Highlight from 171st regular meeting October 15

Thorough preparation,I enjoyed this meeting because members were fully prepared. Let me share three examples among others. First off, Yoshiko, who just joined us recently, served as Grammarian/Word Master and demonstrated her thorough preparation. Grammarian is someone who pays attention to the use of words in speeches. She focuses on good use of the language and some errors and mistakes in the speeches. Ins Senri Toastmasters, Grammarian always takes the role of Word Master, who is responsible for choosing the Word of the Day for that meeting, explains it with some examples, and review the use of the Word of the Day by all the participants. She chose “scrumptious,” which is similar to “delicious” in meaning. I never knew the word. She gave a nice and succinct explanation of the word and that helped members and guest use the word in their speeches. Truth be told, I am not a big fan of incorporating Word of the Day, especially when the chosen word is a difficult one because that results in rampant misuse of the Word. Yes, Word of the Day, when selected and explained poorly, could lead participants to remember the wrong usage of it. That beats the whole purpose of the whole thing. This wasn’t the case. Participants listened to the explanation by Yoshiko and found an appropriate instances to use the word correctly. This demonstrated how thoroughly Yoshiko prepared for her role as Word Master.

Another example was the Topicsmaster, who facilitates the Table Topics session. Topicsmaster Ju Tae selected topics that encourages speakers to compare two options about an activity. One example is a trip: “Which do you prefer, a domestic trip or an overseas one?” He prepared beautiful slides to help the speakers understand the topic and stay focused on the topic. The elements on the slides were carefully arranged and the topics were presented in a crystal-clear manner.

　 　Last but not least, what was exemplary was the leadership demonstrated by Toastmaster of the Day, Fumiron. Toastmaster of the day is in charge not only of facilitating the education portion of the meeting on the day, but also of ensuring that every role taker, including speakers, are prepared for their roles. She sent messages to individual members using the recently adopted communication platform Slack. Her directions were thorough and to-the-point. Thanks to her leadership and preparation, the meeting went several minutes ahead of schedule, and we were able to enjoy a couple of additional Table Topics speeches.

　These three examples show how thorough preparation makes our meetings fruitful and educational. We look forward to another well-prepared meeting next month as well. Tenten