Meeting went well with the business portion handled crisply by TM EO. JM EO did a good job. TM MZaki had the meeting on time and there were no major areas for constructive criticism. As a result the GE had to dig deep to give the Obuta Award to TM Tta for calling on the GE for TTs. Recommendation was that during meetings when there are few members without a role, not to call on individuals with a major speaking role.

little members today / few members today
temperatures are raising / temperatures are rising
manufacturing of noodle / manufacturing of noodles

Thanks to several volunteers and TMoD's good rearrangement, the meeting was conducted very smoothly and nicely. The "hot seat" system worked well this time . We fully enjoyed superb prepared speeches and the workshop done by TM MO. We learned a lot from it, for instance giving specific suggestions is significant.

The 1st. speaker, TM HGawa made a very entertaining speech. She showed us several tips, good points, and bad points(disadvantages) about wearing masks. The audience chuckled during her speech. The 2nd. prepared speaker, TM AZ made an excellent speech. He showed us almost every element needed to make our speeches persuasive, humorous, and impressive. TM ANo told us great three jokes.

TM MYama provided us with eight topics regarding disasters. They were very good to let speakers show their personalities and imagination.

Could have been better:

- "...after I reached to my home...." should have been "...after I reached home...."
- consult a "policeman" for the sake of political correctness could have been rendered "police officer."
- pronunciation of "suicide" i.e. sue-side
- our face is "naked" is humorous; in a more sober presentation, our face is exposed or bare would have worked.
- One advantage is...another advantage is....yet another advantage is....
- What (is) are our real priorities?
>
Good usage:

- set the building on fire (TM TM)
- pandemic (TM MYama)
- modern or traditional (TM HGuchi)
- I consider the computer a part of my brain (TM YShita)
- evaluation can be intimidating (TM MO) - there is no such thing as a perfect speech as there is not such thing as a perfect person (TM MO)
- straightlaced and boring (TM MO)
- hardcore anti-priority man (TM AZ)
> - acronym (TM BP)
- impress versus express (TM BP)

TM TTa gave a speech on small talk. She said whenever you speak to a stranger, you need a small talk and SKD rules. A small talk is non-offensive,ordinary topics like weather. SKD rules are

1. Start your conversation with positive thinking.
2. Keep a smile on your face.
3. Don't wait until someone talks to you.

Our life is like travelling. we need a passport for our travel, and a small talk and SKD rules are just like our passport.

15 minutes before the meeting opening, those of members who had roles had already gotten at the room. The meeting started smoothly. In business portion, the secretary, the treasurer, the VPE and the VPM properly reported each issues at hand. TM THashi explained Word of the day, "fascinating". It was a lovely word.

TMOD, TM TIshi got off to an impressive start and kept her brilliant job through her parts. She modestly encouraged fellow members to come to the meeting regularly by showing her topic of the hay fever treatment. No body could believe it was the first time for her to take TMOD! Timer, TM HGuchi made sure the time chart. It was really effective for all of us feeling at ease because all prepared speeches were advanced project and a half of them were not 5-7 minutes speech. Joke master, TM MZaki gave 3 jokes of "Jumping into sea story", "Doctor story" and "Noodle story". Table Topics Master, TM KGai gave a twist in the general theme. She gave all questions from negative points of view and set a rule that every speaker needs to wrap up their speech with the phrase of "it's gonna be OK ...". It's a bit challenging idea for higher level impromptu speech training. And amazingly, all four speakers met the rule in their speech.

In evaluation portion, TM MO evaluated TM IGaki's speech, TM SGi evaluated TM HGawa's speech, TM BP evaluated TM TTa's speech and TM EO evaluated TM TM's speech. TM MO warmed up the room and his evaluation speech itself by reminding us that it was a cuisine-related speech with a handkerchief-napkin tucked under his chin.TM SGi evaluated the speech that contains story and demonstration. He gave some advice at the speech content view-points, Food. TM BP and TM EO evaluated giving constructive advice at the view-points to meet each objectives. TM BP gave a suggestion that the speaker could improve the position and posture of her body when she was leading guests at the stage. TM EO shown room for improvement that it might be better to announce the way of Q & A at the first part of the speech.

Award winners were followings. The best performance award went to TM TIshi for well controlling the meeting. The obuta award went to TM HGuchi for time reporting troubles. The best Table Topic Speaker was TM WDa with his story of stress shooting. The best Evaluator was TM BP for effectively evaluating TM TTa's speech. The best Speaker was TM IGaki for his fabulous cuisine speech.

April 6th Winners

TM EO read the poem "Song of the Open Road" by Walt Whitman. The poem celebrates the freedom that one finds in travel and exploration. Travelling on foot, one gets to see much that one might not pay much attention to in real life and even the mundane such as people walking back and forth or even a hearse can take on special meaning. The open air, the poet declares, may hold the secret to performing miracles and even to the making of the best among us

"On The Open Road" with a Interpretive Reading by TM EO

It`s a bird, It`s a plane, No It`s TM IUe

There are no comments on TM WDa and TM BP`s speeches, since they are contest preparation speeches.

The meeting began on time. The good management was made by the president TM BP and TMoD MYama.

TMoD Maruyama did a great job. His experience, flexible and quick wit helped his performance.

TM TM voluntarily accepted the role of Jokemaster. He presented five or more jokes that were all hilarious. The focus of the jokes was on history.

TM MO’s Table Topics focused on the limit of something. Those questions presented to TM YDa, TM ANo, TM TM, TM MYama and the guest, Ms TNaka. During the session, he also gave the members some suggestions, such as taking notes for topics and using the word of the day. Writing on the timer’s report should have done by Table Topic Master.

Speech evaluations by TM SDa, TM HGuchi, TM IGaki and TM TM were excellent. All of them gave their comments on what the speakers did well and what they could improve. TM SDa had already read the poem that TM EO presented in his speech. That was a good tactic for giving some comments. She didn’t use any note. TM HGuchi recovered his energy at the evaluation session and gave his nice comment on TM IUe’s speech. TM IGaki also delivered his very fantastic evaluation for TM BP’s speech. TM TM put two caps at the meeting and evaluated TM WDa’s speech. He didn’t use any notes and gave very enthusiastic evaluation.

TM MYama was presented with Best Performer award for his good preparation. Obuta award was presented with TM YDa for having had been away for the meetings.

Ah counts

TM YDa: 1
TM ANo: 4
TM MYama: 4
TM TIshi: 2
TM SDa: 1
TM HGuchi: 2

*Word of the day
TM TNaka: 1
TM EO: 2
TM MO: 2
TM IUe: 2
TM TIshi: 1
TM HGuchi: 1
TM IGaki: 3

Today, we also had some great speakers today. TM MYama gave his first 1st speech at Atsugi-Zama TMC, but it was the 2nd time for him to give an Ice Breaker Speech. One of his acquaintances told him about Toastmaster via an internet B.B.S when he had a trip to Washington DC 2 years ago. He talked about how he was attracted to Toastmasters and made a contrast between before joining the club and what happened after. He concluded his speech showing his goal that he makes 12 speeches this year and today's was fourth.

Another speech was by TM TIshi The speech title was “diploma”. Diploma is a certificate of graduation from schools. But there are a lot of graduations not only from schools but also from other things, such as heartbreak, hardship or habit. If we could overcome these things, we can graduate from them. And we get a diploma from ourselves.

March 30th Winners

The meeting began on time. The meeting room had been prepared ahead of time, with the lectern in place.

TM BP opened the meeting at 3:30 prompt and the TMOD IGaki enthusiastically followed through with his opening words and the introduction of the Ah counter, the Timer, and the Grammarian. All explained their functions very well. Jokemaster presented five or more jokes that were all very well received. The focus of the jokes was on Education and Lawyers.

Today's Table Topics focused on Mobile (cellular) phones and the Table Topicmaster presented a number of questions to the participants, Because we had a lot of time on our hands having this many number of participants was appropriate. While participants were generally on topic eye contact could have been better in terms of taking in people in different parts of the room. Gestures were also generally muted except perhaps for TM BP and TM ANo.

Speech evaluations by TM HDate and TM IUe were both excellent. There were comments on what the speakers did well and what they could improve. TM HDate noted that she and TM MYama, the speaker that she was evaluating had not got together before the meeting so she did not have the speaker's manual.

TM IUe praised TM TIshi's ability to make her presentation without using any notes. In his own evaluation it was not evident that TM IUe relied on any notes so he was able to maintain eye contact.

A few people looked confounded during the short business session probably because of lack of familiarity with the procedures. It would be a good idea for us to have a workshop on meetings and how to use the Robert's Rules of Order.

TM IGAki was presented with Best Performer award for his timely comments before and after every speaker and the smooth manner in which he ran the meeting. TM HDate and TM MYama (both long-term Toastmasters) got the Obuta award for not having got together before the meeting in order to prepare for the evaluation role.

Today there were actually a few mistakes it seems. In once case a preposition was drop as for example "... graduated to (from) school ..". In another case, there was an improper use of tense: "In my experiences (experience)". Finally, there was classic case of mixing up How and What as in "How (what) do you think. Remember that `how` is asking for a method or way. `What` is asking for the actual thought.

March 16th`s Winners, Yea!

We had some great speeches this week! First was a speech by TM YShita. She noted that drinking bottled water is bad for the environment. After all it takes a lot of oil to make the plastic bottles and a lot of and energy to transport the bottled water. So everyone should drink tap water. Also on the environmental theme, TM DGuchi talked about biofuels. He went over the pluses and minuses of this type of technology. Unfortunately, it is also his swan song, as he is moving to the Nagasaki. We all wish the best for him.

TM WDa practiced his speech for the Japanese speech contest next month in Tencho Kawasaki near Mizonokuuchi Station. It was well delivered and had amusing stories, and I shall refrain from commenting on further because it is a contest speech. The last one was done by a well-seasoned veteran, TM TM who was working on introductions for the Specialty Manual. All were well executed with the usual wit and charm that TM TM is capable of. And that`s for the Speech Review.

TM WDa on Losing Points: A Story of the Beginning of Beginnings

This is the General Evaluator's review for the previous meeting. The business portion was handled very well by our President Perkins. Especially, he showed a good example of how to deal with the parliamentary procedure. In the last moment, the job of timer was accepted by TM Asano without a hesitation, which was the good example of "Hot Seat". Joke Master, although it was his first exposure to the audience, demonstrated a symmetrical display of conversation in his story-telling.

Table Topic Master gave very clear questions with a few wards, so every participants could show their ability to speak " off the cuff". Prepared speakers tried to give " without the note" speeches. This attitude of speakers contributes a lot to the quality level of our TM meetings. The speech in Japanese was so good, I personally hoped the speaker one day could give same speech in English. TMOD could display very smooth transition of those functions. The introduction of speakers fitted to the requirement. Overall, I was so happy to perform the GE's job with such high quality "Urbane" meeting. Thank you very much everyone who were there.

P.S. It was a pity news that TM DGuchi will soon move to Nagasaki.

Today there were the usual mistakes on plural usage and some verbs going AWOL in sentences. However there were a couple of gaffes on word usage that are worth mentioning. "Like the hot seat right now" was said by one TM. This should in fact be "... in the hot seat ... " since the hot seat is imagined to be a like a chair. Another one was “We should do bottled water.” The word do does have quite a lot of uses, but it doesn`t work here. The verb drink works fine. However it should be noted that marketing people have butchered the English language in this way before. The makers of Mountain Dew, a popular soft drink in the US, had a slogan “Do the Dew” which simply meant to drink Mountain Dew.

"Please tell us about a good memory in your past life." was said by one TM. A past life is not what happened to you in your life in the past. It is your life before you are on this earth now. For example, some people believe in reincarnation. They may believe that a long time ago they were a shopkeeper in Edo period and claim to have memories of that past life. Lastly, not a grammatical mistake per se, but a personal pet peeve. “To tell the truth” is a phrase that even native speakers use. It sometimes makes me think that `so, what you said before wasn`t the truth?` I personally don`t like the phrase.

The following is the `Ah Counter` Report:
TM MYama 1
TM TIshi 1
TM YShita 8
TM THashi 1
TM SGi 1
TM HGawa too many to count :)