Elan Toastmasters Meeting # 152

Meeting # 152: Elan Toastmasters was special in many ways. The meeting was a heady cocktail of masterful emceeing, sterling speeches and dazzling evaluations.

SAA TM Braja opened the meeting and President TM Sudha welcomed the guests. Then, DTM Alfred, the Toastmaster of the day, had the ball rolling with the theme as Football World cup. We were treated to interesting tidbits about football, how a football team can be compared with a toastmaster club and how important team work is in both cases.

Then TM Manish spoke about the 10 heads - The five that criticize him and the 5 that enthuse him in all his endeavors. Vocal variety was at its best display. Each of the heads was represented by a character that spoke in its own style. I would say, TM Manish really hit the nail in the head by telling us that we should silence all our critics and just get it done.

The TM Padma told a priceless story about a salesman. He completely engaged the audience by painting a picture of the scene and with the right mix of emotions, gestures and flawless delivery, he mesmerized us. We understood what the basic ingredients are to become a successful sales man.

We then had some interesting games organized by Alfred which was quite innovative and had the audience rolling on the floor laughing.

This was followed with a good table topics session led by TM Pranay.

The evaluation were as superb as the speeches. Both the evaluators TM Naqi and TM Shashank were spot on with their analysis and provided specific and helpful suggestions. Thanks to the GE TM Vijay and all other role players TM Sharath, TM Sreekanth, TM Braja, TM Aravind and TM Veera for taking up the roles.

We also witnessed a change of guard, wherein the ex President conducted the installation ceremony for the new EC.The new president TM Sudha gave the presidential address and all members took oath to serve and support the club and its members.

This meeting was unique in at least 3 ways:

• This was a meeting where in one TM won 3 ribbons. TM Naqi won the Best Table Topics Speaker, Best Evaluator and Best Listener award.
• In this meeting there were 4 speakers who did not have a single filler word: TM Naqi, TM Manish, TM Padma and TM Sudha.
• The meeting CLOSED with Samosa and colddrinks!

 Hope you all enjoyed this.