The Big Debut!

The world, dear friends can only be grasped by action and not by contemplation; the distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult. “Take the initiative”, was our theme of the day, and boy, what an initiative that was! We won’t say Bhubaneswar Toastmasters was the beginning of an era; we would rather call it the beginning of a habit; and we will see to it that the “habit” gets associated with every person who is ready for a transformation, here in Bhubaneswar!

16th of August 09, witnessed a successful launch of Toastmasters International in our home turf, and we would like to take the opportunity of thanking the team from Kolkata Toastmasters, without whom the event wouldn’t have achieved the quality that it managed to achieve. People who kept the ball rolling with their sheer presence, and not to mention an absolutely fantastic display of eloquence, enough to make the visiting members forget that the

clock was indeed ticking on their wrists!

(Toastmaster Abdul and Siddhartha)

The demo-meet said it all. Apart from setting the desired standards, the two and a half hour session was a peek into the manner in which Toastmasters functions. How meetings are conducted, how speeches are delivered, who form the basic structure of a Toastmasters club, and above all, how can anyone benefit by associating himself with Toastmasters.

(Toastmaster Ravi Kumar delivering Project 3)

The demo-meet had two speeches; one by Toastmaster Ravi Kumar (from Hyderabad Toastmasters), who was delivering his project 3 ‘Get to the Point’, and the second speech was by Toastmaster Kriti Singhania (from Kolkata Toastmasters), who was delivering her Project 5 ‘Your Body Speaks’. But, the cherry on the cake was indeed the table topics episode which gave the session a two-dimensional image, through the active participation of people from the audience. We couldn’t have asked for a better audience which was a healthy conflation of students and corporate people, and we do intend to reach out to more number of people, to keep the diversity of the club intact! We had a couple of Toastmasters from Infosys-Bhubaneswar, who were willing to bring in their expertise into our ranks. Members from TCS were also scheduled to join us, but worse luck; they missed out due to some personal reasons. For, the next meet however, we’ll have members from Satyam, TCS, and Infosys actively participating, in this quest for eloquence, and leadership potential!

(Toastmaster Kriti delivering Project 5)

And that was not it, we also managed to grab the attention of the media with some of the journalists from local dailies covering the entire demo-meet. A press release has also been forwarded to The Indian Express, and we expect to get published any time now.

And, before we sign this off, we would like to thank Toastmaster Abdul, Siddhartha, Kriti, and Ravi kumar, without whom hitherto written events would not have been even remotely possible to achieve.

However, there are another set of people, whom we owe our sincere gratitude- The team of Roboticwares, people who provided us with the platform to practice eloquence! Thank you guys!

(Guys from Roboticwares being felicitated)

Well, Bhubaneswar Toastmasters, is still in its budding stage, but the positive response from the audience in the demo-meet has added a special interest to its general charm, and we’ll put in every possible effort to ensure that the optimism and enthusiasm displayed in the demo-meet has many more sequels in the days to come!

( The Core team)