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.