A Meeting of meraki

written by aseem kapoor

VPPR Croydon Communicators

So what is 'meraki'? This was the word  of the day chosen by grammarian Gina and a challenge for tonight's speakers to try and drop into their speeches. It means doing things with soul, creativity, pride, passion, care, love, and putting something of yourself into your work.

All roles, speaking and functionary were definitely performed with meraki this evening, starting with SAA Troy, and the warm-up session from Ravi who took the opportunity to engage with our guests.

Special recognition goes to three new members that have joined in the past month, and one that has rejoined:
Soji as Toastmaster, confidently leading his very first club meeting. Andrew as timekeeper, and Elma as Topic Evaluator, and Amy delivering a speech on her return to the club.

Here they all are receiving welcome ribbons from Immediate Past President Aminat:

Amy's speech was titled 'The Sweetest Sound' in which she shared an amusing example of how picturing a fan helped her recall the name of another one of our past president's Dan.

Sandhya making quick progress on her educational path having recently joined, stepped up to deliver her second speech titled 'Happiness'.

Gina was our third speaker (as well as tonight's grammarian) with a speech titled 'Invitation to Tender' in which she compared baking a cake to building a project team!  

To evaluate the first speaker we had Caroline, who commended Amy on her story telling and highlighted a particular sentence from her speech that stood out: 

"Words have meaning, names have power".

Dama, taking on the evaluator role for the first time, remarked on how she found Sandhya's speech thought-provoking.

Pankaj started his evaluation by using the word-of-the-day 'meraki', and commented on how expressive and engaging Gina was in delivering her speech.

Before the network break and some refreshments, Aminat introduced first time guests Jas, Vidhya, and Vivina.

The second half of the meeting saw Pit take control as Table Topics Master, selecting eight volunteers from the audience to take part in the impromptu speaking exercise.

Ian and Elma shared topic evaluation duties between them giving insightful feedback to the speakers.

Another packed evening of public speaking was wrapped up with awards presented to Amy for best speaker, Caroline for best evaluator, and Susan for best table topics speaker!

Next meeting is on 23 February and will be the Evaluation Contest, members are encouraged to enter and have a go at evaluating a mystery test speaker under contest rules, or volunteer for a contest official role.