Highlights from September Meeting

Toastmaster of the day: TM F. T. 

Today’s meeting started on time as usual. We were very happy especially because a new member TM M.K. joined the club. We’re looking forward to his wonderful speeches.

Word of the day: TM R. H.         

Captivate, Captivating: Today TM. R.H. introduced these words showing the meanings on the screen,

“attract and hold the interest and attention.”  Let’s use these words in our meeting today.

Prepared Speech Session

1. How did I join Toastmasters clubs? (TM K.Y.)

One of my friends made a wonderful speech in the USA. He introduced me ETS Toastmasters club. Then 

I joined the club. Half years later, I moved to Japan and found Senri Toastmasters Club. Now I am happy to be a member of the club.

 (The speaker showed us some pictures with his interesting memories. His speech tells us it is very important to put a great value on encounters with people.)

2. Watch China and US (TM T.N.)

 The two world powers worry the world. China’s success is based on its state-supported business and on its efforts to steal foreign intellectual property rights and exploit other countries secretly under the name of globalization. The US hasn’t tried to overcome its racism against black people. China and the US are lacking in law and international order.

(The speech started with Sumo wrestler-gestures. Soon we got that the two countries in the hot topic of world news were compared to the wrestlers on the sumo ring-dohyo. The content of the speech was deep about world affairs. Her gestures, however, helped the audience involved in the speech.) 

3. Take the Stage (TM H.T.)

  The speaker was telling us how we, members, can grow as public speakers with his personal experience. The goal of the speech contest is not only to win. He recommends that we can make use of the stages of various speech contests to be better and appealing speakers. He made the speech very informatively and enthusiastically, changing tones and keeping eye contact naturally. Those things might be what he has got from his contest careers. Thank you.

Table Topic session: (TM S.A.) Theme: Autumn

T.M. A. always offers interesting topics to us. What is today’s topic?

These are the topics he collected for the session. We enjoyed autumn!

1.Grapes   TM M.K.

2.Reading   TM A.S.

3.Colored leaves TM K.K.

4.Sports day TM F.T.

5.Maple     TM F.T. 

6.Bell cricket (suzumushi) TM R.H.

7.Pacific saury (samma)   TM E.I. 

Y.C.

Highlights from August Meeting

 “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.” (Eleanor Roosevelt) Toastmaster’s meeting is a good opportunity to listen to the other’s story and learn from their experience. Here below are the highlights of our August meeting.

Toastmaster of the Day: TM R.H.

Word of the day: TM A.S. /Usage of Simile & Metaphor

Instead of a “word”, she asked members to use “phrases” using” simile and metaphors”.  

For example, Busy as a bee, budding rose, kind as your Grandmother, strict as your teacher, they are the mirrors of you, your speech was half baked, like a samurai sword. We were able to find many Simile and Metaphor in the meeting!

 

Prepared Speech session

1^st speaker: TM T.F.

Speech Title: Coaching

Takamoto Mouri, Shouin Yoshida and Hirobumi Ito…how can we coach subordinates like these Meiji heroes? He advised us to approve other's ideas first instead of insisting on our idea.

It was a nice educational speech and he was also good at using a metaphor, “They are the mirror of you”.

 

2nd speaker: TM M.A.

Speech Title: Believe and Smile

By sharing the memories with her music teacher, she talked about the qualities of a good mentor. A good mentor is someone who is respectful of others and builds a personal relationship. “Believe and Smile”, then the audience is yours… it was a good conclusion!

 

3rd speaker: TM H.T.

Speech Title: Half-baked speech

The brilliant command of English is one of his strong points. He encouraged us to 1. Schedule the next speech first, 2. Have the story/ message bank, 3. Revise old speech. It was a meaningful speech for us. And “Half-baked speeches” was a great metaphor!

  

Table Topic session: TM Y.C./ Theme: Interesting story on the topic we chose.

Topics:

1. Physical distance            TM S.A.

2. Ventilation                      TM H.J.

3. Face mask                      TM. M.K.

4. Traveling                        TM F.T.

5. Essential workers           TM E.I.

6. Stay home                     TM. R.A

Thank you, everyone! I look forward to meeting you on Zoom again in Sep!  

E,I.

Highlights from July Meeting

  “Ask the experienced rather than learned.” It is an Arabic proverb. In Toastmaster’s meeting, there is full of opportunities to hear the story that the others experienced. Here below are the highlights of the July meeting.

Toastmaster of the day: TM K.K./ Meeting theme: Summer vacation

Word of the day: Painstaking

News Master Session: TM R.H. “Eco bag

Prepared Speech session

1^st speaker: TM A.S.

Speech Title: Ears, Eyes and Heart

===Script from TM A.S.===

Today I would like to share my thoughts on what kind of leader I would like to be. I believe listening is one of the most important skills in becoming a good leader. As you may know, the Greek philosopher Epictetus said, We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” But even so, listening can be a challenging skill to master. Now, I’d like to introduce 3 practices which can help us become better listeners.
The first is to show the person that we care. We can practice this by…..

 

2nd speaker: TM T.F.

Speech Title: Fermented food

TM T.F. always studies the speech topics carefully and provides specialized information. He knows really well about farming and health. The topic he selected today was Fermented food. By learning the merit and risk of them, he made us want to try Fermented food after listening to his speech. It was a nice educational speech to motivate us and enrich our food life.

 

3rd speaker: TM M.A.

Speech Title: Inconvenient truth

It was a new style of speech. She spoke from the view of her dog, SAKURA. By showing the street pictures taken from low angle, she invited us to the dog’s world and explained the problems on the urban street that was hard to find from the view of human. Her voice was cute just like a puppy. It was a new way to enlighten the audience by using Zoom technology.    

 

Table Topic session: TM K.Y./ Theme: Summer

Questions:

1.Summer festival              TM Y.T.

2. Straw hat                        TM E.I.

3. Ultraviolet                      TM. M.K.

4. T-shirts                           TM J.H.

5. Sunglasses                     TM J.C.

6. Ice cream                       TM. F.T

Thank you, everyone! I look forward to meeting you on Zoom again in Aug!

E.I  

Highlights from June Meeting

 As a measure to curb the spread of coronavirus, we had a zoom meeting instead of a F2F meeting in June also. It seems it helped us improve our online presentation skills! Here below is the highlight of June meeting:

 

 The first session was the Prepared speech session. The speakers organized and delivered the speech based on their manuals.

 

1^st speaker: TM F.T.

Speech Title: What the pandemic brought us

Manual: Leadership Development Level 1; Project 4. Researching and Presenting Research and present an unfamiliar topic; organize the speech clearly to maximize audience understanding; craft clear and engaging transitions between main sections of your speech;  use and cite sources to support speech content, make source list available

Summary:

COVID-19 brought us Chaos, but it also brought us ‘clean air’ thanks to the lockdown.

We noticed that if we want to, we can recover the better environment. One possibility to do it is ‘sharing economy’, which young people in particular are interested in. In addition

to matching platforms such as ‘Merucari’ and ‘Uber’, unique businesses like ‘goat sharing service’ are getting popular. In the future we will see more diverse businesses in this field, which will stimulate the economy. Young people prefer sustainable economy rather than economy burdening environment. So middle-aged and older people as well as government should support them because they are our future.    

                                                                                                           

2^nd speaker: TM E.I.        

Speech Title: The Candlelight

Manual: Interpretive Reading; Project 4. The Play                                            

Adapt a play for interpretive reading; Portray several characters in one reading, identifying them to the audience through voice changes and movement.         

Summary:

It was a Japanese RAKUGO story about a lazy and greedy man’s life. As it has consisted of dialog and inner thoughts of some characters, it was a good opportunity for the speaker to practice the vocal variety and the movement.                                    

 

The second part was the Table Topic session. Some speakers were selected randomly and asked questions to deliver impromptu speeches.

 

Questions:

1. What makes you smile?                            TM Y.U.

2. What worries you about the future?          TM J.C.

3. What makes love last?                              TM. Y.C.

4. What makes you angry? Why?                 TM M.A.

5. What small acts of kindness bring you joy? TM T.N.

6. What things/situations build up your fear? TM. T.F                                        

E.I   

Highlights of May Online Meeting

News Master: A presentation about any current event  3 min  by Tm F: This was an  interesting presentation which introduced how the Corona Virus has affected the Sumo Tournaments. 

" Regretfully to be announced, the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament has been canceled due to avoidance of the corona spread.
But all wrestlers now well prepared for the opening of the Nagoya(namely Ryougoku) tournament in July by practicing  much harder" Shiko(四股)” than before, to kick out the strong virus into the ground to show Shinto sprit..."

Pathways Mastery #2-2 Understanding Your Communication Style 5-7 min                        Share a communication style and its impact on professional and personal relationships; avoid reporting on the content of this project. Avoid reporting on the content of this project.

Speaker: Tm N     Speech Title: The Source of Concern

A new deadly virus has spread to a great number of countries.  The number of patients is even now increasing in the world.  Its outbreak occurred in Wuhan City, China, last December.

The new deadly virus belongs to the coronavirus.  It’s called COVID-19 and very similar to the SARS coronavirus, so it has a strong power to infect humans and cause serious illnesses.        

Chinese authorities say, “Since we shut down the seafood market, brought many doctors, and locked down Wuhan, there have been no reports of new cases of the new coronavirus in the city.”

However, a professor at Hong Kong University, famous as one of the first to decode the SARS coronavirus explains.....                                                                                                                                                                 

Evaluation by Tm T     Time: 2-3 min                                                                                

TM N's speech was well-organized and informative. She let the audience know the cause of coronavirus and four solutions to handle wild animals safely. She delivered a strong message with gestures effectively. 

Pathways Innovative Planning #2  Understanding Your Leadership Style 5-7 min          Objectives and Purpose: Share some aspect of a chosen leadership style in general; discuss style preferences when working with others, how to adapt the chosen leadership style to situations, or leadership styles in general, and how they impact a group. 

Speaker: Tm M    Title: My Role Model Time: 5-7 minutes

To be updated soon! 

Evaluator: TM A   2-3 min    You excelled at organizing your speech well. It enabled the audience to follow your journey from a music student to your current position in a company. You may want to work on using more descriptive language to appeal to the audience. For example, my teacher was charismatic and patient. He was an active listener and made me feel confident.  The leadership skills you mentioned were clear and easy to relate to.  As a mother, I was able to relate to your teacher and how he motivated you. 

A.S