PEN Toastmasters Cell (PTC) successfully conducted Vol. 3, No. 5 Toastmasters on the theme “GADGETS” at its Secretariat on Friday July 13, 2012. Including five enthusiastic females, seventeen energetic youths attended the Toastmasters Program.
President Sujan Koirala called Toastmasters Program to order at 6.40PM at PEN Secretariat. He welcomed all the guests and members respectively. Participants gave a brief self-introduction following President’s welcoming address. He introduced Shreebatsa Basnyat as the Toastmasters of the Day and handed him the podium for manual speaking session.
TMD Shreebatsa stated the theme of the day: “Gadgets” and explained why this theme was chosen. After the theme of the day, he introduced evaluation committee members starting from Nilambar Badal in the role of general cum speech evaluator, Sujan Koirala in Ah-counter, Binod P. Mainali in grammarian and Sachin Koirala in timer. The language for delivering the speech was Nepali.
TMD Shreebatsa introduced Kamala Basnet, the first manual speaker of the day, who was on her project-3. She spoke on “Gadgets” in general. She started her speech with an introduction to gadget. She raised few issues of gadgets but most of them are limited to the listing only. Though she tried to establish the topic with some examples but scattered a lot.
TMD Shreebatsa introduced Dev Raj Karki, the second manual speaker of the day, who was on his project-2. Like Kamala, Dev also spoke on “Gadgets” in general. He defined the term ‘gadget’ and explained what can be regarded as a gadget and provided a list. He raised few issues of gadgets too. After Dev’s speech, the program entered into Table Topics session.
TMD Shreebatsa who was also the Table Topicsmaster put four spot topics on the floor with a view that the participants would voluntarily pick each topic for the speech. The topics were: (1) The most missed gadget, (2) A remarkable achievement with the use of a gadget, (3) A gadget I love to misuse, and (4) A gadget I was gifted. Laxman B. Pahari, Kapil Deuja, Debraj Ghimire and Mili Ghimire were picked to speak on the respective topics.
Laxman in his speech disclosed that the mobile he found near New Road gate as the most missed gadget while Kapil, in his speech, revealed that his mobile helped him made a remarkable achievement, that is, his mobile could help him reconnect with an employment agent who escaped with his money two years back. Debraj stated that he had never misused any gadget so he advised others not to misuse too. Mili talked about a mobile phone gifted by his brother. The evaluation session followed the Table Topics session.
General evaluator Nilambar coordinated the evaluation session. At first, he called Sachin, the timer, from evaluation team. Sachin reported the time taken by all five speakers. Manual speakers Kamala and Dev spoke 7min 13sec and 7min 28sec respectively. Similarly, Table Topics speakers Laxman, Kapil, Debraj and Mili respectively spoke 2min 57sec, 1min 22sec, 45sec and 54sec. He was quite satisfied with the time utilized by Kamala, Dev and Laxman while he advised Kapil, Debraj and Mili to utilize the allotted time properly in upcoming Toastmasters.
Ah-Counter Sujan presented his report on Ah-Counting error (unusual pause, hesitation and repeated words) of all six speakers respectively. He reported that manual speaker Kamala committed 11 Ah-Counting mistakes in aggregate in her speech while Dev committed 15 Ah-Counting mistakes in aggregate. Similarly, Table Topics speakers Laxman, Kapil, Debraj and Mili committed 7, 3, 3 and 0 mistakes related to Ah-Counting in aggregate respectively.
Grammarian Binod presented his report on incorrect grammar (grammar error, any awkward word, misuse of language) of all six speakers respectively. He reported that manual speakers Kamala and Dev committed 11 grammar related mistakes each in aggregate in their respective speech. Similarly, he reported that Table Topics speakers Laxman, Kapil, Debraj and Milli committed 6, 2, 5 and 5 grammar related mistakes each in aggregate in their respective speeches.
Finally, Nilambar came up with his speech evaluation report. He evaluated the speeches of manual speakers Kamala and Dev in terms of speech value, preparation, organisation, opening, body, conclusion and transition. Except the opening of the speech of Kamala, both the speakers’ speeches scored above average in all categories. Her opening was bit ordinary. Nilambar appreciated the confidence and fluency in the speech of Kamala while Dev had a very good presentation and correlations between the sentences were excellent.
Kamala’s introduction was vague and confusing. Her speech was descriptive but scattered a lot. Her speech was full of Nepangrejee so as Dev’s speech. In both the speeches, Nilambar did not get the proper definition of the term ‘gadget’. After the evaluation, Nilambar gave few advices to both the speakers particularly on improving warmer, gesture and body language.
Similarly, Nilambar made comments on the speeches of four Table Topics speakers with reference to speech value, preparation, organisation, opening, body, conclusion and transition of the speech. Speech of Laxman was interesting and entertaining as he reflected what he had experienced in past. Nilambar liked Kapil’s confidence, Debraj’s warmer and Mili’s confidence, gesture and body movement. Though he made comment on each evaluation category, speeches of Laxman and Mili were judged as above average while speeches of Kapil and Debraj were judged as satisfactory. He specially advised Laxman to control his over gesture, Kapil and Debraj to avoid stubbornness and Mili to improve explanations. Nilambar also made comments on the day’s Toastmasters and expressed his happiness over the participation and smooth operation of the day’s Toastmasters. After the evaluation session, Nilambar returned control to TMD Shreebatsa for ballot counting.
Bal Gopal Shrestha coordinated the Ballot Counting. Through Ballot Counting, Dev and Laxman were judged the best speakers in manual speaking session and Table Topics session respectively. TMD Shreebatsa awarded these best speakers with a pen that symbolically represents Pax Earth Nepal (PEN). The audiences gave a big round of applause to the remaining four speakers for their level best attempts. Then, TMD Shreebatsa returned control to the President.
Before wrapping up the day’s program, President Sujan Koirala allowed the participants if they wished to make any comment on the day’s program. Utilising the opportunity, Kapil Deuja and Sanjay Sharma made some comments and provided useful suggestions to make the program more effective. President assured them to incorporate their suggestions in the subsequent Toastmasters.
At the end, President Sujan Koirala warmly thanked TMD Shreebatsa, all six speakers, evaluation committee members, ballot counter and audiences for their active support in making the day’s Toastmasters a success.
After the vote of thanks, President formally adjourned the Day’s Toastmasters Program.
List of the participants:
(1) Sujan Koirala, (2) Nilambar Badal, (3) Binod P. Mainali, (4) Bal Gopal Shrestha, (5) Shreebatsa Basnyat, (6) Laxman B. Pahari, (7) Debraj Ghimire, (8) Anita Subedi, (9) Sachin Koirala, (10) Kamala Basnet, (11) Peter Badal, (12) Kapil Deuja, (13) Dev Raj Karki, (14) Reetu Adhikari, (15) Jamuna Siwakoti, (16) Mili Ghimire, and (17) Sanjay Sharma.
