1Feb’13

Know

You

r Clu

bEst. – 1997, Club # 1059126, District# 41

Meetings – Every 2nd and 4th Saturday

Location – JVCC, (Next to Bal Bharathi School)

Sector -21, Noida

Noida Toastmasters Club

For NTMC membership details contact:VP Membership: Nikhil - 8800440717

For club meeting roles and participation:VP Education: Abhishek - 9873558240

Media, Guest speakers, PR:VP Public Relations :Vijay - 9910180719

Club President:Prashant - 9999975960

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Noida Toastmasters ClubCommuniqué

Table of Contents4 Message from the President

5 Message from the Treasurer

6 About Toastmasters

7 About Noida Toastmasters Club

9 The Executive Committee

10 Know Our New Members

11 Past Month

12 Meeting #142

13 Meeting #143

Noida Toastmasters Club 3

14 The “Ah Factor”

15 The Graph Search

16 Risk a Verse

17 Wise Words

18 The Way We Speak

19 Photographs

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Dear Members,

February is a very interesting month. Apart fromhosting now immensely popular Valentine day, it’sthe only month with variable number of days. Themonth of February derives its name from romanmonth “Februarius” which was named after theLatin term “februum”, meaning purification.January and February were the last two months tobe added to the Roman calendar. OriginallyRomans considered winters to be a month lessperiod.There is something that makes this month evenmore special: we are launching our club newsletterafter a long newsletter less period. I’m delightedto see our newsletter brought to life infused withfresh energy. It would have been impossiblewithout the commendable work of the editorialteam.

I encourage all members to contribute to theupcoming issues if the newsletter, because whenyou start writing article you would realize it helpsdeveloping our skills even further. In the club wepractice and develop our oratory and delivery butcontributing to the newsletter would help youdevelop your writing skills as well. It would alsohelp you clarify your thought process and improveyour grammar. We could have richer content in thenewsletter, if members can contribute theirspeeches in form of articles.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcomeonce again two new members in our executivecommittee our energetic & imaginative club Secretary:Nityam Khurana and diligent & methodical VP-PublicRelations: Vijay Anand.

I still remember the first meeting of NoidaToastmasters Club that I attended on 24th May 2008vividly. Since then the club has seen many ups anddowns. During this period it was led by differentexecutive committees who always served the clubbest to their capacities. It is this thread of excellenceimbibed into the very DNA of this club that gives thisclub such resilience. I have no qualms in saying thatwe would reach even greater heights with dedicationof our executive committee, skills of our membersand the blessings of our mentors.

In my long association with toastmasters I found thatonce you recognize the benefits toastmaster’sdelivers and get involved, you get attached to it forlife. Toastmasters is life long program that deliverscontinuous learning, motivations, opportunities and apurpose. It gives an immense pleasure and sense ofachievement when you realize that you are not onlyhelping yourself but others also while participating intoastmasters.

I would like to welcome all our newmembers to this excellent program andassure them that we are going to learna lot from each other. I hope that youwould soon become an integral part ofthe growing toastmaster’s family.

Prashant Pandey

4Noida Toastmasters Club

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Noida Toastmasters Club 5Mes

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Dear Members,

The Toastmasters International is a nonprofitorganization and thus all the Toastmasters clubsneed to exist on self sustaining basis. In light of thisit becomes very important that the finances of theToastmaster club are managed well and handledmeticulously so that the sources collected can beutilized to the maximum for the benefit of themembers and the club in the long run.

I am presenting a snap shot so as to make youaware of the nuances of the financial managementof the club.

The Noida Toastmasters club is the only club inNoida which is a non corporate club and rest allothers are corporate clubs. Being a non corporateclub we have to organize our meetings at a publicvenue which involves significant expenditure aspart of the total collections. Apart from this thereare other incidental expenses like refreshmentcharges, stationery charges and many otherincidental expenses incurred in the day to dayaffairs of the club. To meet these expenses,subscriptions are collected from the members.

A detailed description of the charges are listed asunder1. Whenever a new member joins, he needs to pay

Rs.1500/- as the admission charges. This amount

covers the cost for the study manuals which areprovided to the member on joining the club.

2. Besides, a member needs to pay Rs.600/- per

month as the club subscription. The charges arepayable on half yearly basis i.e. they become duein the month of March and September eachcalendar year. These translate into an installment

of Rs.3600/- every six months

3. In case a member joins in between then he/sheneeds to pay the admission charges along withthe monthly subscription for the months that areremaining in that particular half year.

The Noida Toastmasters club also needs to paycorresponding charges to TMI (Toast Master

International USA) amounting to USD 20 for every

new admission and USD 6 per month per member as

the subscription charges.

Therefore I urge you to pay the clubmembership dues timely so as to helpyou serve well and avoid follow-upsfrom the EC members.

Aman Goyal

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Noida Toastmasters Club

What is Toastmasters?

Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization thatteaches public speaking andleadership skills through aworldwide network of meetinglocations. “Dr. Ralph C. Smedley”started ‘Toastmasters’ in the US.

The original intention of this clubwas to help people to easily andconfidently reply to toasts raisedduring banquets. Thus the name‘Toastmasters’. But now, its solefocus is on developingcommunication and leadership skills.Headquartered in Rancho SantaMargarita, California, theorganization has more than

250,000 members in more than

12,500 clubs in 106 countries.

Since 1924, Toastmasters

International has helped people ofall backgrounds become moreconfident in front of an audience. Itsproven educational program is self-paced and affordable. Whether youwork in a corporate environment orfrom home, whether you are astudent or retiree, Toastmasters isthe most efficient, enjoyable andaffordable way of gainingcommunication and leadership skills.

Mission

Toastmasters International is theleading movement devoted tomaking effective oral communicationa worldwide reality.

Through its member clubs,Toastmasters International helpsmen and women learn the arts ofspeaking, listening, and thinking –vital skills that promote self-actualization, enhance leadershippotential, foster humanunderstanding, and contribute to thebetterment of mankind.

It is basic to this mission thatToastmasters Internationalcontinually expand its worldwidenetwork of member clubs, therebyoffering ever-greater numbers ofpeople the opportunity to benefitfrom its programs.

Vision

Toastmasters Internationalempowers people to achieve theirfull potential and realize theirdreams. Through our member clubs,people throughout the world canimprove their communication andleadership skills, and find thecourage to change.

Values

Toastmasters International’s corevalues are integrity, dedication toexcellence, service to the member,and respect for the individual. Theseare values worthy of a greatorganization, and we believe weshould incorporate them as anchorpoints in every decision we make.Our core values provide us with ameans of not only guiding but alsoevaluating our operations, ourplanning, and ourvision for the future.

Why join Toastmasters?

Communication and leadership skills separate the best from the rest. Good communicators tend to be good leaders.

Skills we acquire at Toastmasters spill over into all areas of our life.

Toastmasters is the right platform to help you:

• Learn to communicate more effectively• Become a better listener.• Improve your presentation skills• Increase your leadership potential• Become more successful in your career• Build your ability to motivate and persuade• Reach your professional and personal goals• Increase your self-confidence.

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Beat the Clock - the club

added five new, dual or

reinstated members during

May and June.

2011-2012

Smedley Award - the club

added five new, dual or

reinstated members during

August and September.

2008-2009,

2010-2011

Talk up Toastmasters - the

club added five new, dual or

reinstated members during

February and March.

2007-2008

President's Distinguished

Club - the highest level of

recognition available. The

club met the membership

prerequisite and achieved at

least nine of the 10 goals.

2011-2012

2009-2010

2008-2009

Distinguished Club - the club

met the membership

prerequisite and achieved at

least five of the 10 goals.

2010-2011

Noida Toastmasters Club

Founded in 1997 it’s one of the best and oldest clubs on Noida, and is the only community club.

Distinguished Club ProgramsMembership Building Programs

There are 29 active members in Noida Toastmasters collaborate on every 2ndand 4th

Saturday of the month for the Toastmaster session

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Noida Toastmasters Club

We are already a Distinguished club and moving towards our goal of achieving the “President's Distinguished Club”

This club is the home club of the members who have had a substantial contribution to theToastmasters organizations. Members like DTM Poonam Jain, Mr. Rajan Sinha, Mr. CV Ram havealways been a source of inspiration for not only Noida Toastmasters Club, but also for the otherclubs in the area.

DTM Poonam Jain Mr. Rajan Sinha Mr. CV Ram

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Noida Toastmasters Club

President – Prashant Pandey

Prashant has been a member ofNoida Toastmasters Club since 2008and has worked hard on making theclub reach new heights. He is awonderful orator and a charmingleader .

Vice President Education – Abhishek

Abhishek handles the educationfront of the club. He works with themembers on completing the projects,assigning mentors. arrangingcompetitions and motivating people.

Secretary – Nityam

Nityam is the club secretary whotakes care of the day-to-dayworking of the club. Nityam takesthe notes of the meeting, handles theFacebook page and the editorial ofthe club

Vice President Membership – Nikhil

Nikhil is a seasoned toastmaster . Heworks with the EC team in increasingthe membership base andencouraging guests to attend themeetings of Noida TMC

Vice President PR – Vijay

Vijay pools his efforts on the PublicRelations of the club. He has heldvarious posts in the EC of the club inthe past. He handles the Facebookpage, Twitter handle. He constantlyinteracts with guests and works onincreasing the visibility of the club.

Treasurer – Aman

Aman, a charted accountant byprofession is the treasurer of theclub. He handles the finances of theclub, making sure that the club hasenough funds to run smoothly

Sear gent At Arms – Vishal

Vishal is the sergeant at arms of theclub. He opens all the meeting of theclub making sure that meetings atthe location can occur smoothly.

Special Member: Varun Wahal

Varun is a special member of the EC.He closely works with all themembers of the EC in makings surethat club and its preceding occursmoothly. He interacts with themembers of the club to look into anyissues or grievances.

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Know

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Noida Toastmasters Club

Avadesh

Avadhesh is a toastmasters since Jan2013. Avadhesh is a digital mediaprofessional having nine years ofexperience in Telecom, IT and Media.Avadhesh has interest in business andcultural relations. Avadhesh likes travellingand wants to explore world.

Saurabh

Saurabh is an engineer by education andworks with HCL. Saurabh lives his lifewith a tag line “Discovering a better meeach day”. Saurabh joined the

Toastmaster fraternity in Jan 2013.

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Meeting #142

Best Speaker – AmitBest Evaluator – AnjaliBest TT Speaker – Abhishek

Noida Toastmasters Club

Past

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Meeting #143

Best Speaker – NityamBest Evaluator – RajBest TT Speaker – Raj

Noida TMC Executive Committee Installation

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#142

,

Toast Master of the day: Prashant Pandey

Sergeant-at- Arms Vishal opened the 142nd meeting of the Noida Toast Masters Club by welcoming the fellow Toastmasters and guests. The first meeting of year 2013 was a full house with 17 members and 1 Guest present at the meeting. Vishal handed over the podium to the club President and the Toastmasters of the day “Prashant Pandey” to start the meeting. Prashant for the benefit of the guests introduced Toastmaster International providing a brief history about the organization and how it functions. He invited the guest “Mr. Rajan” to introduce himself.

Post the introduction General Evaluator “Mr. Ram” took over the meeting to introduce the speakers and his Supplementary evaluation team.

Ah-Counter: Nityam KhuranaTimer: MedhaviGrammarian: GarimaTable Topic Master: VarunWord Master: Abhishek (Word of the Day: Accentuate)

Prepared Section

Speech 1: Amit (P1), Evaluator – NikhilAmit gave his “Ice Breaker” speech describing his journey in life as synonyms to “Riding a Bus”. A very confident speech added with humor, which made everyone in the room laugh.

Speech 2: Dr Vipin (P14), Evaluator – RajanDr Vipin completed project (P14) from the advance manual and gave speech on “My Nagging Wife”. His motive of the speech was to give a humorous speech. He fulfilled his project wonderfully by making everyone in the room giggle to the story of his nagging wife.

Speech 3: Rajeev (P12), Evaluator – AnjaliRajeev speech on “Coaching” was from the advance manual. He briefly explained on what is coaching and why coaching is beneficial. He made crisp presentation to accompany his speech. His project also required role play, which was beautifully crafted and engaged the audience.

Table Topic Section:

Table Topic Master “Varun” came up with various interesting topics like “New Year Resolution are meant to be broken”, “The city of Gurgaon”, “Oh My God”, etc for the audience to engage them in the Table Topic section. Guest Rakesh, TM Amit, TM Garima, TM Vipin, and TM Abhishek spoke on the Table topics provided by Vishal.

Evaluation Sections:The Speech Evaluators and the audience provided feedback to each individual speech. They discreetly commended and recommended each speaker on their strengths and weakness hence providing them with a true picture of the speech delivered by them. The Supplementary evaluation team also gave the feedback of each individual speaker with the Ah Count, Timing and Grammatical mistakes made by them.

12Noida Toastmasters Club

Results of the Day:

Best Speaker – AmitBest Table Topic speaker – AbhishekBest Evaluator – Anjali.

The 142nd meeting ended with the EC (Executive Committee) installation. Nityam Khurana was installed as the new club Secretary and Vijaywas installed as the new Club VP-PR. Both the members with enthusiasm took the oath to serve the club and the members with full commitment.

Post the installation, all the members gathered to celebrate the New Year and Birthday of Club member (Parnika) by cutting the cake, and enjoying snacks while interacting with each other.

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#143

Toast Master of the day: Abhishek Sharma

Sergeant-at- Arms Vishal opened the 143rd meeting of the Noida Toast Masters Club by welcoming the fellow Toastmasters and guests. The meeting was held almost after a month because of 26th Jan being a holiday. It was a full house with 17 members and 5 Guest present at the meeting. Vishal handed over the podium to the club President and the Toastmasters of the day “Abhishek Sharma” to start the meeting. Abhishek request Prashant for the benefit of the guests to introduced Toastmaster International providing a brief history about the organization and how it functions. Abhishek introduced two of the veteran Toastmasters Raj and Akanksha who returned back after a sabbatical of about a year. Noida TMC was also honored by the presence of Mr. Debaditya (District Governor) in this meet.

Post the introduction General Evaluator “Mr. Debaditya” took over the meeting to introduce the speakers and his Supplementary evaluation team.

Ah-Counter: Saurabh Gupta

Timer: PoonamGrammarian: AmanParliamentarian – Abhishek SharmaTable Topic Master: Amit Word Master: Sunaina (Word of the Day: Histrionic)

Prepared Section

Speech 1: Nityam (P3), Evaluator – RajNityam gave his Project 3 named “The Ah Counter”. The speech was to inspire the fellow Toastmasters on how to reduce the number of filler words which are used by the speakers. He described the problems and possible solutions which can be deployed to reduce the number of filler words like “Ah, Uh, So, etc)

Speech 2: Amitava (P13), Evaluator – PrashantAmitava gave his Project (P13) on “Diffuse Verbal Criticism”. His slides were aptly constructed to compliment his speech. The speech also involved a role play which was beautifully crafted and executed.

Speech 3: Megha (P3), Evaluator – AkankshaMegha delivered her P3 with the title “Benefits of Sleep”. She was successful in creating a suspense among the audience on what her speech is about. The speech was well delivered to mention why sleeping is important and how it benefits the human body.

Speech 4: Rajeev (P18), Evaluator – PoonamRajeev gave a wonderful speech from his advance manual. As his P18 he delivered the speech as a true orator and also complimented it with the role play. His speech as always was very enriching and entertaining

Table Topic Section:Table Topic Master “Amit” came up with a new concept of executing this section. He like an experienced director crafted a movie with 6 sections. Each section had a story teller who would build up the 6 sections of the movie by introduction of twists, turns, emotions and drama. The concept was beautifully crafted and 6 story tellers (Sunaina, Abhishek, Raj, Rahul, Rakesh, Poonam) made a wonderful story about a draught affected village and how it was rescued from cruel water lords.

13Noida Toastmasters Club

Evaluation Sections:The Speech Evaluators and the audience provided feedback to each individual speech. They discreetly commended and recommended each speaker on their strengths and weakness hence providing them with a true picture of the speech delivered by them. The Supplementary evaluation team also gave the feedback of each individual speaker with the Ah Count, Timing and Grammatical mistakes made by them.

Results of the Day:

Best Speaker – NityamBest Table Topic speaker – RajBest Evaluator – Raj.

The 143rd meeting ended with all Toastmasters satisfied with the beautiful speeches.

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The “

Ah-F

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Noida Toastmasters Club

No matter how many times I have rehearsed my speech beforestepping on the podium. No matter how perfect I feel that the speechhas been constructed, the most dreaded factor is not the eyes of theaudience, but the hands of the “Ah” counter. Most of the time in myspeech I keep looking at those hands moving on the sheet of paperand counting the number of “AH” which I have been uttering out.Mostly they are sub-conscious and at times to cover up my loss ofwords.

Most of people do not realize the number of times filler words like“Ah, um, uh” they speak in a speech or in a conversation. It is whenone is on the other side of the speech that we realize that howannoying the filler words can be. It often portrays the lack ofpreparedness of an individualwhen the speech is being delivered

The key factor for an individual for reducing the number of fillerwords is “REALISATION”. Which one is your favourite filler word thatcomes to rescue whenever you are stuck. Once you have identifiedthe filler word, it will move out of the sub- conscious bracket andwould ring a bell whenever you are speaking it.

Few point which would help you reduce the number of filler words are:-

1. Make a graph of number of filler words that are being used by you with help of the “AH counter”. It will help you visualize your progress with each speech that you deliver at the Toastmasters.

2. Practice the speech in front of a camera if possible, and replay the recording to understand where in your speech you have been looking out for words. Don’t rush to speak as if you just want to complete the speech as soon as possible. Enjoy each word that comes out of your mouth.

3. Phrase the sentence properly in your mind when giving the speech so that you are not looking for words when they come out of your mouth and if you do end up searching for words, try and replace it with a silence.

4. Practice to speak with pauses in between paragraphs, so when you do pause in between the speech to look for words, the audience is unable to tell the difference.

- Nityam Khurana(Best Speech Meeting #143)

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Noida Toastmasters Club

Facebook is betting big on a new paradigm of searching called Graph search. How different it is from traditional search engines? A normal search would more or less gets you results that are common in nature. How about a search that is personalized? Welcome to the world of graph search. With graph search you can look up anything shared with you on Facebook, and others can find stuff you’ve shared with them. Each person sees unique results. Imagine you want to buy a gadget. There are umpteen sites filled with expert reviews that says what you should buy. It is more biased in nature and might probably have some hidden agenda. What if the suggestion came from your friend. You would naturally trust your friend more than the expert. And eventually your decision would cater to your best interests. Though it seems all jazzy at the moment, the real success of this product is upon the quantum of information that people are willing to share. And time will tell that

- Vijay

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Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,The question, O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.That you are here—that life exists and identity,That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Noida Toastmasters Club

Risk

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- Walt Whitman

The poet conveys how people ask the same questions over and over again, about the meaning of life and their role in it all. The poem is pessimistic view of the world, how everyone goes about their day without any purpose or destination. He thinks negatively about himself and how he is just like everyone else, one of the "faithless" and "foolish" who he mentioned before. He desperately wants to see meaning in life and get out of this endless current of negativity, but he perceives bad things happening every time he tries. How nothing ever goes right and how people are never really going anywhere. He counts himself as one of these people going nowhere. He feels sad about the world around him and he doesn't know how life could really be a good thing

Answer:

Whitman gives the answer to all of these questions of hopelessness. He says to be thankful for life, to be thankful you are an individual capable of making things happen. Life begins and ends every day. All you have to do is find your own purpose, why you want to live

Analysis of the poem

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“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”

Noida Toastmasters Club

Wise

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Swami Vivekananda

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something”

Plato

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“Where are you putting up?”

Well, most of us could probably decode this rather unique expression quite easily. It’s an expression that many Indians use to ask visitors from other cities and countries, “Where are you staying?”

However, your visitor might find it slightly difficult to comprehend.Putting up or put up typically refer to tolerating or enduring something inconvenient, or suffering without resentment.Putting up in the context of where a person is staying or lives is colloquial.

The following are safe alternatives you can use to converse in future:

“Where are you staying during your visit?”“Is your hotel near the office?”“You might want to try staying at another hotel next time.”

Noida Toastmasters Club

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