At the dawn of a new era, Yukimasa-san were already excited about next meeting. He sent every member an e-mail: Thank you for joining the meeting last night and it was another fun time to have a meeting together on the very first day of Reiwa. I will serve you as the Toastmaster of the evening next time and please let me set the theme as "New Era".What do you think about? Reiwa? Or baseball caps?
Happy New Era🎉🎉🎉Let’s hope this era to be the best
!
Firstly, in the small talk session, the members shared their recent news. Some members talked about playing golf, their local climate, 'Kondo-ing' her room, Golden Week travels, Mother’s Day, and new experiences like introducing Japanese culture at her daughter’s school in Thailand and a weekly English café at Starbuck in Okinawa. (I envy her!) Other members mentioned their attending the District speech contest. There they happily met each other in person(off-line) and…proudly to say, Marama-san became the champion! Woo-hoo🎊🎊🎊
Now let me introduce our meeting helpers tonight. Word of the day was Paul-san! He introduced the word Empower as a verb. It means to give someone official authority or the freedom to do something and to encourage and support the ability to do something. Paul-san suddenly asked Drian to try to give an example of empower, and he managed it well. Then Paul-san gave another one: We empower our sales staff to make decisions without always having to consult their supervisor.
As for timer, LanAnh-san! She has kindly shard an effective way of conducting the role before. Well done as always!
And Grammarian was Kazuko-san! She was listening to all the speakers attentively during the whole meeting and gave us the details of effective advice. Amazing!
Ah-counter was Mikiko-san! She also did a great job in counting how many each speaker used filler words.
Now let’s go our main speech sessions. Firstly, we had 2 prepared speakers tonight.
The first speaker was Hideo-san! His speech title was “Message for the 65th anniversary of Fukuoka Toastmasters club.”from Public Relations the radio talk show! What a unique speech! Hideo-san appeared on a radio program hosted by Midori-san. His speech objectives are to present a positive image of the company or organization; to build goodwill toward the company by presenting factual information; to be prepared for questions that may be asked during the radio interview.
He first described about his offline club, Fukuoka Toastmasters Club. The co-founders Toastmaster Usui and Toastmaster Tadokoro inspired to launch the first Toastmasters club in Kyusyu and supported many clubs to start. Then he said each club had its own culture of having a unique session to give some examples. Again, he talked about Fukuoka TMC, which consists of 33 members now including ones from 7 different nationalities.
Next, it was Midori-san’s turn. She asked him some questions as a host. They were what TMC is like; how many clubs and members in Japan? It was such an interesting show!
The second speaker was Drian! He attended our meeting as a special guest speaker. His speech was the 2nd attempt from Pathways. His speech title was “Drian Von Golden. com.” First off, the title was cool enough to draw the audience’s attention. He passionately talked about why he built his own website, not depending on the current tools like You Tube or LinkedIn. He also mentioned free speech in the latter half of his speech. In the end, he said, “Come on and check it out.” Right after the meeting was over, I actually did check it out😉 I’m pretty sure that you are going to like it and eager to learn from him.
https://www.drianvongolden.com/?fbclid=IwAR0I1RLWRO25rGiTkAMQ5gNvsO1BQVKTw7TFU-7GjNCqCQrhVye7VdG1CDk
Next session was Table topic session conducted by Takako-san! The Table Topic Session theme is the same as the meeting theme.
#1 What is the most memorable event in Heisei Era?
Hideki-san joined a company the first year of Heisei. He described about his gained weight. So, he made a resolution for the new era that he would lose his weight.
#2 What is your new era’s resolution?
Kazuko-san doesn’t make any resolutions though she used to make one. She said she has given it up easily before. Instead, she made a decision to do my best every day especially in running marathon and doing business. She runs a language school in Okayama, which is very famous in her city. As for the latter example, she was inspired by Takako-san’s son, who has run daily since last year. Amazing!
#3 Which do you prefer, the imperial era system like Heisei, or the western calendar system like 2019? (“In Japan, years are numbered according to the emperor's tenure on the throne.”)
Megumi-san is not so good at with the imperial era name. It’s difficult for even many Japanese people including Megumi-san to use the imperial era system. She shared her personal bitter experience at work. But this may be a happy news for her. According to a TV program I watched, since Reiwa can be read as 018 in number in Japanese, you should add 18 to the imperial era name Reiwa in order to convert to the western calender. For instance, the 1st year of Reiwa is (１＋１８＝) 2019. Don’t you think it’s useful?!
#4 What would the world be like in the new era?
Yumi-san thought the era would be for young people in this global society. She said there is no boundaries between nations, which means you can learn something as long as you can get access to the internet. She described the time when she happened to meet Thai young people who are good speakers of Japanese at an event in Thailand. They learned the language via internet.
#5 Do you think the imperial system will continue?
Mikiko-san said yes! Most Japanese love it, she believes. It’s kind of history and we can learn a lot of things from Japan’s first Emperor to the reigning emperor. Hopefully, it should be kept to represent Japan.
#6 Tell us what you could not do in Heisei Ear bur you would like to do in Reiwa era
To me, when my kids are old enough to take care of themselves in some years, I would love to be a full-time teacher again.
Before going on to the next main session, I would introduce the winners for this session tonight. Yes! The winners were Kazuko-san and Yumi-san! Congratulations!!
Lastly, General Evaluator Yuki-san conducted evaluation session. There were 2 evaluators. And …the winner was Marama-san! Congratulations!!
After all the sessions were over, we had a special session. Welcome Marama-san with a big hand👏 She shared her experiences as the 2 consecutive year championship. Another brilliant speech!
The new era Reiwa has just begun. As said in its name, may our diversified society always be in beautiful harmony.