Ruwi Toastmasters Club: 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.