Minutes of meeting, October 16th 2014

Venkat opened the session of 16th October with a joke about a beggar who donates a cookbook to the person who offered him alms. We had 2 visiting guests at our club this week:  Jeff and Chris. Dilip presided over the meeting and shone his thoughts of wisdom as a seasoned Toastmaster (TM), time and again . He was also the humorist of the day and spoke about a kid who got better at math when he joined a school which had a man nailed to a cross in its campus. Not knowing who was nailed to the cross, the kid thought it was a punishment for not doing well in math and bucked up his math scores. The theme of the day was 'Excel and motivate' and true to its meaning, the session was definitely motivating.

(Dilip adorns the podium as he brings the meeting to a start in the pic below)

Praveen was the toastmaster of the day. Praveen, though fairly new to this role,  was remarkable as a TM  (in pic below behind the podium) as he displayed a natural ability to tie up various segments of the meeting with his intelligent and appropriate comments.The word of the day was inquisitor which means an excessively harsh questioner. Most, but not all of the speakers managed to use this term. 

Bhoomaiah was speaker#1. His topic was from the special occasion speeches manual. He was supposed to talk about what he would say in his acceptance speech for the Distinguished Toastmaster award. He met all the speech requirements for the speech as he covered the key points of growth he had achieved by using the tried and tested techniques of public speaking e.g., storytelling, sandwich method of speech evaluation/feedback, making difficult conversations. etc prescribed in Toastmaster workshops. He was evaluated by Bharti who provided a comprehensive and detailed evaluation of the functional value of Bhoomaiah's speech. 

Vidya was speaker#2 and she spoke on "What does it take to raise the bar for oneself". She spoke about using the various energy centers in the body and explore one's ability to bring in different energies to a situation to excel and explore one's potential. 

Vidya was evaluated by Kavitha. Kavitha mentioned that Vidya met the speech requirements, had a great presence on stage and needed to readjust the content of her speech to make it lighter and use the speaking time more objectively. Kavitha and Vidya were the winning duo, as the best evaluator and the best speaker of the day, respectively.

Dilip chose an extremely innovative theme for the Tabletopics session. He chose the Nobel Prize winning topics in the Nobel Prize, IG section where awards are given to improbable research which makes people laugh and then think. Kudos Dilip for choosing such an innovative theme and enlightening us about it!!

Praveen spoke about the Physics Nobel prize for "Discovering that some people would be physically capable of running across the surface of a pond - if those people and that pond were on moon"> Praveen calmly and slowly dissected the idea and analyzed how this finding could be used for living on the moon (Praveen speaking in pic below). 

In the table topics session, Venkat spoke about the Nobel Prize in Physics: "Measuring the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana skin, and between a banana skin and the floor". Displaying exceptional perception of the application of this finding, he quotes examples in real life where this finding can be used to estimate the damage and put to practical use. (Venkat during table topics session, in the pic below)

Jeff, our visiting guest was the best table topics speaker of the day with his bold and super humorous speech on what he thinks about the IG Nobel Prize: "Chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually from seeing photographs of their rear ends". (Jeff receiving the prize from Praveen in pic below)

As the leadership evaluator of the day, Deep appreciated the fact that we had better time management this time, the guests were introduced at the beginning of the meeting, which was nice. He mentioned that one person should not be assigned 2 heavy roles in one session as it would affect the quality of performance of the role taker. (Deep during Leadership evaluation in pic below)



Kavitha had actually brought a surprise for all of us. She got a  cardboard surf board and extended a warm invitation to Monterey Bay for District 4 conference on Nov 8th: http://d4tm.org/fall-conference-2014. The surfboard is mounted on the white board behind the podium in the pics above. We all enjoyed your surprise Kavitha, you made it a very special invitation! That concludes a summary of the meeting of October 16th at Vox Toastmasters, IBM.

--Vidyangi S. Patil (Vox, Toastmasters, IBM)

Minutes of meeting for Oct 9th 2014

At Vox Toastmasters, every meeting brings in new ideas and topics to enhance our perception of communication. Thursday evenings at Vox Toastmasters, IBM has become a fun learning journey and an integral part of life now. No matter what the passing week was like, the Toastmasters meetup is something rejuvenating, filled with lots of warmth and smiles and something to look forward to.

We had Kavitha playing Toastmaster for this week's session. As always she was in control of the session and pulled through a great show. There was also a mention of a speech about being an ideal Toastmaster by Bhoomaiah where he was referencing Kavitha as the ideal Toastmaster. 

The session was presided by Dilip and as always he opened the session with his sparkle of grace and inspiration. Bharati was the humorist and brought smiles to our face with her joke on how people try to mask their opinion about a baby resembling a monkey. We had 2 prepared speeches this time. Praveen brightened  up the crowd by slowly and gradually building up the humor about his new window seat at work, next to a busy customer support professional. He brought out the benefits of having a seat close to open and fresh air. All in all it was super humorous. Mohan did the second prepared speech on how to save education costs. As always he analysed the concept in depth and came up with very creative and practical suggestions to support his ideas. It was quite apparent that he had done a thorough research about the government policies to support his thought process. Mohan was the best speaker of the day. 

Isabelle evaluated Praveen's speech and her feedback suggested better usage of the joke to open the speech, She also touched upon the need for clearer conclusion and better reference to technical terms for non-technical audience.

 Dilip was the best evaluator of the day and he evaluated Mohan (receiving his award from Kavitha in above pic) He appreciated the choice of topic by Mohan and said that it is a topic which many people can relate to and he applauded the great content organization in Mohan's speech. He also emphasized the need for supporting ideas with suitable facts in Mohan's speech. 

The table topic session was fun and opened the stage to our visiting guests. Mubeen spoke about seasons and his experience living in the mid-west and bay area. Sunil was the best speaker of the day as he spoke about his joy of living and schooling his children in Laurelwood school in Santa Clara He spoke about he decided not to move to Cupertino for better schools. Isabelle spoke about how she would prep up if she had to travel impromptu. So much for the meeting of October 9th. So long until next week.

Kavitha the Toastmaster of the day presenting the award for the best speaker in Table topics section  to Sunil. Well done Sunil! It was your first speech and you won!

-- Vidyangi S. Patil (Club Secretary, Vox Toastmasters, IBM)

Minutes of meeting October 2nd 2014

October 2nd was a special day. We celebrate Mahatma Gandhi's birthday on this day and it is also considered as the International Day of non-violence. It is on this day that 'Clean India' drive was launched by Narendra Modi, the reigning Prime Minister of India. Falling in line with the theme, the word of the day was placid. As always every member who attended the meeting was given a chance to speak during the meeting and managed to use the word of the day: placid. 

The President of Vox, Dilip opened the meeting with a token of appreciation for all Voxers who are in office. He awarded them with a beautiful badge showing the logo of Toastmasters. While handing over the token he also spoke about how each member went out of their way in managing various operations at Vox Toastmasters smoothly. He mentioned every contribution in terms of new PR initiatives, documentation of minutes of meeting, managing Twitter and Facebook accounts, arranging open house events, having new members in the club and retaining them, spreading awareness about Area and District level leadership training workshops, etc.

The Toastmaster of the day allowed for all the roles to be introduced by the members who were assigned respective roles. Kavitha impressed us, yet again! with the way she introduced her role as a timer. She started of with reference to the movie 'Lake Placid' and also managed to use the word of the day: placid. 

Vidya was the speaker of the day. She spoke about the various energy centers in the body and how each energy center can boost the presence and personality of an individual. She was the best speaker of the day. Anand was the best evaluator and brought out all the positives of Vidya's speech. He also encouraged her by commenting on her natural speaking ability, stage presence, great usage of body/body language and the importance of winding up the speech with higher energy and gusto.

Clear and succinct, with the confidence and charm of a seasoned Toastmaster, Mohan swept the crowd away with his joke. Praveen chose the theme for table topics in keeping with the significance of the day. We had 3 new guests viz., Robert, Mubeen and Richu. Mubeen spoke about the leadership initiative he would take for the next 4 to 5 years as in educating people because he thinks without education the progress of a nation would be stinted. Mark shared the best speaker of the day award as he narrated his experience about volunteering for firefighting and as a paramedic and the satisfaction he gained in saving lives of people.  Richu shared the best speaker award as she spoke about the one single change she would bring about if she were the President of the country. She said she would promulgate the principle of feminism and equality of men and women. All speakers used the word of the day effectively.

For the table topics: Kavitha said that rather than choosing one ideal place to live in the rest of her life, she would like to explore placidity in traveling to one new place every day and meeting new people all the time and exploring newer cultures. Mohan spoke about what he would do if he were to  donate money to a needy/hungry person when he had just got swindled. He chose to be alert and aware of not being swindled again before he donated his money to the hungry person.

Nothing skipped the evaluator's eye this time as Dilip went into a detailed evaluation session starting with the way the session started, the courtesy of introducing the visiting guests as the first thing, starting on time, the way the speaker of the day was evaluated, the comments on the creative expressions by the timer, usage of word of the day, observations which were skipped, order and timing of events, etc. Dilip was all for precision, quality and strict process and organization in his evaluation session. The visiting guests appreciated this aspect of our club proceedings and mentioned that this is a compelling reason for them to sign up for membership with Vox Toastmasters. So much for the session of October 2nd.

Looking forward to see you guys at the Open House and Halloween Spooktacular event. Check out the Facebook page for more details: https://www.facebook.com/VoxTM?ref=br_tf

--Vidyangi S. Patil, (Club Secretary, Vox Toastmasters)

Photo credits:
http://www.images55.com/category/gandhi-jayanti/page/9/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/02/modi-launches-indian-clean-up-campaign