#402nd Meeting Report
#402nd Meeting Report
Chiyoda Toastmasters Club #402nd Meeting Report
17th of August, 2023
Our Club President MT declared the opening remark at just 7 pm.
As it was in the middle of summer holiday (so called “Obon”) season, we have relatively small attendees today, total 12 members (7 on site, 5 online). I (“SO”) joined from New York as usual ever since being transferred to NY office in April.
ToastMaster Of the Evening (TMOE), facilitator, and overall timekeeper of today’s meeting is also MT. MT set the word “refresh” as the “word of this evening”, which everyone is expected to intentionally use during the meeting. It is quite timely & seasonal word as many should have “refreshed” during this summer holiday season.
MT introduced tonight meeting helpers respectively: Timer, Ballot counter, Ah Counter & Grammarian, and the Meeting reporter (which SO was assigned).
First session was “What’s new,” all attendees provide a short speech in English; This is an excellent opportunity to share recent topics (personal events, happenings, my boom, etc.) among members. Quite a few members, including myself, talked about topics related to summer holidays.
Second session was prepared speech. Tonight, we had three prepared speakers.
The first speaker is HK; he made a speech in Japanese titled “会長はもっと〇〇(Chiyoda President should be more 〇〇).” “Chiyoda, more 〇〇” was the club slogan during HK’s presidency between July 22 till June 23, encouraging members to challenge in various manners. Today, HK recapped his past one year as a president and asked attendees their respective “more 〇〇” in past one year. Answers from members were various, such as “more English speech”, “more instant speech capability”, “more alcohol (drinking) after the meeting given the post covid”, “more originality”, “more participation to the meeting”, “more special meeting events”. HK recapped his speech by wishing next (current) president MT to lead the club with “more 〇〇” spirit.
The second speaker is SK; she provided a speech in Japanese under the title of “忘れもの(Lost and Found)”. She talked about her experiences of losing her mobile phone three times in past! She managed to find for the first two losses, because of incredibly kind and sincere persons (i.e. on next day, there was a memo in the public toilet, anonymous person leaving a message to her in where she can receive her lost mobile phone). In her third time, she was not able to find her phone and had to wait for one week until she receives a new one. During the one week, her old friend even contacting her mother in her hometown to find out whether SK is doing OK as she didn’t respond to the call several times. She understood she has such a wonderful friend. It was very heart warming and enjoyable speech.
Third speaker is MF, English speech titled “Book publishing paid off”? He published a book in 2017 (how to win/grab ideal jobs), based on his experiences of surviving his entire career in foreign capital (non-Japanese) companies, despite being fired twice and changed his job once by his own decision (total three job changes since 2009, after working his first company for a quite long period). He summarized the outcome of publishing a book in five points, (1) profitable or not, answer is No, (2) whether be able to connect with target readers, answer is Yes or No, (3) Any side effects, answer is Yes (his book sometimes serves as a good table topics), (4) beneficial experience for him? Definitely Yes as writing a book helped him to look back & summarize his life and experiences, (5) beneficial for his family, definitely Yes as he was able to overcome his difficulties with strong family support, and this book would remind the importance of his family all the time. He is now having a happy professional and personal life after overcoming difficulties, and determined to continuously to do so.
After the short break, we moved to the third session, “Table Topics”, an instant speech training.
As Table Topics Master KM had a technical problem to connect via online, MT replaced her role and he requested an instant speech to members related to “Full Moon (i.e. what you have done perfectly like a full moon, any legendary achievement like a full moon legend, anything you felt not a full moon as you didn’t follow your heart)”
After three instant speeches, KM was finally able to connect, so she provided two questions related to disaster recovery/prevention. All appointed speakers, total 5, managed to promptly comments although some questions were tough to respond.
After the three sessions, General Evaluator today, KI, led the evaluation session. Providing feedback comments to speakers through evaluation process is unique practice in TMC, which I am personally not good. Through this evaluation process, speakers can look back their respective speech objectively. Also, this is very good training for evaluators, as evaluation skill is necessary in every social occasion, encouraging speakers by raising good points, while providing some humble suggestions (improvement points) in a constructive manner.
All three evaluator, YS (evaluation to the first speaker, HK), TK (to the second speaker, SK), AF (to the third speaker, MF), provided quite analytical, constructive feedback to the prepared speakers.
Then KI analyzed and summarized the overall meeting with a very enjoyable manner.
Award presentation:
The Best Table Topics Speaker: SO
The Best Evaluator: YS and TK (AF was disqualified due to time over)
The Best Speaker: SK and MF (HK was disqualified due to time over)
Surprisingly, voting among members were tie for best evaluator and best speaker!
Why don’t you come and see our enjoyable and stimulating (thought-provoking) meeting? We are looking forward to meeting you anytime.
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