April Fool's Day

Geofferey Chen almost fooled us all today with his April Fool's Day prank! What a smart way to set the tone of the meeting! In case the members were feeling a little lost about the theme, Dragana talked about the history behind April Fool's Day and shared one of the classic pranks by Burger King. You can listen to her Thought of the Day here.



Pam, our first speaker, is quickly progressing on the Competent Communicator (CC) ladder. She completed her third project by talking about 10 reasons why we should sign up to be AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) members. Her passion about art was visible during her speech. Click here to see Pam's speech. I am considering sending it to AGO to see how they feel. I'll update our readers if anything comes out of it. Afshan, our second speaker, is close to finishing her CC manual. Afshan shared a lot of information about the characteristics of different generations. With such a diverse age range of our member base, I am confident all audience members found the information very valuable. At the end of the talk, Afshan left us with handouts with more comparative info about each generation. See Afshan's speech here.
As the Table Topics Master for today's meeting, I was inspired by the theme and decided to put my own spin to it. We converted our club meeting room to a newsroom and our members were news correspondents. Each of the members were asked to report on a news item, which is 'odd' but still true. You can see our Table Topics session here.
Christine conducted the General Evaluation section She used the sandwich style approach and offered useful tips to improve our roles. Christine also reminded us about the upcoming Elections and the importance of serving on the Executive Team. Keep reading to find out how we conduct our Elections!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Q. Why don't you iron the 4-leaf clover?
(see answer at the the end of of this article...)

Sundeep, our Chair for the meeting, chose an appropriate theme for the meeting today! We had a small crew at the meeting, but that didn't dampen our moods. Sundeep took control and started the meeting on time. Sundeep shared facts about the origin of St. Patrick's Day and Wendy informed us about the significance of the color 'green'. See her Thought of the Day here. I was the only speaker listed today, which worked out well since my speech was 12-15 min long. I completed the final project of my Interpretive Reading manual by delivering a 12-15 min Play. I chose a segment from the book 'What was She Thinking?' by Zoe Heller. The book was also release as a movie in 2006 where Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett portrayed the characters, Barbara and Sheba, respectively. I chose the segment from the book where Sheba invites Barbara for a casual Sunday lunch with her family. The segment touches upon how a casual invite takes unprecedented significance in Barbara's life as a single woman with no friends. The choice of words in certain passages is ever so haunting. I encourage you to watch the movie as well. Judi has done an incredible job at portraying the character of Barbara.
Though I've completed my Interpretive Reading manual, I feel I haven't done justice to this last project. I felt it became more of a Monologue than a Play. Maybe a segment from one of the classic plays might have been more relevant to the project. Oh well, I might re-do this project at another time! This particular manual has been quite exciting. See my speech here.
Pam concluded the meeting as the first time General Evaluator. I like how she opened her role by saying that her goal is to give power to what we have done well and feedback on how we can improve. She is also the Chair of the meeting next week. Hope to see another full house!

Oh.. and I almost forgot... Here's the answer to the question above --

Q. Why don't you iron the 4-leaf clover?
A. Because you don't want to press your luck!
(Courtesy: Sundeep, our Chair!)

Freedom of Speech

We were back to a 'full' meeting today and I was glad to be be Chair for the day. I selected the theme about 'Freedom of Speech'. I was moved, shocked, terrified and embarrassed by a recent documentary released by BBC, India's Daughter. It displays the horrific rape culture prevalent in India. The Government of India imposed a ban on the documentary stating the reason that it portrays a negative image of India. While that it true, but the image displayed by the documentary is not far from reality. This, along with the recent killings of Charlie Hebdo, inspired me to begin the meeting by talking about the right to freedom of speech.
We had a few last minute role switches, but our members gladly stepped up. Makes my job very easy! We are now 25 member strong!!! Woohoo....!
Jefferey Zhao was our first speaker. He completed Project #3 from his CC manual and talked about the importance of maintaining a calendar Jefferey has a subtle way of introducing humor in his speeches. You can watch his video here.
Our second speaker, also the President of the club, was Geoffery Chen who is working on his Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) designation. Read more about Communication Tracks here. Geoffrey presented an entertaining speech about 'Kill the K-Cup' and the shared valuable information about the harmful effects of the K-cups.
You can watch his speech video here.

Marcia, our TT master, embraced the meeting theme and added her own creative spin to it. She encouraged the members to voice their uninhibited opinion about topics such as TTC, Justin Bieber, Mayor Rob Ford, etc.! All members participated with much enthusiasm. Tie Feng, our General Evaluator (GE), offered his feedback and supportive statements to improve our meeting structure. The Area 5 Spring Contests are scheduled for tomorrow evening. Wish us luck!