Woohoo! We celebrated 1st anniversary. First and foremost, I would like to thank our president Yukimasa-san from the bottom of my heart, who did everything to launch our club in no time. He knew some people like me who have difficulty attending “off-line” club meeting due to some constraints. He did set up an online club for not himself but for others. He saved my Toastmasters life;) On top of that, I also appreciate each and every member’s dedication to our club activities. Who would have thought we Diversity has become such a prosperous club? Thanks a million, everyone!
Today we had……
22 attendees including 4 wonderful guests
Word of the Day: perception means an awareness of things through physical senses, especially sight & the way someone notices or understands things.
e.g.) a person of keen perception
I found the perception gaps between the 2 generations.
Yumi-san introduced this word based on her personal experience.
Timer: Hideki-san
He showed each allocated time via chat function so that everyone could check if they want.
Grammarian: Midori-san
Sounds like we didn’t make any big grammatical mistakes. She touched upon some useful phrases from speakers. She also pointed out Yuki-san didn’t say any fillers such as ah and well.
The best prepared speaker: Mikiko-san
The best evaluator: Megumi-san
Now let’s start the prepared speech session!
The first speaker is Yuki-san! She has showcased her musical talents several times in her speeches. Her speech today focuses on researching and preparing an unfamiliar topic. The time allocation is 5 to 7 minutes.
The title is “Are you stressful?”. As Aaron-san pointed out, she chose the good title because stress is relevant to everyone. After she talked about her own stresses, she introduced “mindfulness”. It is the psychological process of bringing one's attention to experiences occurring in the present moment, which one can develop through the practice of meditation and through other training. Then she let us do imagine a white bear under any circumstance we like. After that, she explained us the details how to do meditation, showing the sitting position with a several pictures. Quite intriguing! I love tennis for not only fun but also stress-reliver, but I am going to try again what I learned from her.
The next speaker is Mikiko-san! She is another experienced TM from Tokushima. I was impressed with her evaluation at the previous meeting. Today she delivered the speech following the project “Conquering the Cold Call” from the manual Persuasive Speaking. The definition of Cold Call is an activity of calling or visiting a possible customer to try to sell an expensive product or service. She tried to sell a used mini bus to a taxi firm owner. The time allocation is 10 to 14 minutes. The title is “Selling a used mini bus!” Over 10-minute persuasive speech! Wow! Sounds tough for me, but she did a fabulous job, indeed. Without looking at any note, she convinced us what she was trying to sell deserved buying with a charming smile on her face. She could be the best salesperson of the year in the industry;)
Third speaker is LanAnh-san! She attended the meeting in Vietnam. Today she made the second speech from Competent Communication manual. The main point is speech organization. The time allocation is 5-7 minutes. The speech title is “Memory remains”. It made me have warm and fuzzy feelings. She quoted beautiful lyrics with iambic rhythm in the introduction part. Lovely. She shared her old and sweet memories with us. She was shy and didn’t tell her true feelings to someone she loved, comparing with her friend. I was once in the similar situation and I knew how she felt. She wrapped up speech with another lyric beautifully.
Next, unlike the ordinary session, we had an induction ceremony today to mark another wonderful start of our club. This section was conducted by our VPM TM Yuki-san. In advance, she made helpful suggestion for the ceremony procedure. We adopted it, and each new or reinstated member including me gave 1-minute speech respectively. They mainly talked about why they joined Toastmasters, what their impressions are, and their future goals as a Toastmaster. In the end, we all together picked up Yuki-san’s lead by reading aloud “A Toastmaster’s Promise”
Lastly, we had the evaluation session conducted well by Takako-san. We could enjoy and learn a lot from evaluators’ suggestion. Every time I listen to evaluations, I’m surprised to find a new perception, which is intriguing and wonderful. Great evaluations as always!
To tell the truth, I have suffered from headache and I wondered if I could conduct the meeting as Toastmaster. But I hardly felt the pain during the meeting because everyone gave me the impression that they had a very good time in a friendly atmosphere. Thank you very much for giving me the great opportunity as Toastmaster on this special occasion. I have had another wonderful memory to share with you. Kudos to our prosperous and promising club DIVERSITY.