Dnipro Hills birthday & St. Valentine’s day

On February 14 the Dnipro Hills Club celebrated its 8-th birthday. The meeting was

opened by the President Hooshmand Honarmand, who told us what it means to be a leader.Apparently, it means to be always in time! (Or on time?) Then Hooshmand asked the guests to introducethemselves, and while guest Alexander told us his name and said “And this is enough”, our other guestVladimir ( “M.D. Vladimir, like M.D. House” ) gave us a true Icebreaker about himself, his interests andambitions and why he came to our club.

Then our President passed control to the Toastmaster Maxim Kuzyava. Maxim reminded usthat on that specific day we celebrate not only subject holidays, but also Chineese New Year!

Dnipro Hills TMCExcellence We Trust

Then Maxim introduced the team of evaluators, and

our most charming Timer Julia Barchukovaimplemented her new brilliant idea – she used colored hearts instead of cards! Then Maxim himselfannounced the word of the day – “Love”.

Alina Sverdelko, the Secretary of our club, gaveher forth speech titled “Love around the world”. Forsome reason it was called “My first” in the agenda, so everyone probably expected a private love story, butit was very exciting anyway. It told us about different romantic places all over the world, like romanticislands with pink sands, national parks, the Eiffel Tower and other participants of Romantic Top 10.

Then it was time for Table Topics session, and our charismatic Table Topics Master IrynaTaratun (dressed in romantic white and black blouse and romantic blue jeans) made it quiteprofessionally. She asked our members and guests very appropriate questions like “What is the mostromantic thing a guy could do for a girl?” or ”What is your favourite Love book?” (it appeared that only

Julia Barchukova likes reading).

Then we had a special part called Best couple contest performed by Milla Nezlina (you’ve

certainly noticed her - beautiful red dress, black belt – WOW!) and Dmitry Odnorogov. Thequestions asked were like “what do you know about first kiss of your partner?” or “who of Hollywood stars

attracts your partner most of all?” Julia Dmytryshyn, our Area Governor, won this contest

together with Alexander Horoshilov (Apparently because she has quite a supernatural ability toanswer a question without even having heard it! However, there were some objections that she voted for

herself quite loudly, and that influenced the result. Anyway, the Central Elections Committee (Milla andDmitry) acknowledged the results.

The next was Contest “Who knows Club the best?”by Maxim Kuzyava. The questions were like“Who wasn’t ever the President of our club?” “Who won the Humorous Speech Contest?” “Who won theInner Club Contest?” (Milla knew the answer, and I didn’t raise my hand – shame on me!) and “Who knowsthe mission of our club?” (The best answer on this one was “President knows!”)

Then was a boring evaluation of Alina’s speech and a very exciting and professional evaluation of TableTopics done by Julia Dmytryshyn, our Area Governor! Julia advised to ask Mark Taylor

how to prepare private questions for Table Topics, and also told us an unbelievable story about amarshrutka driver, who congratulated his sweetheart with st. Valentine’s Day. This story proves thatmiracles happen, and we must always believe in Love and other things that can save our world. (That isespecially relevant when you witness a big crowd of political demonstration participants near Pecherskametro station, and their look convinces you that we’ll need a huge amount of beauty and Love to save thisworld…)

Carpe Diem!

14/02/2010 Dmytro Odnorogov