A lot of unexpected things taken care of beautifully
This was a weird meeting with a lot of unexpected things happening. First, one of the functionary role takers found out that he had to miss the meeting and a substitute was arranged. Then, one of the prepared speakers came to a conclusion that she was too busy to prepare a speech. Then, she did something amazing. She contacted one of her fellow members to arrange her own substitute. She informed the Toastmaster of the Day, General Evaluator, her evaluator, Vice President Education, and everybody involved. Wow! Everything looked great.
On the meeting day, however, two prepared speakers notified the leaders of the meeting that they cannot make it to the meeting. A very unusual turn of events. All this was taken care of the Toastmaster of the Day and General Evaluator. As a result, the meeting had only one prepared speaker and two evaluators, one evaluating the prepared speaker and the other evaluating the first evaluator. Well, this had been arranged accordingly. What was creative about the last-minute arrangement was that we had a hefty 30-minute Table Topics session and an assignment of a Table Topics Evaluator. This is a very rare role. Indeed, we only assigned members to this role only twice before back in 2021.
What set Shin-Osaka Leaders apart is that the Vice Presdent Education, who would normally be forced to be on the front line of those last-minute adjustments, DID NOTHING about making these arrangement. Not that he is lazy. He could have taken care of it without a problem if he had had to. He didn't do anything because he didn't have to. Everything was arranged by the Toastmaster of the Day and General Evaluator with every member's cooperation. Mariko, originally assinged to be an evaluator took on the challenge of serving as the Table Topics Evaluator. Maya, the Topicsmaster, prepared a bunch of additional Table Topics items. Hideo accepted the challenge of start his evaluation speech right after he listened to Luting's evaluation speech. (We usually have two evaluation speeches in between so that the evaluator's evaluator has some time to put together their thoughs.)
Ideal meeting
In that respect, this can be referred to as one of our ideal meeting. First of all, the Toastmaster of the Day and General Evaluator fulfilled their role in making the last-minute adjustments, which is envisioned by Toastmasters International. They showed their leadership quality to the fullest. They made quick decisions, communicated the changes to the parties involved in a flash, and implemented the change surprisingly well.
Another reason is that every member involved accepted the changes in their assignment positively. The one who deserves a special attention is Maya. Not only did she prepare additional topics at short notice, she showed up to the stage with her signature smile, changing the entire atmosphere of the meeting with her light-hearted tone of voice. Her topics elicited humorous Table Topics speeches and we all laughed out loud the entire session.
Last but not least, it needs to be mentioned that the Toastmaster of the Day, Ayako, was serving in the role for the very first time in her life! Though at times she seemed to be slightly nervous, she exhibited her flexibility to the sudden change. Congratulations, Ayako, for making an unusually thrilling debut as the Toastmaster of the Day!!
While it was unfortunate that we missed those two speeches today, we were actually fortunate to witness how mature the club has grown, made possible by the growth of each and every member.