Meeting No 246 - Minutes

Attendees

DTM Alex Jacobs	TM Shriram	TM Bharthi	TM Rajesh Vel
TM Kishore	TM Siddarth	TM Sowmya	TM Supraja
TM Nagaraj	TM Nandhini	TM Pratheema	TM Vivekanandan
TM Umashankar	TM Srikar	Guest Tanvir

The 246^th Chennai Speaker Forum meeting was conducted on 26^th March’17, at Trust Conference Hall, Nungambakkam.

Meeting started at 10 am on high note!

10.00 A.M. SSA CALLS FOR MEETING.                                                             

Meeting was called to order by the Sergeant at Arms ,TM Supraja , who explained the mission and vision of Toast Masters and control was handed to The President.

10.03 A.M. PRESIDENT ADDRESS.

President TM Siddarth set the tone for the meeting and declared the meeting open.

10:07 A.M.- GUEST INTRODUCTIONS.

The President requested the guests to introduce themselves. The guests for the day were DTM Alex Jacob (who was in CSF for conducting an educational session) and Guest Thanvir.

10:10 A.M. – PRECIDING OFFICER INTRODUCED THE TMOD.

Presiding office TM Siddarth introduced the TMOD – TM Bharathi Goel, who announced the Theme and word of the day .     

Theme Of The Day: “Your voice can change the world”  

Word of the day: “Inclination”.

10:15 A.M. – GENERAL EVALUATOR INTRODUCTION.

TMOD introduced the General Evaluator for the meet, TM Supraja , Who explained her role and in turn announced the TAG Role Players of the day ,as below

Timer – TM Nagaraj

Ah Counter - TM Nandhini

Grammarian - TM Pratheema

10:20 A.M. – PREPARED SPEECH SESSION

The Prepared Speech segment started with TMOD calling upon the below speakers to present their prepared speech

Speaker & Evaluators	Project
Speaker : TM Shriram Sridhar Evaluator: TM Umashankar CC	Manual: Competent Communication Project #8: Visual Aids
Speaker : TM Rajesh Velpandian CC,CL Evaluator: TM Vivekanandan ACB,ALB	Manual: High Performance Leadership Project #2 : Presenting the results

By the end of this segment, TMOD requested the gathering to vote for the best speaker and proceeded to the next segment.

10:35 A.M. EDUCATIONAL SESSION FOR BEGINNERS

TMOD called upon DTM Alex to present a session for beginners, and what followed was a 25 minutes intriguing session, some key take away from the session ..

• Be Selfish! Time should not be wasted at Toast Masters, every Toast Master should set a goal to speak at least 30 minutes a month.
• If slots are not easily available, Toast Masters can always present their speeches in other clubs.
• Always seek feedback not only from your evaluators or mentors.
• Set higher goals, take a print out of what it would take to become a DTM and pursue it.

Alex also gave some advice on how to write a speech for beginners.

11:00 A.M. TABLE TOPICS SESSION

TMOD handed over the control to TM Kishore, who essayed the role of Table Topics Master.

In this session, TTM adopted a unique way to conduct the session (Spin the Yarn Format) , rather than only sticking to giving away individual table topics to contestants.

By the end of the energetic session, TTM passed his control to the TMOD.

11:20 A.M. CSF NEWSLETTER RELEASE

TMOD TM Barathi, called upon DTM Alex to release the CSF Newsletter which was themed around ‘Toast Master Promises’.

DTM Alex congratulated the editors (TM Supraja & TM Kishore) for having done a wonderful job.

Editors spoke about the Newsletter preparation journey and thanked TM Arna for mentoring them throughout the preparation.

11:30 A.M. – EVALUATION SESSION

During this session, the General Evaluator was called upon by the TMOD for an evaluation session. 

The GE and his team of evaluators presented their evaluations for all the prepared speeches.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”

Said an American comedian Gruocho Marx. The evaluation sessions are very crucial for every Toast Masters learning, as not only do the speakers get the feedback, even the non speakers for the day take away some key learnings from these feedback.

Some key tips that were recalled during this session ,

• -        The technique of asking questions at the start of the speech, reduces stage fear.
• -        Beware of multi cultural audience and make sure the speech is tailored accordingly.
• -         Some times ,using stories to put across a point would help reach the audience
• -        Change visual aids or props according to infra and surroundings.

After the evaluations of the speech segment, the control was handed back to GE.

11:40 A.M. – TAG TEAM & GE REPORT

GE requested the Tag role players to present their reports, which was later followed by the GE Report for the day.

The GE requested the SAA to display the clubs ribbons in a better way. He also noticed last minutes dropouts and late coming by few members , so he requested these to be corrected.

11:50 A.M. – GUESTS FEEDBACK

President requested guests for their feedback on the session.

DTM Alex had good feedback about the energy of the session and how its very refreshing.

Guest Tanvir commented about the good amount of knowledge share that happened in the session.

11:52 A.M. – ANNOUNCEMENTS OF WINNERS  

President acknowledged the below winners, who were felicitated by DTM Alex.

Best Speaker –  TM Shriram

Best Evaluator – TM Vivekanandan

Best TT Speaker -  TM Siddarth

Best Role Player – TM Kishore

Best Tag Role Player- TM Nagaraj

President felicitated DTM Alex for the educational session.

12:00 P.M. – MEETING ADJOURNED

The President made announcements on the upcoming weeks Area D3 Contest details including the venue and the best time of attendance.

The meeting was adjourned to 9^th April’17.