HTM HERALD

Volume 22 | May & June 2012

www.meetup.com/hyderabadtoastmasters

HTM Family & Friends with Mentor CK

From The Editor's Desk Dear Toastmasters, Entrusted with the responsibility

of publishing the latest issue ofHTM Herald, I was not feeling anynervousness. I took up the challengein a very cool attitude. The process of collatingthe content, spellcheck, and organizing the sameto send it for print has been quite a learning. Iwould however request all toastmasters to kindlysupport me with their experiences / learnings inthe form of articles. This is our forum to share ourthoughts and l welcome the active cooperation ofall members. Special thanks to HTM Familymember VMRG Suresh, who has done the entireformatting and design, as I have been totallyignorant of doing all the publishing stuff. I amenjoying this great learning experience and I amvery happy and excited releasing the copy ofHTM Herald on this day of Installation for theyear 2012-13.

Happy Toastmastering

TM Raji Vaddiparthi

Official Bulletin of Hyderabad Toastmasters. District 41 :: Div F :: Area 5 :: Club #946002

Venkata

Desi Boy

Team HTM, It gives me great pleasure to reach you through

our inhouse bulletin HTM Herald. I must congrat-ulate Rajeshwari and Bharathi for their efforts todeliver this issue of HTM Herald.

It's been an eventful 2011-12. We have achieved7 DCP goals and are a Select Distinguished Club. Anotable aspect is that we have achieved it despite the churn in our mem-bership this year. 20 of our base strength members left us during the year,but thanks to the stupendous efforts of VP Membership TM Salil - we hadan even higher number of toastmasters joining us. It's always sad to seewonderful members leave to distant cities and foreign lands. Separationis always painful but, we take umbrage in the fact, that they leave us toembrace greener pastures, for their progress and/or for better.

It's impossible to replenish the creativity, dedication and enthusiasmof the likes of a Mario, a Johnny, an Abhijit, a Devanand, a Raghu and/ora Surekha. But then it is always refreshing to see wonderful new mem-bers step in and take guard. They get inspired by the achievements andstories of what has been achieved by the members before. This is wherethe experienced (the term senior is a misnomer) toastmasters, who haveseen umpteen HTM summers play a role. TM Padmaja, TM Rameshwarand TM Ali, TM Santha and TM Sorabh continue to play an importantrole in helping us carry forward the culture of our wonderful organiza-tion, the ethos and spirit of HTM to the new members. We are so pleasedto see the elan and poise of Bharathi and Roshni, the innovativeness ofSudha ramani and Sumalatha, the dogged commitment of Latha andRajeshwari. It's surprising to see that all of them are ladies. Womenpower at HTM is indeed pretty inspiring. But credit, where due has to bepaid.

We have returned recently from Ovation 2012 at Delhi and were luckyto see Division F stars - Taskeen and Vinutha (women power again) leadus all back with our heads held high. Taskeen will be representingDistrict 41 at the World Championship of public speaking contest inOrlando, Florida. It's a great achievement for all of us in Division F. Iwould like to recognize TM AVS Prasad for doing us proud too, by ablyleading Area F5 of division F as Area Governor. TM Venkata for being ajewel in the crown of District 41 by his stupendous performance as AsstLGET and Dist 41 Chief Judge. He rocked Orations 2012 with his Desi-boys show on the cultural nite too. Venkata is an amazing HTM-er, acompletely selfless toastmaster and an inspiring role-model for the entiredistrict.

Talking of selfless toastmasters, it's time for me to move on and handover my responsibility to TM Jagrut Vaishnav. He is a person with hisheart in the right place. He genuinely cares for the club and each mem-ber. His humility, forthrightness and sincerity make him a darling to allof us. TM Salil joins him as the VP-ED. I laud TM Rajeev, TM Sudha, TMBharathi, TM Dr Prasad and TM Rajeshwari for taking on executiveresponsibilities for the incoming year. In this team, we have an uniqueblend of experience, maturity and creativity - that is sure to take HTM togreater heights. I thank my current executive team and am particularlyglad to note the amazing change I have seen in TM Rameshwar this year.

I welcome all our new HTM-ers, who have joined our family in thepast 6 months and wish them a great journey ahead in toastmasters atHTM, where Inspiring Leaders are born.

Yours Sincerely,

- TM Ajit Dembla

1) Club Officers Training Program

2) Judges Training Program

Both slated on 28 July 2012. Venue: Novartis Raheja MindSpace,Madhapur, Hyderabad.

A winter evening.Four friends.One barsaat.Four glasses of chai.

Celebration means...... Hundred bucks of petrol.A rusty old bike.And an open road.

Celebration means......Maggi noodles.A hostel room.4.25 a.m.

Celebration means...... 3 old friends.3 separate cities.3 coffee mugs.1 internet messenger.

Celebration means......Rain on a hot tin roof.Pakoras deep-frying.Neighbours dropping in.A party.

Celebration means......You and mom.A summer night.A bottle of coconut oil.A head massage.Gossiping about absent family members.

You can spendHundreds on birthdays, Thousands on festivals,Lakhs on weddings,

but to celebrateall you have to do is spend yourTime with your loved ones.

Celebration means...... From The President's Desk

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Dear Members,

It feels truly amazing communicating to you allthrough HTM Herald. Wow! What a term it has been.So far we have had 60 speeches in 25 meetings. TheToastmasters year 2012-13 saw an active participa-tion by the members be it new or experienced whenit came to giving speeches. And you know, that iswhat a VP-Education would love to see- multiplerequests from members vying for a speech slot.What was more heartening to see was that membershave realised the true value behind getting theirspeech mentored before the final show at the club infront of a packed hall at Jigyaasa studio. Quality ofmeetings has definitely gone a couple of notcheshigh with everyone trying to give their best shot andwith speeches being mentored properly and regular-ly. I still remember the Icebreaker speech thatRoshni, Bharathi or Raji gave or the entertainingspeech that Ajit made which had everyone in audi-ence split with laughter. While our first and foremostfocus has always been on quality we have been keen-ly following the Distinguished club program too thisyear. So far we have achieved the Select distin-guished status i.e. 7/10 as per DCP program. I wouldlike to thank Dr Prasad, Ajit, Salil, Santhana Lakshmifor their efforts in helping us reach this stage.Quality and quantity has gone hand in hand at HTMthis year. Coming to contests our contestants triedtheir best and got us a position in top three atDivision contests. TM Vidyashankar bagged the sec-ond runners up in Evaluation as well as International

speech contest and TM Ajit won the second runnersup position in table topics. We had a high number ofHTMers supporting our contestants at all the con-tests. Of notable mention is the 'Orafest 2012'where HTM was the highest contingent with 18members present to cheer Ajit and Vidya. But I stillfeel that at club level we could have had better par-ticipation from members. My personal wish is to see10 contestants compete at the club level in 2012-13contests. I would like to thank the members whotook up mentoring this year for their efforts namelySalil, Dr Prasad, Vidya, Surekha, Ajit and Venkata. Theyear was fabulous because of sincere efforts from allof you my dear HTMers. I wish to see you continuethis and I hope you keep experiencing the magic oftoastmasters as it helps us all in becoming bettercommunicators, leaders and more than anything elsebetter individuals.

2011-12 Educational Achievements The details regarding educational achievementsfor 2011-12 are as follows:

1) TM Dr AVS Prasad - ACB2) TM Jagrut Vaishnav- CL3) TM Rameshwar Chintal - CC4) TM Dr AVS Prasad - ALB5) TM Ajit Dembla- ALB

Report of VP-Education for the period Apr, May & June 2012

When I try & look back at the year gone by I am filled with wonder seeing the amount of change that hastaken place in the membership front at HTM. The year began with a drain of members from the Club onaccount of relocation or personal reasons.

We began the year with 28 members on the roster, many of whom were inactive due to their own per-sonal reasons. The target was one to get them to be active and at the same time increase the base to a setof active members who would bring life into the club. Fortunately we soon saw a turn around & with theefforts of members we soon had many new members coming in.

I am happy that as we near the end of the Toastmasters year we are 33 members strong with majority ofthem very active & enthusiastic. I am sure that this trend will continue & we can learn from each other.

- TM Salil Ganeriwal

Report of VP-Membership

(mis) communication !A leave letter to the headmaster: "As I am studying in this school I am suffering from headache.I request you to leave me today"Received in HR dept: "As my mother-in-law has expired and I am only one responsible for it,please grant me 10 days leave."An incident of a leave letter: "I am suffering from fever, please declare one day holiday."

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A year ago I came to Toronto on a work assignmentfor a year. Eager that I should not lose out on toast-masters, I found a club at my client's location, atRogers. The club was a corporate club which metonly for 50 minutes a week. This didn't seem to suitmy purpose and after much scouting around I joined"Comfortably Speaking Toastmasters", a communityclub in Division C, District 86.

I joined the club just a week before the club con-test and qualified at both the club and area levels forthe International Speech Contest within a fortnight. Iwas fortunate to be mentored by the best in my divi-sion, D.T.M. Susan Lamb Robinson (past District win-ner) and A.C.S. Jocelyn Vezina (Area Governor) fromthe club. On the 22nd of March I crossed the divisioncontesting against 6 Canadians. I knew that I was inthe big league now and this was a golden opportuni-ty.

Both my mentors worked with me on the nuancesin the types of phraseology that works in NorthAmerica. My speech topic was about swimming in thedeep. Susan told me that the phrase "the deep end"has very strong connotations in North America.Other phrases such as "swimming coach" also need-ed to be replaced by "swimming trainer" since thatwhat was used in common parlance here.

However, being an IT professional working onsite,time was perennially in short supply. Despite that, Imanaged to rehearse my speech in a total of 9 clubsacross Toronto. In one week alone I spoke at a totalof 5 clubs. One has to remember that these clubswere all spread out geographically between 30-40km and on weekday evenings. This meant that I hadto incur considerable personal expense traveling tothese places. In some cases I even had to travel bycabs due to the paucity of time.

Just a week before the district conference on the5th of May, work pressures began to take their tollon me. There were outstanding deliverables to myclient, a heap of old mails marked as "unread" and myeyes were looking sunken with dark circles. The goodrapport that I struggled so hard to build with myclient over the last 8 months slowly seemed to bedisappearing.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, just 2 daysbefore the conference, I almost decided to throw inthe towel for the speech contest. I found myself

unable to do the required amountof rehearsals because of the hugepile of work sitting on my desk.

I thought to myself "What's thematter with me. This is not fun anymore!! Speaking is supposed to befun!! otherwise what's the wholepoint". At the conference keynote address on the4th of May, 'Lashonda Rundles', the 2008 WorldChampion of Public Speaking in not too many wordssaid, "as a speaker your job is to ensure that yourmessage is received well by the audience, the restwill follow".

I decided then to just give it my best shot and tospeak without thinking about the outcome. Irehearsed well, and on Saturday, amidst a packedauditorium thick with tension, I delivered my speech.There were 8 equally competent speakers and it wasa very tough call to make. I also had the disadvantageof having a few audio problems when I was speaking.

As always, I had the privilege of being compliment-ed many times from members of the fraternity aftermy performance as I mingled after the show. Afterthe results were announced I had a few quietmoments with myself, and was still feeling low, myname was not on the top 3. On the last day of theconference, at the banquet hall a volunteer wasneeded to collect everyone's name badge for a luckydraw. I volunteered and had to go from table to tableto collect their name tags.

Imagine my surprise when every time I stopped ata table, a few of the people sitting there would say"oh hey, weren't you that speaker who spoke yester-day about swimming, you had the goggles on .. weloved it !!" At the end of collecting all the badges, Iwas gulping hard and had a tough time holding backmy emotion. My message had been delivered.

This movement has now given me a whole bunch ofnew friends in a new District. I have speakingengagements lined up for 3 clubs across Toronto asa guest speaker in the next few weeks (which is asmall consolation prize for the fact that I didn't win).

I received innumerable hugs from lots of men,women and singles over the last 2 days. The district86 governor, Avis Broodie told me after the contest,"You aren't giving up, are you". I laughed and replied"are you kidding".

As Robin Sharma once said "there are no failures,but only results". And sometimes results matter asmuch as the trophy does.

- TM Mario Rozario

My jjourney

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.- Harold R. McAlindon.

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WelcomeRajeev Shroff Senior Business leader inInformation Technology.

Why Toastmasters?

Im very keen to continue toimprove my communication skills,especially public speaking skills. I also look for-ward to making new friends.

Adithya MuraliWorking with ICRA Ltd as aChartered Accountant.

Why Toastsmasters?

I would want to spend my timeproductively, get to know peopleat the same time work on self improvement. Andcommunication is critical in the world of today and Ilook to improve on that.

Shailesh Krishna Working with ITC Ltd.

Why Toastmasters ?

I am interested in Public Speakingand wish to better myself and alsomake new friends.

Prachi Thakur Working in marketing dept of ThePark hotel.

Why Toastmasters?

It is a good platform to meet likeminded people, socialise andimprove one's communication and confidence. Venkata Subbu Rajesh Naidu Gopinath Bidar Vikram Kumar

NEW MEMBERS

Outgoing Executive OfficersPresident - TM Ajit DemblaImmediate Past President - TM Johnny KandathilVP Membership - TM Salil GaneriwalVP Education - TM Jagrut VaishnavVP Public Relations - TM Rajeshwari VaddiparthiSecretary - TM Rameshwar Chintal Treasurer - TM Santhanalakshmi KrishnasamiSeargent- At -Arms - TM Latha Reddy

Incoming Executive Officers President - TM Jagrut VaishnavImmediate Past President - TM Ajit DemblaVP Membership - TM Rajeev ShroffVP Education - TM Salil GaneriwalVP Public Relations - TM Sudha RamaniSecretary - TM Bharati RamineniTreasurer - TM Dr AVS Prasad Seargent-At-Arms - TM Rajeshwari Vaddiparthi

2011-12 Hyderabad Toastmasters 2012-13

Q u o t a b l e Q u o t e s :: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

:: Tongue weighs practically nothing, but only few people can hold it.

:: The happiness of our life depends upon the quality of our thoughts but quality of our thought depends on the people we have in our life.

:: We get lot of unconditional love when we are born and lots of unconditional respect when we die. We just have to manage the time in between.

Announcing HTM members own Knowledge Portal www.hyderabadtoastmasters.in

Dear HTMers,

I want to share an incidentwith you.

As some of you know, I am jobhunting in the US. This week Iattended one interview withthree senior managers of a company. Early on,as we were just getting to the 'tell me aboutyourself' questions, one manager suddenlyasked me 'are you in ToastmastersInternational'? I was surprised and said 'yes'.She said 'when I found out that I'm going tointerview you, I googled your name and youremail etiquette speech came up on YouTube andI was very impressed with that' and some con-versation about email followed. Needless to say,the other two managers were impressed withthat and it gave a big boost to my confidencelevel and set such a positive tone to the entireinterview. I am keeping my fingers crossed forthe result!

I was always proud to be a HTMer but more soat that moment. Guys - you never know how,when and where your TM experience will takeyou! But please, please do what you do know -attend meetings, take up roles, participate incontests and improve yourself! Utilize everyopportunity at HTM and we have such a greatteam leading us. It would be a shame not to takeadvantage of all the opportunities presented tous.

I was disappointed to see the same old namesfor the upcoming contests (sorry, no offensemeant to participants :)). They have participatedin many contests but what about you? Dhiraj,Kalyan, Sudha, Suma, Rambo, Roshni, Anupama,Uma - are you listening? You all have immensetalent - why aren't you participating? I hopeafter reading this mail, you will take part in TableTopics contest at least. We need more participa-tion and I am sure you will agree!

So have fun on Sunday! All the best to partici-pants and you all are winners because you arePARTICIPATING!!!

Best Regards,

- TM Surekha

Padmaja Adgoankar

Communication is an essential aspect forgrowth of any person irrespective of the field theperson is associated with. I believe this can onlybe developed by practice on an ongoing basis &toastmaster provides the platform to develop thesame. It is ensured that every speaker is evaluat-ed on all the parameters required for publicspeaking. In the two visits I made, I realized it notonly helps to develop communication skills butalso on your socializing, networking & leadershipskills & hence I would say a "Complete PersonalityDevelopment Program"

G. Devi Prasad

Really a great meeting. Simply Superb. I learntabout awareness and happiness in life etc, It wasgreat and the topics well picked.

Prasanna

Very positive and encouraging. Would like toattend more and share. Faced tough time in vot-ing the best speaker. Hope to be part of it in thefuture.

Gita Gupta

My need to overcome the fright of stage speak-ing seems to be here. Really enjoyed it.

Deepa

The best thing to do with your Sunday morningis to attend HTM meet. Enjoyed the speech and Ihad to take the role of Vote counter in the lastmoment. Still it was not eminent with the way thewhole meet was executed.

Joy Pavana

The environment was non-threatening for anew comer. Some topics we uplifting, Groundbreaking. Had I not attended, I would have beenone card short of deck! I liked it.

This is how HTM

helped me in USA

GuestSpeak Meeting no. # 135

"Meetup Site - Mani Kumar, Btech student"Q: We would love to hear your motivation to join thisgroup... Ans: In career counselling by Ujwal Bhavishya theyhave given us one precious advise that to join thisgroup ( toastmasters ).

S..m..i..l..e

A good part of my life, as a child, as ayoung adult and now as a mature individualI never did smile much owing to many rea-sons, lack of confidence, shyness and braces.

It is only recently that I discovered thepower of the smile…one of the most basic,biologically uniform expressions of allhuman beings, a universal means of commu-nication and a contagious emoticon.

So here I'm falteringly learning to let the smilesbloom on my lips, to give away, like flowers tofriends and family. In return for my smile I receiveone …every single time…from every single recipi-ent... a gift truly, because it lets me peek into theinner radiance of the givers' soul, even if it is only fora fleeting moment.

It took me a while to unravel the mystery of theS..M..I..L..E…but it's time to let you be privy to thesecret of my S.M..I..L..E….5 words that kept appear-ing in context with one another and are interde-pendent continuing to lead, follow, twist, bend andtango as if they were linked in some celestial dance.The 5 steps to self-realisation and the journey with-in.

S…self…..Any transformation does begin withthe individual self because the world around us is amirror merely reflecting what it sees within us. So goahead be the change you want to see, be willing tochange inside out, letting go off old redundant pat-terns and embracing new ones and in the processcontinually reinventing yourself. Embark on the jour-ney of the self- motivated and self-discovery to findthat which is unique to you as an individual.

M…motivated…the key ingredient in the recipefor success is staying motivated. It is what makesyour life's journey fun along with helping you pushforward when things get tough. It is dynamic andenergizing and which once found will align you toyour life's purpose.

It is a self directed mastery of purpose to serveyour greater vision and it is what drives you to actand step closer and closer to your goals.

Positive affirmations, creative visualizations,Inspirational quotes and stories are few of the toolsyou can use to jumpstart your motivational drive.

I…inspired…..harness the power of inspiration,seek it ,court it and own it .From people, events, chil-dren, parents, from the ordinary and the extraordi-

nary, from happiness and from tragedy, because it isthis power that will let you transcend the limitationsof your mind whether imaginary or self inflicted andhelp you expand your consciousness. The mind is thechalice of our thoughts and the energy of ourthoughts attracts the very things into our lives wethink about. We have learnt this from our spiritualleaders and mystics have been teaching us the samething for hundreds of years, quantum physics nowreiterates the same. Fill the chalice with inspiredthoughts….and let them overflow into your life.Lead an inspired life…..everyday.

L….lead…..It is our individual responsibility tolead by example by setting for ourselves the higheststandards... moral, ethical ,financial and spiritual,which in turn play a powerful role in making our fam-ilies, our work our societies and our world more dis-ciplined. Strive to create an inclusive environmentstarting with your family and let it ripple to everysphere of your life and always, always rememberingto do the RIGHT thing instead of doing things right,therein lies the quality of a true leader also lettingyou evolve as an individual.

E….evolve…self direct ourselves to evolve intospiritual wholeness by discovering our own unique-ness as individuals and contrastingly how alike weare to every other individual and recognizing differ-ences as complimentary and not contradictory. Trueevolution comes from aligning all the parts tobecome a whole.

I'll leave you all with a quote I recently heard…. aNative American saying "The longest road you everhave to walk is the sacred journey from your head toyour heart."

So walk the road with smiles blooming on yourlips and let the world be dazzled by the brilliance ofyour inner radiance ,fear not that others will notunderstand you, for though we live in a world withhundreds of languages it is the smile that speaksthem all.

- TM Sudha Ramani

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S..m..i..l..e

http://www.emersonkent.com/famous_speeches_in_history.htmhttp://www.thespeeches.com/ http://www.toastmasters-public-speaking.com/famous-speeches.html

Links to Good

Speeches

We meet every month 2nd & 4th Sundays at Jigyaasa Studio - 7-1-80/3, Ameerpet Hyderabad, A.P - 500016.