President N. N. called the Meeting to order and welcomed two guests. TM M. I. presented “Word of the day: “Outstanding (adjective)”. The speakers used this word quite often in their speeches.

Business Session
    TM Y. W. introduced our renewed Home-page design with a lot of photos.
    TM L. C. reported the status of the preparatory works for the presidential election.  
                                                                                     
    TMOD: TM H. S.
    Grammarian: TM A. M.
    Ah/Uh Counter: TM M. I.
    Vote Counter: TM T. I.
    Timer: TM T. O.

Joke Session was skipped to spare the time for new Pathways system introduction.

Prepared Speech Session
    The number of speeches was limited to 3 due to the same reason as mentioned above.
    TMOD asked all speakers to answer to her question: “What color do you like and why?”
    First Speaker: TM K. I.
    His answer to TMOD’s question was “I like black color. Because it may have the meaning of steady, firm, rigid and unbendable”. The title of his speech was “Lady Macbeth”. It is one of four great tragedies by Shakespeare. It was not easy to perform; however, he gave his speech smoothly and naturally.
                                                                                    
 Second Speaker: TM N. S.
    Her answer was “I have never selected purple for my clothes. However, I like purple because my deceased mother loved purple very much and wore purple kimono or clothes very often”.The title of her speech was “The Great Dictator”. She interpreted and presented a famous speech in the movie with her changing wonderful voice volume.
                                                                                    
    Third Speaker: TM Y. U.
    He said “I like green color, because I feel something calm when I meet green”.The title of his speech was “The roast to a lady”. He picked up one of our members and starting with roast, ended up with his praise and respect to her.
                                                                                    
Table Topics Session
    Table Topics Master was TM A. S. She raised 4 following topics.
                   
    1. The year 2018 started with a very cold winter. Now we feel the season is moving on to spring. What are the things that make you feel “Spring has come!”?
    2. This Wednesday, we had a surprising snow fall. Did it affect your holiday plan? If so please tell us about it, and if not, tell us about your experience concerning the snow fall?
    3. March is the time of Graduation Ceremony in Japan. You’ve experienced many graduations so far. So tell us about graduation that you remember most.
    4. Now is the season of cherry blossoms. Do you have any special Ohanami plan? If so please tell us about it. If not, please tell us about the Ohanami you remember most?
    On those topics, TM M. H., TM M. K., TM T. A. and TM A. T. made wonderful prompt speeches, respectively.

After 5 minute- break, Evaluation Session 
    The General evaluator: TM J. Y.
    Three evaluators evaluated each speaker’s speech.
    TM Y. W. evaluated TM K. I.’s speech.
    TM T. K. evaluated TM N. S.’s speech.
    TM E. M. evaluated TM Y. U.’s speech.

The Award Presentation  
    The TMOD Award: TM Y. W. for introducing the new home-page design.
    The Best Table Topics Speaker: TM A. T.
    The Best Evaluator: TM E. M.
    The Best Prepared Speaker: TM N. S.
             Awards Winners     

Special Session : Introduction of the new educational system “Pathways” by T. A.
    The outline of “Pathways” was concisely explained in about 40 minutes and a few questions were replied briefly.
    The details may follow in VPE’s e-mail later.

                                                                                       By H. S.

    On March 10th, 17 members gathered at Mina-Park for the #481 regular meeting presided by TM K. K.
    We had three guests including Area Governor.

    In the Business Session, President N. N. reminded us of Area Speech Contest to be held on April 1 in Odawara. Our representative speakers are TM N. N. and TM Y. W. Ten of us are expected to attend and some are taking various roles.
    TM Y. W. introduced what he had learnt in Officers Training to invite more visitors and emphasized the important elements of the Web page: attractive photos of the meeting, keywords easy to be picked up and interesting meeting minutes.
    TM L. C. announced the procedures for the coming presidential election.
    VPM N. S. conducted TM T. S.’s induction into our club.

    After the Word of the Day “inspire” was presented by TM N. S., Joke Master TM M. I. presented a few jokes to let the audience relax. One of those was about national traits of Americans, some others and, of course, Japanese.

    In the Prepared Speech Session, four speakers gave speeches as follows:
    The first one titled “If you can’t stop laughing or crying” was made by TM J. Y. It was from Competent Communication manual and based on its project #7 “Research Your Topic”. Her intention was to illustrate three major causes of such phenomena, though the countermeasures were not shown.
    The second one made by TM M. K. was “It’s important to participate”. It was for the project #5 Speaking After Dinner in Entertaining Speaker manual. He talked about the spirit of Olympics as in the title and encouraged us to participate as various sorts of volunteers.
    The third one was by TM Y. W. It was for the project #5 Your Body Speaks in Competent Communication manual and titled “Toastmasters”, in which he described what he has gained through Toastmasters activity and how it helped him in his business career. This is to present at the coming Area Speech Contest and he requested comments and advice from the audience for further improvement.
    TM L. C.’s speech “Why don’t you run for the next President?” was the fourth one. The project #9 Persuade With Power in Competent Communication manual was the issue he should have worked on. In this speech, he wanted, in view of recent passive atmosphere, to encourage the members to assume the responsibility in operating our club.
    TM L. C. won the best speaker award for his sincere, enthusiastic and persuasive speech.

    In the Table Topics Session, Table Topics Master TM T. K. presented five topics, which were about heavy snow, Olympics, a figure skater, Dan・sha・ri and foreign tourists’ interest in traditional Japan. TM H. S., Guest TM T., TM T. S., TM N. S. and TM H. M. each made prompt speech on the given topic.
    TM N. S. received the best speaker award for her clear and decisive speech about Dan・sha・ri.

    In the Evaluation Session, four evaluators, TM Y. H., TM H. S., TM T. O. and TM M. H. gave positive and instructive comments on the prepared speeches, respectively. 
    TM M. H. won the best evaluator award for her detailed evaluation of TM L. C.’s speech.
    General Evaluator TM T. I. assessed the overall atmosphere and proceedings of the meeting as friendly and smooth. He suggested that more members join in setting tables before meetings.

The award winners:
    For the TMOD award TM T. S. was chosen in view of her double roles on her first day of role taking.
    The best Evaluator   TM M. H.
    The best Table Topics Speaker   TM N. S.
    The best Prepared Speaker     TM L. C.

                                                                                                     By K. K.

The Award Winners
  

Some Speakers