The rainy season began in late May in Fukuoka. Too early. Like rainfall in this season, certain matters have continued for a long time period, which made me exhausted and even lethargic…Under such circumstances, I wondered if I was attending the next Diversity club meeting. I checked the agenda online anyway. And I couldn’t help smiling. Jota-san, as Toastmaster of the Meeting saw right through me. He had set the meeting theme “Be present.”
But the theme actually carried a profound meaning. Prior to the meeting, he sent an e-mail to all members about the theme because the time schedule might be tight. Let me share his explanation in it.
“Background – The word of Diversity is lovely name to me, it is one of reasons to be a member of Diversity TMC. And, another vital word is ‘Inclusion’. Before we begin our meeting in my company, we agree on a few simple but important concepts of inclusion by showing the slide of “be present”. Followings are simplified explanation, but I think they will work for our Diversity TMC meeting.
Seek: thinking, exploring new ideas and promoting improvement
Share: not be afraid to speak up
Listen: acquire information, identify and clarify issues
Champion: We will encourage group input and open communication.”
Wow. What a thought-provoking description. I was impressed with his sincere and positive attitude toward the club activities as well.
Now let’s go on to the meeting contents. Today we had…
20 attendees (14 members + 6 special guests including All-Japan speech contest Champion)
from Kanto, Tokai, Kansai, Shikoku, Kyushu, Hong Kong, and Vietnam
・Word of the Day : opulent ( introduced Mikiko-san)
It means rich and superior in quality.
The usage examples are: opulent family. Their opulent lifestyle includes flying by private jet.
The best users: Drian
・Timer : Yukari-san (That was her first time to take Timer role. She did a good job!)
・Best prepared speaker : TM Drian
・Best Table Topic Speaker : TM Marama (All-Japan English speech contest champion)
・Best Evaluator : TM Naoki
Firstly, in the small talk session, some members shared their family member’s stories and others were in charge of other Toastmasters club activities. As a division director, Yukimasa-san was in preparation for the club officers training this month. Kazuko-san contributed to Kurashiki Toastmasters club to be chartered. Jota-san was Table Topic Master at another club meeting and used idioms and sayings as Table Topic questions like Mikiko-san successfully did for our club meeting last time. Naoki-san, welcome back to Japan from Cambodia! Now he is supposed to work in Okinawa, still he is likely to manage to maintain an area director role for Toastmasters. Aaron was attending another Toastmasters meeting in Hong Kong just before joining us online. What amazed me most was a small talk from Drian. He gave his PechaKucha presentation for the first time. It had 20 slides for each 20 second period. While those slides were playing one after another, he spoke along them. Seeing is believing. You can watch his fabulous presentation.
https://www.pechakucha.org/cities/tokyo/presentations/perfect-powder-blue-skies
Next, let me describe our prepared speech session. The first speaker was Miyuki-san! Her speech title was “Let’s Action?” What?! Her speech title drew our attention like Takako-san pointed out as her evaluator. Well, the phrase was written in her T-shirt when she wore as a student. She pointed out it was hard to find items written in proper English sold in Japan, introducing other phrases she had found before. In addition, she shared another experience of having heard it strange, which was English announcements at her gym. To get things in perspective, she gave us the opposite situations. For example, she saw a guy wearing a T-shirt that had 2 Kanji characters with a phrase in English: 冷奴a cool guy. As you know, 冷奴 means a cold Tofu. Hilarious! In the end, she gave us a suggestion. We should be more sensitive to those errors and more willing to correct them as citizens who are more familiar in English than many of our neighbors.
The second prepared speaker is Aaron-san! His speech title was “Reflect on your 4th path:)” However, to our great disappointment, we couldn’t catch a word due to some technical problem. It was nice and wise of Naoki-san as his speech evaluator to have asked Aaron-san to send the work book to understand the speech objective by email beforehand. He evaluated his speech brilliantly from the 3 points of views: matter, manner, and method. No wonder he was chosen to be the best evaluator.
The third prepared speaker is Drian! His speech title was “Turn off that TV!” He started his speech, saying “Time, time, time! There is never enough time, is there?” Then he quoted a famous rule: it takes 10000 hours to become an expert in anything. He insisted that once you are trying to be relaxed with TV, you get hypnotized quickly. Watching TV is a waste of time. His wide variety of experiences as a writer, a musician, and an actor convinced us how precious time really is and we had better rethink how to use it effectively. I agreed with him to some extent. I can’t resist watching my favorite comedy show on TV, though ;)
Lastly, it’s time to have our Table Topic Session! (Impromptu speech session) Yuki-san was Table Topic Master. She prepared 8 questions and asked us to share our travel stories. She herself went on a trip to Macao and Hong Kong. Seeing Aaron-san there made her stay more enjoyable. She prepared 8 questions and 3 participants had a chance to speak because we were running out of time.
-What was the most impressive event during your travel?
I talked about attending a high school reunion in the US. One of my American friends invited me to her high school reunion in Missouri. At first, she took me to her friend, who was a butcher. He showed me a stack of pigs in the freezer! They were ready to dedicate to us... Then all of us headed for the venue, which was not an opulent hotel but a spacious barn! There were a lot of American people including a real cowboy! We used chairs and tables made of hay! The last thing I got almost fainted was seeing one of those pigs tied with a pole upside down and grilled to a frizzle. I don’t care for meat but I managed to take a bite. It was yummy!
-Where is the most recommended place for you to go on a trip?
Megumi-san recommends us to visit Bolivia. One of the most beautiful spots is called Salar de Uyuni , the world's largest salt flat. According to a website, in the dry season this will be a hallucinogenic white landscape. In the rain it is mostly submerged and will show a perfect reflection of the sky. Megumi-san was overwhelmed with the reflection. It took her more than 24 hours to get there!! It must have been worth seeing it. (By the way, she was holding her baby in her arm during her speech. He was attentive to her, even courtly ;)
-What was the most impressive cuisine you have eaten during your travel?
When Marama-san came to Fukuoka for the first time, she didn’t even try local food like ramen. She didn’t even go to Yatai (Food stands) Instead she found an English pub and had fish and chips with some drink there. She missed British Food. On another day she had a Mexican food. Oh. IMHO, she should have just tried our authentic tasty cuisine… Here’s a breaking news from Mikiko-san! A British pub will open in her town Tokushima;) I’m happy for her!
After our fruitful meeting was over, I realized I had a blast again. Thanks to everyone, I had made the right decision to be present at the meeting. Gracious!
