Creative Table Topics Session
The Table Topics Session this time was creative. The Topicsmaster, the facilitator of the session, was Miyu, who served in this role for the very first time, and she brought with her an interesting twist to the session.
Normally, topics for the Table Topics Session take the form of a question. "What is your best memory of eating out?" "When would you go if you had a time machine and what would you do?" "Where in Osaka would you like to take your friends from overseas?" This time, though, Miyu made us act as a sales representative and try to sell a product to her. She gave a regular price range for that type of product and had us price our product and give reasons why she should buy that product. It required a lot of imagination and we all had fun. At timees, we are asked to answer unexpected questions in life. That is one of the reasons we have the Table Topics Session in our meeting. The topics Miyu prepared this time served the purpose beautifully. Thanks!!
(An evaluator delivering an evaluation speech at the venue. Shin-Osaka Leaders is dedicated to providing opportunities to practice both online and in-person presentation, which are two totally different businesses.)
An important decision
We had a shorter education portion of the meeting because we had an important decision to make at the Business Session. This is when we discuss important things about the club management and this time we discussed revising the membership dues for inactive members. Thouhg it has not been explained on this website, all Toastmasters clubs have a memberhip category called "Inactive individual member." An inactive individual member stays with Toastmasters International and the club, but takes a long leave of absense from club meetings mostly because they are too busy to attend meetings. They are not entitled to make a speech or take roles in the meetings unless they are so asked by the club President or Toastmaster of the Day, the facilitator of the education portion of the meeting. The dues for those have been set at 5,000 yen, but due to the recent depreciation of the yen, that does not cover the membership dues of Toastmaters International. That's why we discussed increasing the dues to 9,000, the equivalent to that of an "active Individual member." What's the point of turning inactive if you have to pay the same amount and give up part of your privillages as a member?," you may ask. That is the very reason this change was proposed. You can look at this from another perspective. If a member is too busy to attend meeitngs, what's the point of paying a reduced membership, which only allows you access to the educational material? The very exisitance of the "inactive individual member" is in question. It would help the member stay psychologically attached to the club and its members, but that's all it does. Plus, we have virtually never heard of anyone coming back to active status after turning inactive. The decision itself, therefore, does not really matter much, but the fact that we invite all members to the discussion because that's how a Toastmaters club should be managed, by all the members.
