With 20 attendants including a guest, regular meeting No. 473 just ended up with a lot of laughs on the afternoon of October 28, 2017 at Mina Park followed by Declaration and Induction ceremony for Ms. M. I.

    After the meeting was called to order, in the business session President N.N. announced the contests coming in the near future.

Word of the day —“conduct” was introduced by TM. T. I. which is used either as a verb or a noun.

    Toastmaster of the Day was TM J. Y., it was the first time for her to proceed a regular meeting. After a greeting to the members, she asked four assistants to explain their roles as Grammarian, Ah/Uh counter, Vote counter or Timer.

    Joke Master TM Y. H. gave two jokes related to driving, which are both funny and useful especially for rainy days.

    Before the laughs faded away, the prepared speech session containing four speeches started.

    TM K. K. gave a speech titled “Too much is as bad as too little” with a projector for Competent Project #3 — Get to the Point. Besides the attractive title cited from Confucius, the speech was focused on chemical structure changes of starch with water in or out and was summarized to two points suggesting people make good use of technology and science.

    TM Y. U. gave a speech for Special Occasion Speech Project #1—Mastering the Toast with a title of “A Toast to Our 35 Kai (Alumni Meeting)”. His speech was given vividly with pictures, starting with “his hometown”, “he in childhood with his classmates” to “a group of people grinning from ear to ear after 60 years”.

    TM T. O. gave a speech for Public Relations Project #4—Speaking under Fire with a title of Raising a Consumption Tax from 10% to 15%. He began his speech with explanations of some carefully prepared statistics data. After his speech, there was one question from TM K.K. It was a speech making us think about the connection between our daily life and government policies.

    The last speech was a special speech of interaction between speaker TM N.N. and the audience. TM N. N. was kind enough to start the speech, strongly recommending that kindness is a must to become a good communicator and making pleasant conversation with a topic of “key features as a good communicator”. The audience followed up immediately one by one, with the answers of “open-minded”, “considerate”, “a good listener”, “with a good sense of humor”, “thoughtful”, “sensitive”, “smiling”.
    From the interaction session, we have learned that we should put them into practice through a down-to-earth style to become a good communicator.

    With smiles on each member’s face, Table Topics Master TM Y. W. started to ask questions full of imagination. “If you were reborn, which sex would you choose?” “If you could, which period of Japan you would go back?” “If you were reborn, which country would you like to be in?” “If you could select any job, would you keep your current job?” “If you were the TMI president, what would you do?” Giggles erupted from time to time on listening to the audience’s unique answers.

    The meeting continued right after a ten-minute break. General Evaluation session was conducted by TM L. C. Three evaluators, TM M. K., TM Y. T. and TM H. S. gave their feedback in front of the audience for three speakers one by one, respectively.
    TM M. K. said that TM K. K. has successfully obtained the objects of getting to the point. TM Y. T. pointed out that TM Y. U. gave a good example of a toast. TM H. S suggested that TM T. O. should have made more eye contact with the audience.

    TM L. C. concluded that the meeting ran smoothly with cooperation of each of the attendants and people harvested a lot from each other.

    In the Award Presentation, TMOD Award was given to TM Y. W. for his imaginary questions bringing people a lot of laughs as Table Topics Master. Best Table Topics Speaker was TM C.M. who appealed to us for a lifestyle being closer to the nature. Best Evaluator was TM Y. T. and Best Prepared Speaker was TM T. O.

    The meeting was adjourned on schedule.

    Because the guest Mrs. Y. I. had expressed her wish to join our club from the first time visiting our club, we active members considered it seriously and decided to welcome her membership with the approval from all 19 active members after a vote for or against her wish.

    Declaration and Induction Ceremony was conducted by one of the most experienced and respected members TM Y. H. The new member TM Y. I. briefly introduced her experiences related to English study with fluent English and sincerely promised to follow the policies of Toastmasters’ club.
    The ceremony was completed with firm handshake and best wishes from each active member to our highly motivated new member TM Y. I.

    Despite dismal weather, all members have been enjoying the afternoon very much with satisfying experiences, saying goodbye and promising each other to get together again at the next regular meeting No 474 on November 11 at Mina Park, this time exceptionally at 15:00.

                                                                                      By J. Y.