And so July kick-started with yet another exciting toast-master evening. This meeting was indeed a fresh start with a new set of officers taking over the responsibilities. David presided over the official induction of the officers by making them take up the oaths. As mentioned earlier, the outgoing officers did a wonderful job over the past 1 year with our club being named the "Distinguished President" - the highest level of the worldwide club program. A huge round of applause to the outgoing officers and to everyone who contributed.
The new officers were straight off the blocks with Jose Maria (the Sergent at Arms) opening the session and Angela presiding over the club-business. Angela also introduced our guests: Luca Spinelli, Michal and a couple of more whom I cannot recollect (apologies!!, please help). The ever smiling and animated Tulia was the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), and this was her first time. Our sessions normally start off with a Word of the day, and the word was procrastination. A word very familiar to us all, but as she timely reminded, a habit which is unfortunately familiar to some of us as well.
And then came the table topics. Table topic is on-the-feet impromptu speaking.I (Govind) was the table topic master. The theme was broadly about taking modern-day objects/ideas to the past. Cristian tried convincing Chenghis Khan about the virtues of family planning. The ever-present and enthusiastic Kai sold tissue papers to cave-men. Last heard, they were queuing up Carrerfours and Caprabo's demanding every piece of tissue paper available. Finally, Manon convinced us all and also a certain Jesus Christ that Michael Jackson is the real God. Last overheard that there is some real dissension up in the heavens!!!.
And then we moved on to our prepared speeches. Recently, there has been a wave of new members accompanied by truly diverse ice-breakers.This week was no exception with yet another TM opening his speech account. The earnest and seemingly sincere Ernest tried hard looking back for answers by rewinding a bit about his past. And also reinforcing that he is indeed earnest!!.
The second speech was by one of the galacticos of our club - Florian. He is a master orator and also it has to be added a master salesman!!. He convinced us about the key points needed to thrive in the service industry. His inspiration was a book titled - The Art of Worldly Wisdom. The salesman was at his elements: picking on the audience and getting them involved in an entertaining 20 minutes.
The final of the prepared speech was by David Blackshaw - another galactico, the resident banker, the former treasurer, the mine house of British jokes, etc.. He spoke about the need to keep a tab- and more than just a tab - on our health and habits etc. It was an entertaining speech and takes him pretty close to being a DTM (Distinguished Toast Master). The only glitch in the speech was the mention and occasional praise of the evil empire (Real Madrid) and the Satan (C. Ronaldo). It has to be pointed out that even a harmless photo of the Satan in evil empire's clothes can bring out adverse and outrageous reactions from adults and children alike. Please bear this in mind when tuning on La-Liga matches the coming season.
Then we moved over to the evaluation part. As mentioned countless times in countless meetings, evaluation is a unique feature of Toastmasters with the emphasis on constructive criticism. In other words, be a bit thick-skinned!!. Dima evaluated Ernest. Kai was the evaluator for the salesman and chipped in some key features of Florian's talk. The consensus is that post Florian's talk, the book is tipped to be a best-seller in every nook and corner of the world. Finally, Edith evaluated David.
These evaluations are learning sessions not just for the speakers but for the audience as well. Brenda was the general evaluator and congratulated Tulia (our Toast-Master of the Evening) on a job well done. The timely Kai was the time-keeper and boy he tracked every speech to the last micro-second!!. Josephine was the Ah-counter keeper and turns out there were more Ah and hmm from the audience than from the speakers!!.
That wrapped up our meeting and the next meeting is on July 21, on the beach!!.
See you all then!!
The new officers were straight off the blocks with Jose Maria (the Sergent at Arms) opening the session and Angela presiding over the club-business. Angela also introduced our guests: Luca Spinelli, Michal and a couple of more whom I cannot recollect (apologies!!, please help). The ever smiling and animated Tulia was the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), and this was her first time. Our sessions normally start off with a Word of the day, and the word was procrastination. A word very familiar to us all, but as she timely reminded, a habit which is unfortunately familiar to some of us as well.
And then came the table topics. Table topic is on-the-feet impromptu speaking.I (Govind) was the table topic master. The theme was broadly about taking modern-day objects/ideas to the past. Cristian tried convincing Chenghis Khan about the virtues of family planning. The ever-present and enthusiastic Kai sold tissue papers to cave-men. Last heard, they were queuing up Carrerfours and Caprabo's demanding every piece of tissue paper available. Finally, Manon convinced us all and also a certain Jesus Christ that Michael Jackson is the real God. Last overheard that there is some real dissension up in the heavens!!!.
And then we moved on to our prepared speeches. Recently, there has been a wave of new members accompanied by truly diverse ice-breakers.This week was no exception with yet another TM opening his speech account. The earnest and seemingly sincere Ernest tried hard looking back for answers by rewinding a bit about his past. And also reinforcing that he is indeed earnest!!.
The second speech was by one of the galacticos of our club - Florian. He is a master orator and also it has to be added a master salesman!!. He convinced us about the key points needed to thrive in the service industry. His inspiration was a book titled - The Art of Worldly Wisdom. The salesman was at his elements: picking on the audience and getting them involved in an entertaining 20 minutes.
The final of the prepared speech was by David Blackshaw - another galactico, the resident banker, the former treasurer, the mine house of British jokes, etc.. He spoke about the need to keep a tab- and more than just a tab - on our health and habits etc. It was an entertaining speech and takes him pretty close to being a DTM (Distinguished Toast Master). The only glitch in the speech was the mention and occasional praise of the evil empire (Real Madrid) and the Satan (C. Ronaldo). It has to be pointed out that even a harmless photo of the Satan in evil empire's clothes can bring out adverse and outrageous reactions from adults and children alike. Please bear this in mind when tuning on La-Liga matches the coming season.
Then we moved over to the evaluation part. As mentioned countless times in countless meetings, evaluation is a unique feature of Toastmasters with the emphasis on constructive criticism. In other words, be a bit thick-skinned!!. Dima evaluated Ernest. Kai was the evaluator for the salesman and chipped in some key features of Florian's talk. The consensus is that post Florian's talk, the book is tipped to be a best-seller in every nook and corner of the world. Finally, Edith evaluated David.
These evaluations are learning sessions not just for the speakers but for the audience as well. Brenda was the general evaluator and congratulated Tulia (our Toast-Master of the Evening) on a job well done. The timely Kai was the time-keeper and boy he tracked every speech to the last micro-second!!. Josephine was the Ah-counter keeper and turns out there were more Ah and hmm from the audience than from the speakers!!.
That wrapped up our meeting and the next meeting is on July 21, on the beach!!.
See you all then!!
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