The 208th Regular Meeting: November 15, 2025 “Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice”

１１月のミーティングでは、Toastmaster of the Day（司会） が “Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice” にふさわしいデコレーションで暖かかつ華やかな雰囲気、また様々なミーティングの機会に Spice や Role でたとえ話をすると言うユニークなスタイルで進行しました。

At our meeting on November 15th, the Toastmaster of the Day created a warm and splendid atmosphere with decorations fitting for “Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice”! And she led proceedings with a unique style that included using metaphors based on Spice and Role during various meeting opportunities.

ミーティングの進め方についてはミーティング紹介の記事をご覧くださいませ。
ミーティングでの役割についてはロール紹介記事をご覧くださいませ。

For the details about how meetings are conducted, please refer to the article of the meeting introduction (Link in Japanese).
Also, for information on roles within meetings, please refer to the role introduction article (Link in Japanese).

さて今回はミーティングの中での一幕を紹介しながら、どういう雰囲気なのかの一端をお伝えします！

Now, let me share a glimpse of the atmosphere by focusing three points with introducing behind the scenes from one of our meetings!

1） Teamwork
華やかな会場のセッティング、オンラインとオフラインを繋ぐ機器の設置・準備。これらは一人ではできません。千里トーストマスターズクラブの Motto である “Teamwork を” 発揮してみんなで準備しています。電子機器が苦手な人も大丈夫！気が付けば皆配線や装置に詳しくなっていきます👍

1） Teamwork
The beautiful venue setup and setting up the equipment to connect online and offline participants —these tasks can't be done alone. We're putting the Senri Toastmasters Club motto “Teamwork” into action, so we prepare together. Even if you're not tech-savvy, no worries! Before you know it, everyone becomes familiar with the wiring and devices.

2） Grow Together
トーストマスターズクラブの特徴は、先生やトレーナーがいない事。会員同士で Evaluation を行い、お互いを高めあっていくことです。Evaluator は、スピーチの内容を Evaluate し次のスピーチに生かす Tips を得ます。General Evaluator は、ミーティングの進め方や、会員の動きその他全体を見ながらクラブの発展に貢献します。こうしてお互いに成長をしていくのがトーストマスターズクラブの醍醐味です。

2） Grow Together
The feature of the Toastmasters Club is no teachers or trainers and members evaluate speeches each other for mutual enhancement. Evaluators assess the content of speeches and speakers gain tips to refine future speeches. General Evaluators contribute to the club's development by overseeing meeting procedures, member’s active participation, and overall operations. All of these foster our mutual growth and this is an essential element of Toastmasters Club.

3） Exercise Your Brain
Table Topics session（即興スピーチ）では、お題が出されて、その場で考えます。誰が当たるかは直前までわかりません。このセッションでは皆が何を話すべきか頭をフル回転させながらミーティングに参加します。

3） Exercise Your Brain
At the Table Topics session (impromptu speech), Topicsmaster will give you a topic then you will think and create a short speech on the spot. But you don't know who will be called on until the very last moment. That’s why during this session, everyone practices thinking quickly and coherently about what they should talk about. This is exciting!

千里トーストマスターズクラブではこのような雰囲気でのミーティングをしています。興味がある方は是非クラブのホームページにアクセスしてコンタクトしてみてください👍

Senri Toastmasters Club provide supportive meetings with such a nice atmosphere for developing our member’s achievement. So, if you would be interested, you can visit our club website and feel free to contact us anytime!

(Kazu)

Table Topics Competition & Grammarian Workshop : November 1, 2025

Great job!
At our special meeting on November 1, I served as the Chief Judge of the Table Topics Competition and the General Evaluator of the Grammarian Special meeting. This has been a hectic few weeks, but it has surely been rewarding. In this entry, I want to focus on what goes on behind the scenes of a Toastmasters speech competition.

In Toastmasters, we run our speech contests by ourselves, led by two main players: Contest Chair and Chief Judge.

Contest Chair  &  Chief Judge

 This time, our President, Eri, served as the Chair, and I served as Chief Judge. We first solicited competitors, and five members signed up for the English Table Topics Competition and three for the Japanese one. Then, we had a Zoom chat to list the tasks to cover: to assign members to roles, recruit Toastmasters guests to help run the competition, and prepare the necessary documents. I contacted 12 Toastmasters members outside our club, and four of them agreed to help. I appreciate their help.

Next, we sent the competitors and judges the documents they had to complete and submit, collected and checked the documents, and conducted briefing sessions for competitors and competition officials. I joined the competitor briefing as the Zoom Master because, in the Table Topics Competition, every competitor except for the first one is taken to another room so that they won't hear the topic beforehand. As we held this competition online, we wanted to have the competitors experience what to do when they come back from the breakout room to the main room. In addition, I conducted the judge briefing, where I explained the judging criteria, which are significantly different from those for the International Speech Contest. I also had briefings with counters and timers. They took their roles very seriously and performed almost flawlessly on the competition day, with some slight hiccups when collecting the judges' ballots.

On the competition day, the Contest Chair opened the competition with well-prepared opening remarks, which boosted our morale. The competition went exceedingly smoothly, with some hiccups when collecting the judges' ballots. The Japanese Table Topics Competition, which followed the English one, ended exactly when it was supposed to end. Great job, everyone!! And congratulations, Yuriko and Hiko, on your victory in the English and Japanese Table Topics Competitions, respectively!! They won a chance to represent our club in the Area C3 Table Topics Contests on February 28, 2026.

English ＆Japanese session winners

After a 10-minute intermission, we held a Table Topics Session, where we had three members pay attention to the speakers' language usage as Grammarians. During the Table Topics Session, members who competed as competitors in the first half served as the facilitator of the session and functionary role-takers to provide members who helped run the competition a chance to practice impromptu speeches. After that, we enjoyed the distinctly different reports from three Grammarians. I was really thankful as the Chief Judge, General Evaluator of the event, and Vice President Education of the club, for all the participants' tremendous contributions. Great job, everyone!

Author: Tenten, Vice President Education