Toastmaster Meeting 16th August 23
Starting at 21:00 Asia/Tokyo
Meeting Number 140
Meeting Theme: Variety is the Spice of Life.
Venue Online Club ; ZOOM online meeting schedule is here,
12 attendees ( including 3 honorable guests )
Toastmaster of the Day: Kimiko-san
Word of the Day: immensely
Ta-dah! Since its inception, we had a special meeting called Open House for the first time. (Yoichi-san, thanks again for creating that neat flyer as a representative of our club!) Whoever is interested in our club was more than welcome to join :) We were so happy to have all the wonderful guests. Many thanks! As the meeting theme goes, we had a wider variety of backgrounds such as different prefectures and nationalities. Quite interesting! Kimiko-san suggested we embrace difference and enjoy it. I can’t agree with her more.
Now let’s get started with the small talk session! Well, though we call the very first session ‘small talk’, most speakers are always well-prepared by sharing some slides to make their small talk more colorful with the audience. One of the most intriguing small talk tonight was done by Aki-san.
Here are a couple of slides she made.
Wow. I have a sweet tooth, and I wonder what the Jomon sweets taste like while listening to her talk ;)
Oh, other talks were very interesting too. A couple of members from Tokishima can’t spend summer without their season feature: Awa-odori dance. Due to the typhoon this summer, they got affected to some extent, but on the first day more than 100! participants had a blast at the dance festival including international students. I want to see the members dancing with joy in person there.
I’m happy to hear other members also enjoyed their summer holiday season… Me? Not yet. I was quite busy working both at work and home. But finally tomorrow is my day off. Yeah! I’m going to be like a sloth. haha…
Let me go back to the next session, Thoughts for the day! Oops! Where is the speaker in charge tonight? He must have had unstable internet connection. It was a great pity, but we look forward to listening to your thought-provoking, inspiring, or anything you would like to talk about, Mr.!
Gosh, another internet connection problem she had! Besides, she suddenly disappeared on the screen just before Joke Master session. It must have been joking?! Joking aside, let’s save the best for the next meeting ;)
Next, main session: 2 prepared speeches tonight! The 1st Speaker was Kazuko-san! Her speech title was Visu the Woodsman and the Old Priest. The objective is to present an established story, a story about the speaker's life, or a fictional tale of the speaker's own creation.
If you search the Japanese folklore, you can watch it on YouTube. But her speech delivery always strikes us. Without any audio visual aids, just listening to her speech tonight let us imagine what each scene is like. All of us got absorbed in her narrative. Amazingly done as always, Kazuko-san!
Next competitive speaker was Yuki-san! Her speech title is 'Is it really sustainable?' The objective is to present a speech describing any topic in detail. She started her speech with a shocking photo.
It showed Aso covered with countless solar panels. I was at a loss to see because all I knew about Aso was splendid greenery scene I can appreciate especially in summer. They have both advantages and disadvantages: for the latter, for example, how can they be disposed in 25-30 years, when they reach the end of their lifespan even though it has some toxic substances.
In conclusion, Yuki-san emphasized how important it is to search for the truth. It was enlightening and educational speech, indeed.
Although I assume the evaluators may have some difficulty evaluating excellent prepared speeches above, they did wonderful job!
Another exciting session was Table Topics conducted Mikiko san! She prepared 8 questions prior to the meeting. All of them are challenging to me, but we had a lot of fun :)
Just let me give you a few examples: 'What’s your favorite way to waste time in summer?' ; 'If you could describe summer in 3 words, what would they be?' ; 'If you could choose any famous person to have dinner with, who would they be? And what sort of meal would you have for dinner?' I wonder how she could create such questions ;)
Although we didn’t have a chance to ask guests what their impressions was about our meeting due to lack of time, I’m happy to say we enjoyed ourselves immensely ;) Because….a guest kindly gave messages for us like this: What an awesome club meeting last night!! (8/16) I enjoyed the meeting so so much. The atmosphere there was amazing. I love it. When I get a chance to go, I will join Diversity meeting online again. Keep in touch. I will send you a message for my visiting. Thank you again for the impressive meeting with lots of smiles. Have a sweet night.
We are looking forward to seeing you again!
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