Meeting Theme: Encounter
14 attendees ( 9 members + 5 guests )
Word of the Day : loquacious
4 attendees used this word during the meeting.
Best Table Topic Speaker : Kaoru-san & Kazuko-san
Best Prepared Speaker : Miyuki-san
Best Evaluator : Jota-san
Business session : ‘Promoter 7’ Competition
The member who invites guests the most for the next 4 months is a winner!
He / She can get a prize!
As the meeting theme shows, spring is the best season of encounter. We Diversity Toastmasters Club treasure every encounter. Do you remember how many members attended the last meeting? There were 4. And today, 9 members were present at the meeting. Wow! More than double numbers! How flourishing ;) We have felt honored that more guests became a member of our club.
Now let’s get started!
As a warm-up, each member and guest had a brief introduction each other and talked about how they have been lately. Some members paid a visit to ‘ face-to-face’ ( not online ) meetings and all of them still like our online club as well;) Others felt relaxed and enjoyed fully bloomed cherry blossoms. Speaking of which, Naoki-san has been in Cambodia since last month and can’t afford the time to go back to Japan for appreciating breathtakingly beautiful cherry blossoms. It would be wonderful for more people to enjoy bloomed cherry blossoms not only in Japan but also overseas, as you see an example in Washington, D.C.
Then, Yukimasa-san politely described overall program and conducted ZOOM function drill for new guests as usual. Honestly speaking, while listening to his explanation and attending the drill, I was sewing the floor clothes for my kids to take them to school. Tomorrow is the opening ceremony of the new school year but I totally forgot it! Of course I used one of ZOOM functions not to show my bad behavior. Sorry!
Enter Yamada-san! This is the first time that she takes Grammarian role. She showed the word ‘loquacious’ with its pronunciation and meanings on the screen so that everyone understood them very well. It means talkative, garrulous. Here are some usage examples: He is loquacious; in a loquacious manner; His loquacious good-humor infected everyone.
Now everyone is getting excited. Prepared Speech Session. We had 2 speakers, Miyuki-san and Naoki-san.
First off, Miyuki-san made her 2nd speech successfully. It was impressive! Her speech title is ‘Getting to know someone from Shizuoka.’ The speech objectives are: Strong opening and conclusion; Outline that can be followed and understood; Clear message with supporting material; Appropriate transitions.
In her introduction part, she drew the audience attention with an intriguing question. And she mentioned Mt. Fuji whose top is covered with snow in cold season. To our surprise, however, she said they don’t usually have much snow in Shizuoka. In addition she shared her childhood memories referring to Yukimi Ensoku ( snow viewing school excursion ) and other interesting things peculiar to her hometown. Especially, most enjoyable part for me was when she introduced us their dialects and the patterns of stress and intonation in their way of speaking. For instance, they say ‘Itadakimashita’ not ‘Gochisousamadeshita’ after meal. And as for the latter, I found the examples she gave us quite amusing. I am originally from Fukuoka and I have totally different patterns of stress and intonation. While living in Tokyo, I was trying to speak like a Tokyoite. But I have got back my original way of speaking since I left Tokyo 2 years ago. Haha…
As for one improvement point about Miyuki-san’s speech, I would like to suggest she put shorter speech title to attract audience’s attention and stir their imagination. In my humble opinion, I would put a title ‘Believe it or not, we…’ because she talked about surprising stories and fact we don’t know. Well, I am not sure the title is better than her original one, though. All in all, she wrapped up her speech well, and everyone must want to get to know Shizuoka people more.
If I had had more time in Evaluation Session, as her speech evaluator, I could have mentioned the suggestion above. I was LOQUACIOUS and was not qualified for voting. Oops!
The second speaker is one of the dedicated members Naoki-san! As VPE, he has always worked hard in good time well advance with Yukimasa-san to conduct each meeting smoothly. Thank you both!
His speech title is ‘Life is a journey, not a destination.’ I felt excited to get to know him more and expected to learn something important from him ;) In short, he succeeded beyond our expectations. It was an entertaining and enlightening speech.
For details, his speech evaluator Jota-san did a great job! He looked confident and expressed his thoughts and feelings about Naoki-san’s speech very clearly. He praised Naoki-san’s speech style with confident and modest. Also he mentioned an inspiring message from Naoki-san. We should feel thankful and blessed with life even though it is sometimes challenging for us. Another memorable message is that an ideal husband: wealthy, healthy, pleasant but not very present. I totally agree with his wife ;)
Joking aside, I wish I could make a speech and evaluate it like them ;) Pretty amazing!
Last but not least, we had Table Topic Session. The master is an experienced and excellent speaker, Bruce-san! He kindly prepared some creative questions with nice pictures. 6 people including guests had a chance to speak.
The questions are
#1 What was the scariest encounter in your life?
#2 What are popular things in spring.
#3 A Japanese firm has given non-smoking staff an extra six days holiday a year. What do you think of this idea?
#4 If you could have a 10-minute chat over coffee with a famous person,
who would you like to meet? And why?
#5 Spring symbolizes new beginnings. What else does spring mean to you?
#6 When shopping, do you prefer cash or credit card? Please explain why.
Each speaker answered each question with appropriate examples and explanations. All of them were loquacious and finished their speeches in the allotted time. Amazing! Personally I had several questions I couldn’t think of answers immediately. I learned a lot from every speaker as usual. Thanks million, everyone!
