Ginza! October 22th, 2017

1. Introduction It would be another wonderful afternoon of prepared speech and workshops on 4th Sunday 22th October at Tsukishima where Ginza would have their latest regular meeting. Our last meeting, 22th October meeting, however, was cancelled due to severe typhoon. We will come back again in November.

2. Planned Agenda on 22th October Below was our planned agenda. We would have table topics, speeches and workshops. TM Eva would be Toastmaster and there would be eight (8) Guests, including TM Ayumi Nakamura, TM Emily Zhang, TM Hide Yatabe, TM Hiromi Aoyama, TM Maki Matsumoto, TM Rio Yamanouchi, TM Takako Shibata, and TM Tomoaki Uchiki. We would be pleased to have Induction Ceremony for TM Rieko Sugar Sato. Ginza TMC would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your cooperation. We will come back again in November!

Table Topics Master: TM Takako Shibata 1st Speaker: TM Yukimasa Matsuda "Let's get online!" 2nd Speaker: TM Rio Yamanouchi "A great Canadian Summer program" 3rd Speaker: TM Ayumi Nakamura "Minority Support" 1st Workshop speaker: TM Paul Malone 2nd Workshop speaker: TM Drian Von-Golden

3. The Importance of Eye Contact We want to talk about the art of eye contact. When we speak, eye contact is truly a powerful tool for connecting with the audience. But why does making eye contact with the audience have such effect in changing their perception of you? There are two main reasons:

Eye contact creates an intimate bond: Firstly, the audience we make eye contact with will feel that we talk to them personally. They will feel valued. Eventually, they will turn their attention and value our words. Eye contact is a very efficient way to get people on board.

Control nervousness: Secondly, eye contact with the audience will help relieve nervousness. We come to stage and stand, alone before a group. We feel alienated. However, the more eye contact we will make, the more eye contact we will get, and we feel interacted and feel part of the group.

How to improve the quality of our eye contact? One tip is that speaking to the entire audience works. If we have no idea what to do with our eyes, we can at least look between two persons sitting in the middle of the room. We should alternatively forget talking to our notes or to the ceiling.

We can consider what to do with our eyes when we observe what other speakers do when we are audience. Once on stage, we should not to put too much in our mind with advice however. If we are well rehearsed, we should trust we will do the right things.

Good Luck to your speeches!

4. Next meeting The next meeting will take place at, on 4th Sunday, 26th November, at 14:00. Come over to practice your public speaking skills and enjoy the meeting!