Division Contest 2023 - ISC

Is it okay to take calculative risks?

This year's International Speech Contest (ISC) was filled with excitements, learnings and several GB(goose bumps) moments, starting from the club to the Division level as a contestant.

During all these years I had always started my speech with a song. This time I wanted to break the routine. I wanted to bring it up during the climax of my speech. Instead of a song, I wanted to hum a famous BGM (kathi theme music) along with a few carnatic notes there. When I wrote this in my script, I knew that this move, was either going to be a big hit or a big flop in my speech. But still, I was tempted to take that risk.

After I completed my club contest speech, one of the young and energetic Toastmasters, walked up to me and said with emotions running high, "I felt goose bumps, when you were humming the BGM during the climax!"

I learnt two things here:-
1. The biggest privilege of a speaker is that, you have the key to control the emotions of the audience.
2. It is okay to take risks and explore new arenas, than stick to our comfortable routines.

These were the pics taken during the ISC Division H 2023 at Kamaraj Engineering College, Virudhunagar.

In action, on stage with a sword ;)

#toastmastersinternational
#madrastoastmastersclub
#district120

KKK

Do you know what was my nick name when I was a kid ?

Kelvi kanai kavitha. That means Kavitha the series of questions. I loved asking questions like, Why is the moon round? why is the sun hot? Why are animals not talking? Why are plants not moving? My mom lost her patience at one point and made a schedule that only 10 questions per day and only during evenings. 

She was a single mother I losty father when I was 3. Which means  probably when I just started asking questions. My mom was left alone to deal with me and my questions. She believed that as I grew up I would stop. She was right in a way. I stopped asking questions for which I got answers but asked more and more questions. Is God real? Did he create the universe? Then what about the big bang theory? Why am I carrying only the initial of my father? Why is it called a bachelor's degrees even when women receive it? There were several questions I never got answer for but I never stopped asking.

Many years later when I became a parent I realised my mother's pain. I am sure most of the parents here will agree that only when we become parents we will relate to that plight they underwent. 

Fast-forward my elder one was 4 years old. When I was getting her ready for school, she asked me, 

Amma where was I, before my birthday? What? 

I mean before I was born. 

You were in my tummy 

how long was I there?

9 months and you refused to come out on time so they operated you out. That is not important. Let's get ready for school.

Wait ma. Before that where was I?

Big philosophers don't have answer to this question. I am just a software engineer. How do I know? Do one thing when you grow up find out and bring enlightenment to the society.

By that time her father started shouting, we are getting late is this the time to talk about philosophy and enlightenment?

Then she again asked me. Amma only one more question ma please..btw what is enlightenment who is a philosopher? 

Fast-forward again my younger one who is 5 years now asks me when Atm machines can give you lots of money why should you go to office and work?

Then she was very sad and lost in thought one day. She then asked me

... amma when you grow old will you become my grandmother? OMG then I will not have a mother for me.

The other day she asked me, Your father died when you were 3 but where did he go after that? If someone dies you will never get them back? Where will they go?

Yes. There are questions for which we still do not know answers. Isn't it?

We evolved into a civilized race because we asked questions. Our cv  raman asked why the sea is blue aand eventually found the answer and received his Nobel prize. So my dear friends never stop asking questions. Even if it is your favourite politician, actor, idol don't follow them blindly without asking questions.

Hybrid Toastmasters Meeting - Made Easy

Note: If you are a Toastmaster trying to move your club to hybrid mode of operation, please move on to the topic 'Setting up a hybrid meeting..'. 

What is Toastmasters: 

It is a non profit organization that helps its members to improve their communication and leadership skills with a practical approach. These clubs are spread across the world. The members give speeches and  participate in various contests (international) to improve their communication skills. They are given opportunities to host various events and take up roles to improve their leadership skills.

What is a Hybrid Meeting?

While the meetings used to be conducted in a meeting hall before the pandemic, we moved to zoom and other online platforms later on. Many of the clubs are operating in the online mode now. However, we are slowly in the process of moving to the offline meetings which are more exciting and in no way comparable to the online ones. The butterflies in one's stomach, just a minute before he/she steps onto the stage is a feeling that needs to be experienced and is unexplainable in words.

Hybrid meetings allow the members to participate either online or offline according to their preference.  Many clubs hesitate to move to the hybrid mode, fearing the infrastructure, man power and technology required for setting up a Hybrid meeting. I was one among them until I decided to jump into it and get into action.

Setting up a Hybrid Meeting with minimal resources

A hybrid meeting can be set up with sophisticated arrangements for a better experience online and offline. But this article aims at explaining the basic setup required with minimal resources so that this might encourage the clubs hesitating to move to hybrid mode of operation.

All we need is the following:

1. Projector

2. Laptop

3. Microphone

4. Meeting hall 

5.  Bunch of enthusiastic members and excom team online and offline 

Offline Speaker in action

Online educational session

TT Master - online

 Group picture of the offline members

Preparation

1. It is very important to make sure we have enough man power before going for hybrid mode. It is good to have 2 excom members online and 2 offline to facilitate the meeting.

 2. Coming to the venue an hour or atleast 30 mins before the meeting, would be of great help. Opening the online meeting room and checking on the availability of the role players before 30 mins will ensure that the meeting starts on time.

3. Make sure to invite and greet the guests online and offline as they come in.

4. Place a microphone near the laptop and connect to the online meeting (eg. Zoom). The mic has to be adjusted by the offline speakers between pointing to the laptop and pointing to them while speaking. With a powerful mic, they can move around the stage and speak as well.

5. Connect the laptop to the projector and position the laptop to capture the stage (You can also use a webcam if you have, for easy movement). This will allow the offline audience to watch the online speakers and role players on the big screen.

6. The Zoom master's role is crucial here. The zoom master should spot light the online and offline speakers meticulously throughout the meeting. This is the most important step in a hybrid setup to offer a good meeting experience to the members.

7. The SAA can offer a Google form to the online and offline members for electing the best speakers and role players for the day. Consolidating the online and offline results is tedious. So Google forms work well in hybrid mode.

8. Inform the offline speakers to watch the laptop for the display of timer cards.

9. If the timer is present offline, make sure he/she has a laptop to show the cards online for the benefit of the online speakers.

Benefits

While the hybrid mode has many challenges, it is definitely worth giving a shot. As a president, I was hesitant to start this due to many reasons including the fact that I had to travel 30 kms to reach the club from my house with 2 young kids and an exhaustive 5 days of work. But with lots of passion and support from my beloved VPE it was possible. The first meeting obviously did not go well, but the way we brainstormed and made improvements in the process, improved the quality of our hybrid meetings day by day. As we gained experience we also gained confidence in conducting the hybrid meetings.

It is definitely true that there will be more guest conversions compared to online mode. I have heard a lot of guests who had worked online for the last 2 years, badly wanting to network with people offline. Many guests would prefer the hybrid clubs over the online ones. And the most important factor is the butterflies in your stomach that may not be experienced online. 

After putting all these thoughts to paper, I would be delighted  if atleast one club gets inspired and moves to hybrid mode after reading this post.

One of our hybrid meetings on YouTube:-

https://youtu.be/WgUIbLwDRQk

Do reach out to me for queries, your hybrid mode experiences, learnings and suggestions.

Kavitha (Past President of Madras Toastmasters Club) kavitha.anbarasu@gmail.com

Online and offline members

You can be the Change

 I got my bachelor's degree when I was a spinster. I had always felt that we are only trying to fit into a man's world when it comes to education and career. However, we are definitely progressing. How do I know?

1930s

My grand mother was allowed to study only upto the 5th grade and got married at the age of 17, even though her father was a Tahsildar. I still find it difficult to understand how she was allowed to learn music but was denied education. However, her brother went to college and settled for a decent Government job. My grand mother had 5 kids.

1950s

My mother went to college, got married at 25 and got into a government job. Her career lasted for 30 years. During both her child births, she had to leave the 3 month old infant and go to work, as the government allowed only 3 months of maternity Leave and no extra leaves were given. Her education and career had helped her to bring up her 2 kids after her husband's demise at a very early age. He had left behind a 3 year old (me) and a 6 year old (my brother) when he passed away.

1980s

I did my Masters and became a software engineer and got married at 25 (when I was 2 years into the IT industry). Why am I talking about marriage every time? Because if you don't have a career before marriage, it is most likely that you will not have one in your life. Even if you have one, it is most likely that you will quit after child birth.

There is Hope!

There were 2 incidents in my 13 year old career that make me strongly believe that we are progressing and we can be the change we expect in the society.

I was a junior engineer when I got married. I continued my career during my pregnancy and took 6 months of maternity leave. Those days, the government allowed only 3 months of ML. I had to take 3 months of loss of pay.

When I rejoined, my baby was still too young. After a C-section and several sleepless nights with the baby, and all the postpartum depression stuff which no one talks about (a topic for another day) I was physically and mentally weak to say the least.

I had to use the office bus which meant that I had to stay in office for 10.5 hours and spend more than 2 hours travelling to and from the office. I had to be away from my baby for almost 12 hours. The remaining time is meant for sleeping. I could hardly spend time with her.Everyday I started from my house at 7:30 AM and returned home at 7:30 PM.

I was struggling and had only 2 things in mind :

1. What if the bus could start at 5:30 PM from office everyday? We could avoid the heavy traffic and reduce the travel time and reach home early.

2. What if we had a creche in our office campus? I need not stop feeding my baby at such a young age and introduce bottles.

That is when I found a forum in my company's intranet site, where the employees could write down their concerns directly to the CEO. It was called some thing like,'Letter to the CEO'.

I wrote down those 2 expectations, explaining the fact that, young mothers like me would struggle to continue our careers this way. It was an emotional letter to the CEO, but to be honest, I never thought it would have any effect.

Believe it or not, I got a call from the HR department on the very next day. The HR personnel promised me that within a few months we will have a creche facility inside the campus and she said that this has already been under discussion for some time.

After a few months we received an email from the transport desk that the office bus would start at 5:30 PM going forward, to avoid the heavy traffic during the peak hours. I strongly believed and still believe that, it was due to my letter to the CEO. However the creche facility never came to our campus until I quit the organization.

After a few years, my friend who was a new mother working there called me and told me that a new creche facility was functioning in the campus and she was using it. I strongly believed and still believe that it was due to my letter to the CEO.

These 2 incidents made me realise that our voices are heard. But unfortunately we whine most of the time and stop there. We fail to raise our voices. As the tamil proverb goes, 'The baby that cries the most gets the milk.' Our voice might, or might not make a difference in our life. But it might bring about a change to our next generation of women. In the worst case, "Voiced and unheard, is better than not voiced at all."

Right from 1930s（My Grand mother's era) to 2021 we have evolved towards progression. Women are not denied education these days. But their career after child birth is still not a cake walk. I am sure every woman with a career will have a similar story to share. However, I am hopeful that my daughters will not have to go through this. In the history, revolutions have always happened in a short span of time.

The more we explain our genuine concerns to the right people, the more we are likely to bring about a change. Knock and it shall be opened. Ask and it shall be given. You can be the change! 

 

 

Nissim Ezekiel’s Mother and Me

 Around 20 years ago, I was sitting in yet another boring English class. It was the last period for the day which made it even more tiring. The name of the poem was “The Night of the Scorpion”. As my teacher kept explaining the poem, I found it slightly interesting and started getting glued to the subject. The poet’s mother was stung by a scorpion on a rainy night.  The poet managed to explain the different characters like the villagers, who were superstitious and tried to comfort the suffering mother with their words on sins and previous birth; the father who was a rationalist tried a few things to comfort his wife; a holy man who was performing his rites tried all he could do. I could clearly picturize the rainy night the poet was talking about. After twenty hours of suffering, the poet says that she was relieved of her pain and she said,

“Thank God the scorpion picked on me

 And spared my children.”

These words looked too much like a cliché to me. Somehow, I did not experience the emotions the poet would have expected from his readers. Most of the books, cartoons and movies I had read always showed a mother as some one who would sacrifice her life for her kids. It looked too dramatic to me. These emotional dialogues somehow had no appeal on me those days. Except for the last 2 lines, I loved the poem for its simplicity and authenticity.

A few months ago, I was experiencing an intense pain in my left ear due to an infection. My whole face was swollen and I couldn’t sleep for two consecutive nights. The pain killers had no effect. After three days of aggressive fight with the pain, I was relieved on the fourth day after a visit to the doctor. That morning taught me lots of lessons.

·         Even if you are a brave person with a fighting spirit, you could become weak when pain strikes you with all its might.

·         When it comes to “pain”, it is only “you” and no one else who will fight the battle for you.

When the doctor said the infection might be due to the salty water that entered the ear, the first few words I spoke were,

"Thank God the salty water entered my ear

And spared my children”

It took 20 years of experience to accept and appreciate the exemplary work of Nissim Ezekiel and those legendary lines on mother’s love. All the books, cartoons and movies keep talking about mother’s love and her sacrifices, because it is so true and undeniably pure in its form. Another biggest learning was that, even the greatest piece of art, an awesome performance, or even a splendid poem will be appreciated by people based on their personal experiences. I was brought up by a single mother. So, imagine the sacrifices and love she would have showered on us. Most of us realise our parent’s sacrifices, only after becoming a parent.

 

 

Ruling My World

Aararoo aarirarooo (Siruthai song) 

At 9' 0clock in the night I start with this song to put my 2 year old daughter to sleep. It goes on and on moving from english to hindi and back to tamil songs. By the time it is 11'o clock, when I slowly peep in to see if she is asleep, she would jump out of the bed and tell me, "Amma innum konjam" That means, I want some more.

Toastmasters and my dear friends, welcome to the world of parenting!!

For the next 5 minutes, you are going to listen to a typical mom's banter.

If my night times are like this, my mornings are even worse. Especially during weekends, at 4'o clock I wake up after hearing a loud thunderous, crashing noise. When I find that my daughter is not around, I go searching for her and find her in the corner of the room with the toy cupboard open and all the toys scattered on the floor. When I ask her, "What are you doing during this wee hour in this pitch dark room?" She would simply say, "Amma I am preparing soup for you." Don't you think that is cute, adorable and dainty? Don't even think about it. 

 However, as a mom I am proud that I have acquired a few rare and extraordinary skills over a period of time. I have a 9 year old and a 2 year old, so I have 11 years of abundant experience in cutting kids' nails. You wont believe me, I can even diffuse a bomb while riding on a roller coaster. I am sure you can relate to this if you have ever cut your kids' nails.

I am a working mom and I spend most of time in conducting meetings. During the initial days of the lock down, I used to think that, I can easily attend meetings if I lock the room and my daughter stays outside with my mom. The idea was an utter flop and it never worked. She would bang on the door all the time. Then I decided to have her in the room with her toys around her. This really worked. Most of the time she would allow me to attend the calls peacefully, though some times she would pull my headset while on the call. But one day all of a sudden, when I was on a status call, she picked this mike, switched it on and started saying 'Pooochandiiii'- that means 'Boogieman'. All my team mates started laughing. She became an overnight star and popular among my team mates. From then on, my team mates would always ask me ' How is your Poochandi daughter?'. 

Coming back to this Poochandi story, there is an interesting flashback on this. Me and my elder daughter were watching this Jim Carry's movie,"The Mask". In one of the scenes the green colored mask man has his tongue protruding and the eyeballs coming out. It is a very scary scene and my younger daughter was so scared and she started crying. She calls him the 'Green color poochandi'. It came as a blessing in disguise. It was like a magical power given to me. Whenever she jumps on the sofa dangerously or doesn't have her meal, I would immediately say, "Green color poochandi is waiting outside". She would immediately listen and obey. But this was like Cinderella's fairy magic and lasted only for 2 months.After that she started telling me, "Let him come, I will befriend him and have lunch with him". Moral of the story, "Never ever try to outsmart your kids. Mostly it doesnt work. Even if it works, it is only a temporary fix.

After hearing all this if you think, "This lady has some peaceful 'me-time' only in the restroom.", you are totally wrong. From the time I enter into the restroom till the time I come out, the loud banging on the door with the background music, "Amma Amma Amma!!!...All my neighbours are thorough with my restroom schedules. Kaushalya aunty will probably be wondering, "It is already 3'o clock, why is there no noise? Is Kavitha at home?." "Aunty...Kavitha is at home, but her status call got extended by 15 mins so probably you will be hearing the noise at 3:15 today aunty. Moral of the story, "There is no escape. Odavum mudiyaadhu, Oliyavum mudiyadhu!"

After all this banter if you come to a conclusion, "Oh my God I am not going to have any kids." You have totally got me wrong. 10 years ago, after a miscarriage I have had nightmares that I would end up not becoming a mom at all. Now my situation is different. 20 years from now, it is going to be even more different. You never know what is going to happen. My daughters are not going to be with me for sure and they are going to have their own lives.

Now, I am trying to live my life to the fullest and cherish, treasure and venerate each and every moment . I would like to enjoy the humor, the comicality, and the witticism surrounding my life. As my role model Stephen Hawking, says, "Life would be tragic if weren't funny". I am looking at my whole life as one big funny story. I will be here to narrate the small chunks of humor in my life every year for the humorous speech contest. Over to you contest master.

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Dynamic Leadership : Level 1 - Project 2 - Locked up

'Action words are called verbs.'
'How many laptops have been dispatched?'
'Are the failures due to script issue or environmental issues?

Good Morning Toastmasters and Guests!

Introduction :

If you peep into our study room this is what you will get to hear. We have never ever imagined that three of our worlds(My husband, my elder daughter and mine) would collide together like this and we would get a chance to peep into each other's worlds. No more secrets! Every thing is transparent now. Thanks to the pandemic and the lock down. Honestly we might not have had regard on each other's jobs as such if not for this WFH .

Meetings:

Our team meetings can be divided into 3 types.

1. We talk and others listen
2. We listen and others talk
3. We talk, only when questioned

Second and third category meetings do not bother us much. Only the 1st category meetings are considered to be dangerous when we work together in a room. My scrum calls are the most vulnerable ones. There were several times my team mates would say, "I can hear a background noise" Perhaps my husband would be shouting on top of his voice during his category 'one' meetings. Now all my team mates know very well that the 'background noise culprit' is me. They have stopped saying, "I can hear a background noise" and started feeling bad for me and even started giving innovative suggestions on how to attend parallel meetings.

 By 10' o clock after preparing the breakfast and having it, all 3 of us would start the day in our study room. First discussion would be with my husband, about the list of meetings for the day. We are safe if there are no conflicting category one meetings. During the conflicting category one meetings, we would take turns to run between rooms and most of the time I take the balcony since my younger one, elder one and my husband would take the 3 rooms respectively. I had never ever imagined that a 3 BHK would still be insufficient for a small family like ours. My balcony meetings have become really popular in our gated community that my neighbors know the name of all my team mates. They know when my scrum calls start and they would eagerly come to their balconies to listen. After coming to know of these gossips, I stopped my balcony meetings and preferred to be 'cross talked' and 'eaves dropped' by my husband and kids. As the saying goes, 'Every thing is safe when it is within the four walls' :)

Charger

Apart from the meetings another important thing we fight for is the plug to connect our laptop charger. We have only 2 plug points in the room. One goes for my daughter by default as her laptop is pathetic and needs power supply all the time. The other plug point is the one we both (me and my husband) keep fighting for. When one of our laptop goes off, we make sure the other person feels guilty about making use of the plug point too much without sharing.

Familiarity with Work Patterns

Me and my husband had no clue about the type of job we were doing  before the lock down. Now we know each others' team mates' names by-heart and we know each others' schedules and meetings and work patterns very clearly that if we would swap our roles we would smoothly execute our duties without a transition plan in place.

Talking with the boss

Though me and my husband do not hesitate to attend meetings, talk to colleagues and peers in the presence of each other, some how we feel uncomfortable to talk to our bosses when some one is around. This is a strange feeling which requires a bigger analysis and research (probably in another speech). We always run to a room where no body else is around when we talk to our bosses.

 Online School

Previously I had no clue about my daughter's subject interests and how she would listen in a class. Now I can clearly see her behavior in the class, which subject she is really fond of, which one she hates, a lot about her class mates and their mischievous pranks. I owe a lot more respect for the teachers post the lock down after seeing their online classes. I wish I had patience like them.The chat boxes would suddenly be filled with random letters, special characters and numbers by the pranksters and the teacher would say nothing but, 'Ashwin..You are a good boy no? Dont type on the chat box unnecessarily". Suddenly some one would say, "Mam I know this already mam." and the mam would say, "Very good. But the others should also know right? Please mute your mike Vineeth". One of the students would even say, 'Mam the class is boring' for which the teacher would prefer to ignore. I guess the school system has totally changed from our good old days, when we were scared of our teachers. I used to wonder are these new generation of teachers always sweet and patient like this or is it because of the virtual class that is being monitored by  the principal and specially by the parents? In any case they still deserve a big round of applause.

Younger One

My younger one who is 2.5 years old, prefers to watch TV or play with her sister when I am available. Once I start my office work, she cries and keeps uttering the words "Amma venum!" I attend most of my category 2 and 3 meetings with my younger one on my lap. Trouble comes when a category 2 is converted into category 3. This is when my mom comes to the rescue.

I had my biggest shock of my life when I got a mail from her school stating that she has to attend online classes starting from next week. I made a big mistake by enrolling her for this academic year for a prekg. I never ever had the slightest clue that we are going to be stuck with this lock down. I am sure she is not going to sit for the classes and we dont have any more laptops to spare.



Conclusion :

As a result of the pandemic and the lock down  we are all under going a lot of mood swings and negative thoughts. The only way to stay positive is by enjoying the moment and looking at the humor quotient and laughing out loud. These times will never return.