Our last meeting in 2021 had a wide variety of topics for prepared speeches from the importance of compliance to different types of leadership to anger management. Among them, a speech by a Kenyan researcher titled "Lead A Ship" caught everyone's attention. Another speech by "Ms. Everywhere" sounded like an election speech for the club president position.
In Table Topics, the impromptu speech session, topics varied from the reflection on the past year to plans for the holiday season to some things hypothetical. Evaluators gave their honest and sincere suggestions based on their observations. Not very commonly found in other Toastmasters clubs is the extent of our functionary reports and the general evaluation. In Toastmasters, there are typically two functionary role takers, Ah-Counter and Grammarian, who give their reports toward the end of the meetings followed by the general evaluation by the General Evaluator. We at Shin-Osaka Leaders, value this session and allocate more time than in other clubs. This time, these three members spent a collective 15 minutes detailing their observations and suggestions. This means that both Ah-Counter and Grammarian spoke for a combined 7, 8 minutes. Naturally, this requires attentive listening because they need specific examples to share in order to keep talking about something meaningful.
Last but not least, let us share a comment by Yuki, "Kohei and Eileen logged in early to accommodate guests, and after the meeting, they stayed for the guest guidance. I was there just because I was a zoom master and in the conversation. Both of them explained very well what our club is and how all the members can grow in this club. Also, they made her feel at home having a casual conversation and asking her some easy questions. I admire the way they welcomed the guest. Eileen raised her hand when Topicmaster asked the members if anyone can fill in the timer's role for Chiemi to speak as a table topic speaker. I think it was wonderful Eileen tried to help her, even though she hasn't had the experience as Timer in the regular meeting before. It would take some courage, so I found it a beautiful gesture. I felt so happy to see Seiji and his smile for the first time in a while. I always find it really helpful Hideo pays close attention to our grammar/ pronunciation. I especially appreciated it when he pointed out my intonation mistakes. It's something we merely can receive from others in daily conversation. Thank you so much." Yuki clearly demonstrated how serious we are about getting better ourselves and helping our fellow members get better.
If you're interested in reading a summary of the meeting in Japanese, you might want to visit our Facebook Page here.
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