The 187th Regular Meeting, February 17, 2024

The meeting started on time. We had no guests, so it progressed to ‘Here’s My Trick’ smoothly and quietly.

Here’s My Trick (My way to get the hang of public speeches)
Mune san emphasizes that ‘eye contact’ is vital to communication. It expresses a speaker’s confidence, which enables the speaker to see the responses from the audience and convey the contents of the speech better.

Prepared Speech Session
Speaker 1, Yasuko, “Homeless”
Her title, “Homeless,” drew attention. Her rich vocal variety included onomatopoeia (like pecha kucha). The title “Homeless” and onomatopoeia made us feel her deep love for her son.

Speaker 2, Molly, “Are You Prepared for Emergencies?”
Beginning with the forest fire in Hawaii last year, she advanced by accumulating disastrous facts and told us about disaster management. She showed an emergency bag, which can contain many devices, and advised us to check each item’s expiry date from time to time.

Speaker 3, Rene, The title is “Jolly Good Old Fellow”
She delivered a eulogy speech for a volunteer who saved a missing five-year-lod girl despite being injured himself. From the story, we realized that volunteers’ help is precious. It was a heartwarming, touching condolence speech.

Speaker 4, Takashi, “Partnership.”
This was his first speech. He has difficulty sleeping, but he used a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) device to sleep well and continued doing stretching exercises to do the 180 split. They are his partners. He has creativity.

Evaluation Session
Evaluator 1, Tenten, on Yasuko’s speech “Homeless”
His comment was detailed. He explained her success in her project by giving two examples of her nice vocal variety and body language. His suggestions were also detailed; the use of eye contact, how to emphasize something online, speaking more in detail to not confuse the audience, and so on.

Evaluator 2, Kama-yan, on Molly’s speech “Are You Prepared for Emergency?”
He said she was successful in using her tone and props effectively. He then made good suggestions such as shortening the introduction, connecting with the audience by asking questions, and paying attention to where the camera was.

Evaluator 3, Eri, On Rene’s speech “Jolly Good Old Fellow”
She said her speech was a good example of social speeches because Jeffrey’s contribution to others reflected how considerate to others he was. On the other hand, she added that the quotation from the Bible was not familiar to many people and that an explanation might have been necessary for it.

Evaluator 4, Kazu, On Takashi’s speech “Partnership”
His evaluation had a sharp point of view. He raised two good points, ingenuity and the use of a good picture. For example, the speaker showed ingenuity in using ‘trademark’ as a keyword. He advised the speaker to use eye contact, especially when he got nervous because it would have helped him monitor how the audience reacted.

Table Topics Session
The topics were centered around ‘Travel.’ Ten members spoke of their travel experiences. Their speeches were rich in variety, including many overseas travels, and amused us.

As it seemed that each speech and evaluation in the Prepared Speech and Evaluation sessions was worthy of mention, I dared to write them in detail. In the Table Topics Session, everyone got excited and the relaxed atmosphere spread. We enjoyed many members’ distinctive travel experiences to the fullest. It was a pleasure to see all four evaluators and ten Table Topics speakers were eligible and we voted for the best evaluator and the best table topics speaker. The success of the meeting was thanks to Toastmaster of the Day, Yoshiko, the Table Topicsmaster Mune, other role takers, and above all, our teamwork.