were:

1. MTM Panna Ray (Ruwi)
2. TM Salim Al Mawali (Pioneer)
3. Ramkumar Ram (SBG)

The Evaluation Contest, chaired by TM Ajith Kumar from Pioneer, saw a model speaker delivering a speech with the theme Change yourself and your world will change. The 4 contestants were ready with their analytical sheets. The winners were:

1. TM Rajat Ray (Ruwi)
2. TM Babu Srinivasan (SBG)
3. TM Gopal (Sur)

The International Speech contest, chaired by TM Amir Ali from SBG, was the most looked forward to as it had formidable speakers participating. The winners were:

1. MTM Panna Ray (Ruwi)
2. TM Sankarasubramanian (Pioneer)
3. TM Subramanian Katta (SBG)

It was a clean sweep by Ruwi club all the way!!

Congratulations to all members of Ruwi Club and thank you for all the support. 

Many club members played roles in this contest:

• TM Viswananth as SAA
• MTM Vaishali as Timer
• TM Lawrence as Tally counter
• TM Raja as Contest chair
• TM Bhaskaran for Refreshments
• TM Venkat fotr Vote of Thanks

Thank you all for volunteering for playing roles in the Area Contest and contributing to its successful implementation. Also, thanks to those (Swati, Saleem, Amaravani, Sandhya etc) who just came to support.

Division-D Contest is on 30th March 2019. Please do turn out in large numbers to support Area 8 and Ruwi Club at the Division Contest.

Session 159 - Evaluation and International speech contest

When two movies run back to back, it used to be called a Double Bill.

That's what we had in the last session - two contests back to back.

The Evaluation contest was well contested by 9 contestants and Contest Chair MTM Swati and SAA TM Raja did a good job of keeping the contestants cooped up in a room till the time to evaluate came up for each of them. Model speaker was from SBG club, TM Jagadeesan, who delivered a humorous speech titled "Understanding your Lady", that laid out the misunderstandings that occur in a married life when the husband is clueless as to how to delve into the depths of a wife's mind.

The results were:
1st place:        TM Rajat Ray
2nd place:       TM Chaitanya Khimji
3rd place:        MTM Panna Ray

The International contest had only 4 speakers (5th speaker dropped out due to ill-health), but were well delivered, with titles "Rihana's Song", "Hang On... Pain Ends", "Mother's Melancholy", "You Reap What You Sow". Contest Chair MTM Rita did an excellent job as usual.

The results were:
1st place:          MTM Panna Ray
2nd place:        TM Rajat Ray
3rd place:         TM Chaitanya Khimji

The 1st place winners will be representing the club in the forthcoming Area 8 contests on 22nd Feb.

Do come and cheer - it makes a huge difference to the contestants.

Session 158

We stole a normal session in between the contests going on, to catch up on a training session and to progress on speech giving.

Today we were thrilled to have as guests we had the Presidents of the PDO club and the Ras al Hamra club.

The session started on time, thanks to our ever diligent SAA TM Viswanath.

The welcome address was delivered by MTM Panna, who, while talking about the World Cancer Day on 4th Feb, elaborated further on cancers of the mind that eat us up from inside - like, anger, envy etc. It would be good if we could take preventive care of these diseases as well.

TMOD Shanavas had chosen as his theme "Food are Medicine". There are many food items that have medicinal properties, well known to our culture. He had asked each role player, which item of food they thought was also medicinal and the answers varied from ginger and garlic to potato and water. The answers were sometimes humorous, but by and large an illuminating theme.

Timer MTM Sandhya explained the timing criteria.

MTM Vaishali was the Wordmaster and introduced the word SUBSISTENCE to the group. Not an easy word and the group faced a climb when making sentences. 

Jokemaster MTM Amaravani related a few hilarious ones with a straight face, based on the medical industry. 

TM Rajat conducted a training on "Effective Evaluation" as a preparation to the club contests to be held next week. There were many practical tips on what to talk about in evaluations, how to manage time and how to practice.

TM Raja described the evaluation criteria for an Icebreaker speech to be delivered today.

TM Srinivas delivered his Icebreaker speech. As he described his initial days of struggle and later success through sheer persistence, I sometimes wonder why we surf the internet to find inspiring stories where there are so many amongst our own group of friends. A powerful life story, delivered with passion and humour.

Table topic master was TM Lawrence who had some topics on the theme (food based) and some general ones. People tended to choose the food-based topics (known devil, I guess) and were fairly successful.

Speech evaluation was delivered by TM Raja in a motivating tone and tenor, wishing TM Srinivas further success.

Grammarian MTM Swati gave some feedback on the good and bad usage of English.

GE TM Yashpal gave a meticulous feedback on all roles. Among other things, he reiterated the need to use mikes so that the audience at the back could hear better.

President Rajat closed the session, after exhorting all to give their names for the Evaluation and International contests scheduled next week.

The day's awards were:

• Best Table Topic:        TM Nayakam
• Best Evaluator:           TM Raja
• The only speaker was disqualified on time.

DO ENROL FOR NEXT WEEK'S CONTESTS.

Session 157 - Humorous speech contest

Today something funny happened.

In fact six things funny happened.

Six humorous speeches at the Ruwi Club Contest, that lit up fireworks in the air and brought a smile to everyone's lips and a guffaw to a few throats.

Contest Chair TM Rita Khimji was the epitome of professional compering.

Chief judge DTM Rajendra Varma kept a keen eye on the proceedings.

The speakers in order were:

1. TM Lawrence's speech, titled "How to be Raja Raja Chola". He brought up laughter as he described how to keep your wife happy by agreeing with her.
2. TM Rajat's speech, titled "The Macarena Dance", described the travails of managing life with limited house keys.
3. TM Yashpal's speech, titled "Who wears the pants", spoke about various situations where ladies take the upper hand.
4. TM Bhaskaran's speech, titled "Mr B", talked about the problems faced with failing memories.
5. MTM Panna's speech, titled "Chicken Cutlet", took us through her alliance fixing process.
6. TM Venkat's speech, titled "Twin Troubles", listed the misunderstanding that happen when twins go about in society.

The 5 judges had a tough time probably in deciding who evoked the highest laughter. But the end results were as follows:

• Winner:               MTM Panna
• 1st Runner up:     TM Venkat
• 2nd Runner up:    TM Rajat

Congratulations to the winners. The Winner will be representing Ruwi Club in the Area Contest on 22nd Feb.

Next session will be a normal one.

Session 156

A normal session once again after a contest held last week. Perhaps as an aftermath of all that excitement, attendance today was a tad low. But, as our President pointed out in his welcome address, that makes the members attending doubly valuable and doubly welcome.

Our SAA TM Viswanath kicked off the session 1 minute before time.

President TM Rajat spoke about the All-Oman Gavel club contest held yesterday where as many as 390 participants took part. A massive logistic exercise, with semi finals and finals, but what was more impressive was the quality and dedication of the gavelliers, whose speeches were not an iota inferior (and in some cases far superior) to regular toastmasters. It only goes to show that (a) some skills are not necessarily improved with time and (b) it makes sense to start developing these skills early.

TMOD Lawrence had taken up the theme of "Nostalgia", which he carried out extremely well, relating incidents from his own life that invoked nostalgia (be it sight, smell or sound) as well as asking all the role players in their respective introductions what they recollected best as a nostalgic memory. We really travelled down memory lane with you, TM Lawrence.

Wordmaster TM Shanavas introduced the word CONSCIENTIOUS to the group, a bit of a toughie as all of us had trouble pronouncing it correctly, although the meaning was clear. 

Jokemaster TM Bhaskaran related incidents from his own life as jokes, which is perhaps the best type.

TM Rajat described the evaluation criteria of a Level 2 speech scheduled today, whose subject was "An Introduction to Mentoring". These were new types of speeches introduced in Pathways, where the speaker had to describe the concept of mentoring and share his/her experience as a protege under a mentor.

MTM Panna delivered her Level 2 speech on Mentoring titled "Full Circle" where she praised her mentor TM G Kumar for having provided her systematic support and guidance throughout her Toastmastering career, ending with herself becoming a Club Mentor for a new club. An excellent thanksgiving speech, MTM Panna - one that would make your mentor very happy.

Table topics were conducted by TM Saleem, who gave very generalised topics to the speakers that were easy to speak on, though difficult to restrict to 2 minutes. Nevertheless, the speakers enjoyed the freedom to speak.

Evaluation was offered by TM Rajat who, while praising the project speech, mentioned that perhaps a message to the members to be a demanding mentee, like she had been, would not have gone amiss.

General Evaluation was done by TM Viswa, who gave many specific suggestions in his usual soft style, driving home every point with a velvet-wrapped hammer.

Business session was conducted by MTM Panna who tried to finalise the role-players for next week's contest. One timer role was confirmed by MTM Sandhya, We still need another Timer, 2 tally counters and an SAA (TM Viswa is not available).

President Rajat wrapped up the session, calling this a drawing-room gathering, very cosy and informal, nonetheless enjoyable. We should not worry if the strength is low on a particular day. The main thing was to keep the sessions flowing.

The day's awardees were:

• Best Speaker:           MTM Panna (default)
• Best Evaluator:         TM Rajat (default)
• Best Table topic:       Guest of TM Saleem

See you all on Humorous contest day, 2nd Feb 2019.

Session 155 - Table topics contest

Who would have imagined such enthusiasm on TT contest at our club level. There were 17 contestants and since that involved a round of semi finals in 2 groups and then a final round, Humorous speech contest could not be held on the same day but was deferred to 2nd Feb.

With DTM Ramki as contest chair and TM Kumar as Chief Judge, we were sure to be in for a treat  -and nor were we disappointed. The first semi final with 8 contestants had the topic "Contentment is greater than a kingdom". Performance varied from great philosophy to great doubt as to the meaning of the topic but all pitched in their best. The people who qualified were TM Panna, TM Yashpal and TM Lawrence.

The second semi final had the topic "There is no traffic jam in the extra mile". This was handled well by most of the 9 contestants. The qualifying contestants were TM Rajat, TM Venkat and TM Chaitanya.

The finals of 6 contestants carried the topic "Ambition causes unnecessary stress". All finalists were ambitious for the title and we are sure that caused some very necessary stress! The final results were as follows:

• 1st place:          TM Rajat
• 2nd place:         MTM Panna
• 3rd place:          TM Venkat

TM Rajat will go on to represent RTC in the Area 8 contest scheduled to be held on 22nd Feb.

A great day of contesting!

Session 154

Training Day.

That is what our energetic VP-E had arranged for today's session, in view of the contests starting from next week. It turned out to be an entertaining and educative day. Well attended too.

The session was kicked off by SAA Viswanath.

Acting President TM Chaitanya opened the session with the inspiring story of the eagle, who has many life lessons to teach us.

TMOD Vaishali had chosen as her theme "Kite Flying Festival", very appropriate for the season and she regaled us between role plays with snippets regarding kites and festivals that celebrated kites. She also asked role players what philosophical aspect they could draw from kites, which provided interesting answers.

Timer role was taken up by MTM Shobha who explained the rules of engagement.

Wordmaster TM Shanavas introduced the word OPULENT to the audience. An easy enough word to use in a round robin although usage by role players was not opulent.

Evaluation criteria for a Level 1 Project 2 speech about to be delivered  were laid out by TM Bhaskaran.

TM Yashpal delivered his Level 1 Project 2 speech titled "W.A.L.K.", which is an acronym for Witness, Accept, Love and Know thyself, a concept promoted by international speaker Nipun Shah. Thanks for the motivation and inspiration, TM Yashpal.

There were two training sessions planned today, perfectly timed as the corresponding competitions are next week.

TM Saiju Victor took a training session on TABLE TOPICS - How to crack it -  and shared the different approaches to take off on the topic. Interestingly, for each approach, he ensured that the speaker called up by the topic master TM Lawrence used that particular technique. The supporting slides were a great hit too. The session was fun as well as entertaining.

TM G Kumar took a training session on SPEECH CRAFTING, being practically a master in the business, having given more than 30 speeches and having mentored many. He took us through the speech crafting journey, right from choosing a message, to putting down everything, organizing, connecting, authenticating, closing. It was a treasure to learn the whole craft at one go.

TM Bhaskaran gave his evaluation of TM Yashpal's speech.

TM Venkat as GE gave an appreciative comment on the whole session.

TM Chaitanya conducted the business session, focusing on the upcoming contests next week and encouraged all to enroll pronto pronto. Response was warm but needed to be fanned into hot.

President Rajat delivered the closing address and distributed the awards, but there were some more surprises in store. A cake appeared to celebrate the birthday of the President, which was today and there was a joyous cake-cutting (and thankfully no cake-smearing). A great way to end the session and thanks to all concerned once again.

The day's awards were:

• Best Speaker:          TM Yashpal (default)
• Best Evaluator:       TM Bhaskaran (default)
• Best Role player:    TM Viswanath

See you all on Contest Day, 19th Jan.