Collaboration

Our meeting today was an excellent example of advance planning, collaboration, and leadership. As our Chair, Anil was proactive in ensuring that all the roles were filled. A week before the meeting, he sent out an email reaching out to our club and older guests asking for volunteers for unassigned roles. Our meeting began on time and we had new guests join us. Anil opened the meeting and talked about the importance of collaboration in our daily lives. I doubled up as the SAA and Grammarian.
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Sundeep is back from her vacation in Europe and she was smart to use her experience as a topic for her speech. Sundeep talked about her trip to Italy. Being a travel and food enthusiast myself, I am tempted to plan a trip, more so after seeing all the scenic images of Italy and the hearing about the Italian delicacies. You can watch her speech video here. I wish Sundeep also brought us back some pastries and chocolates! You know, it's all part of effective presentation skills! :P


Our Division Governor, Jerako, joined us as our second speaker. Jerako selected a speech on the Advanced Manual and it's always a pleasure to watch her speak. Katrina followed as the Table Topics master today. She shared two envelopes. One of them contained a list of activities and the other one contained name of famous people. We had to pick one item from each and share our thoughts if we want or did not want to share the activity with that person. I thought it an excellent idea for Table Topics and everyone seemed to have had fun with it. Even our guests participated! I had Dolly Parton as my famous person, but I didn't get a chance to speak. Oh well, maybe next time! But any activity would have been 'interesting' with Dolly! :)

As we get closer to the transition to the new Executive, I am excited to take up the role as the President. Today's meeting theme reminds me of the importance to collaborate and ensure successful team work. I am lucky to have an excellent team and I am excited to see what the new year brings to Meridian Toastmasters.

Summer Solstice

I have to admit at the very beginning that today was very interesting for me in a weird way. And that doesn't happen to me very often... Read along!

I am so happy to see our new members stepping up to leadership roles not just within our meeting, but also executive leadership. Pam, our newer member, stepped up to Chair the meeting today. She conducted herself with such aplomb and confidence that it didn't even seem like it was her second or third time chairing a toastmasters club meeting. Pam share information about the summer solstice that was smoothly continued by Karen during her Thought of the Day. Instead of repeating what Pam said, Karen added a personal story about her childhood and how her mother would ensure the kids went to bed by 9 pm, even though it wasn't dark yet! Karen is a long time  member of our club and its a always a delight to watch her speak. I noticed there was a slight twinkle in her eyes as she fondly shared memories from her childhood. See her speech here.
Then we started with the prepared speeches section of our meeting. This is where it got really interesting! One of our members, Marcia, is always amazing us with interesting speech topics. Marcia is just 2 speeches away from achieving the Competent Communicator designation. Today, she delivered speech #9, Persuade with Power. Her title was 'They do exist'. Marcia's used her speech to convince us about the existence of supernatural powers. She used the stage and her voice extremely well to illustrate her points. With the use of personal experiences as well as stories in Toronto, Marcia laid a strong foundation to prove her hypothesis. I could sense that everyone was paying attention. I have to admit that I was left fascinated and a bit scared, since most of her Toronto stories were about buildings in my neighbourhood!!!! I don't want to give away too much, so you see Marcia's speech here.

I have one more speech to complete to finish my Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB) designation. I decided to utilize the time today to deliver a speech from the Successful Club Series (SCS)  manual. I always encourage my fellow members to explore opportunities outside our home club, so I chose the same topic from the SCS to deliver a speech today. I have benefited a lot from stepping outside our home club. I've learned about leadership, developed my speaking abilities, dared myself to go beyond my comfort zone. And I wanted to make my fellow members aware of such opportunities as well, especially since we've had many new members. You can view my speech video here.

Another day, another successful meeting. Lessons learned and laughs shared. 

Canadian Weather

What an appropriate theme selected by our Chair, Afshan, for the meeting today. Are we back in time? Is it January again? Did we skip the entire summer and roller-coastered our way to wintery times again... I am so tired of this schizophrenic weather...!

Ahh... it feels good to rant about the weather in Canada. One of the many things I enjoy as a new Canadian... I guess I forgot to mention. Last week, I took an oath to be a Canadian citizen. I am sad to lose passport of my home country, India. But, I am also excited to be welcomed as part of the Canadian family. :)

Enough about me... let's get back to the Toastmasters meeting! Our 2 speakers cancelled, but would that deter Afhsan? Absolutely not! Anil and Afshan teamed up and found alternatives to fill up the time for prepared speeches. Afshan was calm, composed and confident as the meeting chair. We did have lesser attendance than usual. However, our members double up the energy and fill the room. I was tasked to present the Thought of the Day. Instead, I converted it into a trivia of facts about Canadian weather. See my talk here. Anil showed up the video of a contestant at the 2013 World Champion ship of Public Speaking. I am always inspired to watch advanced speakers and secretly jot down tips for improving my speaking abilities! I am glad Anil shared the video with us. To add a twist, Karen suggest that we all put on the Evaluator hat and share our evaluation at the end. All our members provided valuable tips. You can view the group evaluation here. It was nice to see Terry after a long time! He was 'voluntold' to be the General Evaluator (GE) at the last minute. Pam added an interesting layer to the role of the Grammarian. She noted and shared interesting uses of the English language she observed during the meeting. Another successful meeting today, looking forward to the next one!