Speaking Up

SPEAKING UP

NEWSLETTER OF ABU DHABI CHAPTER 1950NEWSLETTER OF ABU DHABI CHAPTER 1950

Area 2, Division H, District 20Area 2, Division H, District 20

Issue 2, October to December 2013 Issue 2, October to December 2013

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CONTENTS

Page

1 From the President 3

2 Editor’s Desk 4

3 Innovations in Minutes Of Meeting 5

4 A Talk with MTM Saima Imran 7

5 No Pain No Gain 8

6 Come Out of P Zone Fast 9

7 Interesting Meeting Themes 10

8 New Member Speaks 12

9 A Photo Feature on 2013 Memories 13

11 Piracy 15

12 Body Confidence 16

13 Social Networking 17

15 Day Dream Nation 18

16 The Waste of Plenty is the Resource of Scarcity 19

18 The Dumbo 20

19 Club News 22

20 Club News - Education Session & VP Education Speaks 23

21 Members Progress Chart 24

23 Division H News 25

24 Last Meeting - 2013 26

25 Obituary - Founder & Late President - P.V. Menon 27

Speaking Up Issue : 2 Abu Dhabi Chapter 1950

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FROM THE PRESIDENT’S DESK

Dear Club Members,

I trust you found our first newsletter interesting, educational and informative. We thank all those who not

only took the time to appreciate, but gave us valuable suggestions as well. Keep them coming, as they help

us to strive better.

In the past few months, our new committee has shown their passion, commitment and dedication. The 3

meeting agenda continues to be circulated well in advance by our dynamic VP Education, Aby Hans, to

facilitate each and every one of you to be ready with your projects and meeting roles. Members are taking

advantage of the advance Table Topics Session, by coming early and practicing table topics before the

meeting.

On the educational front too we have done very well. We are achieving the goals set by the club in a

planned manner and inching towards being a President’s distinguished club.

We have had quality meetings which have been truly delightful, exciting and awesome. The themes have

been unique, interesting and varied. I am so happy that our new members have willingly taken up the role

of Toastmaster for the Evening and have done exceptionally well. The videos of each meeting are available

with our dedicated Sgt-at-Arms, Abdul Sattar Khan. I suggest members review their own performance as

this will help you perform better the next time.

Our Meat of the Meet (MOM) is something which we all look forward to. MTM Saima is doing an

exceptionally good job by being creative and making the MOM interesting. Keeps it going MTM Saima!

On the membership front we lost a few members who had to move out of Abu Dhabi due to their work.

At the same time we have energetic new members who are enthusiastic and committed to the club.

Our VP PR Sasikumar Nair has been persuading you all to submit articles for the newsletter and I thank

him for his efforts.

Enjoy the newsletter.

Happy reading!

Loyola Pinto

President Abu Dhabi Chapter, 1950


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EDITOR’S DESK

Dear Club Members,

After much deliberations the second issue of the club newsletter is out. My sincere thanks to all the

club members for their kind help and active support in providing the articles and snaps. And to our

peer group who reviewed the contents and the layout and provided me their valuable inputs and

suggestions to make it better and more appropriate and effective.

As the year comes to a close we are getting ready to say good bye to the passing year. And all set to

welcome the new year. Its also time to take stock of things as what we accomplished, what we achieved,

what we lost and what we couldn't do and what we could have done better etc. Its also time to plan

ahead for what we intend to do and how we are going to accomplish that.

In this issue we have a feature on minutes of meeting , an innovative minutes of meeting does make a

difference and changes the normal perception about the routine minutes meetings that one receives

from the club secretary.

Obtaining articles for the newsletter is a tough task as everyone is occupied with his or her own job

commitment particularly the stress and strain of the modern day work culture which adds up to one’s

professional life is understandable and goes without saying. I chased many members for article. Some

them responded with articles. I assurance the rest is that I will continue to chase them for articles.

This made me realize that how important it is to respond to emails received from VP-Education. As the

saying goes when one is in to something then only one realizes the real difficulty of it.

The comments and reviews about the first Newsletter wasn't forthcoming as much, which could also

means that the content and the lay-out are very fine and there is nothing much to comment about.

And I would presume this as the scenario.

I must convey my heart felt gratitude to MTM Saima Imran for the wonderful, innovative and all

capturing minutes of meeting which helped me a lot in Newsletter preparation.

As the Newsletter is in your hands, please read it through and send in your comments. You comments

are very important as they could make differences not only to this Newsletter but future issues as well.

Being an editor I am learning a lot and I am thankful to the Abu Dhabi Chapter for this opportunity.

Happy Reading….

Sasikumar Nair

VP Public Relations

Abu Dhabi Chapter, 1950


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INNOVATIONS IN MINUTES OF MEETING BY TM SASIKUMAR NAIR

Minutes of Meeting rather Meat of Meet.

Dictionary defines minutes of meeting as written record of official proceedings.

Why it is called “Minutes”? Was this because the note taker records the notes along with the time?

Off course not, in fact, the “minutes” here have nothing to do with time, but rather “small”, as in “minute” (my-newt)., “minutes” as in “meeting notes” is referencing this sense of condensing something down (small) as in the “my-newt” (minute) pronunciation, not as in “seconds, minutes, hours”

Minutes of the meeting compiles the points discussed at a meeting. It includes details like the date of the meeting, agenda for the meeting and list of attendees, followed by the points discussed, basically capturing everything worth mentioning that happens during the meeting.

Non-attending members get a glimpse of proceedings of the meeting whilst going through the minutes.

Those who attended the meeting get a finer version of the messages which they may have missed during the meeting or as a snap shot

of the whole proceedings of the meeting.

Toastmasters’ leadership manual requires the minutes of meeting to be prepared and circulated among the member by the club officer, secretary.

It not only helps attending and non-attending members to get to know the proceedings of the meeting but helps to improve the person who prepares it with attentive skill, minutes taking skill, drafting skills and all of these ultimately lead to improve and adds up to the overall leadership skill level of the person.

The members of Abu Dhabi Chapter Toastmasters club are privileged to receive a very innovative minutes of meeting called “meat of the meet’ this year from club officer, Secretary, Mrs. Saima Imran.


Innovation in Minutes of Meeting “The Meat of the Meet”

MTM Saima Imran Club Secretary

In her own words the innovation goes like

“ … .Abu Dhabi Chapters Meat of the meet

is like a fairy tale for me, that I want to read

again and again. This is not because I

prepare meat but this is because it contains

tasty spices in the form of beautiful

speeches by our genius toastmasters,

wonderful thoughts and lot more to learn

and implement in our daily lives. This meat

has created a bond between the club and

me”

The innovations made the meat

of meet as something that

everyone read through instead

of scroll through.

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INNOVATIONS IN MINUTES OF MEETING BY TM SASIKUMAR NAIR

The innovation she brought in to the meat of meet made the minutes in content, layout and p r e s e n t a t i o n i s s o m e t h i n g t h a t e v e r y o n e r e a d through instead of scroll through.

The innovation and the difference it made was noted at Club, Area and even at District Division Education Level

Let me list the innovations she brought on this otherwise mundane thing of a meeting.

Depiction of meeting theme with a matching and interesting image in the cover page which draws immediate readers’ attention.

Inclusion of full meeting agenda in minutes helped to connect and relate to the minutes.

Inclusion and highlighting of all the quotes, taglines by each and every participant in bold letters

Addition of percipients’ thumbnails along with the narration of what they performed, said and conveyed.

‘Word of the evening’ with the word in bold highlighted letter with the meaning as explained by the word master.

‘Thoughts of the day’ - a summary of thought as conveyed by the speaker with key word and phrases in bold letter to draw readers’ attention.

Prepared speech with summary of what the speaker conveyed to the audience, with key words, the idea conveyed and

important quote and phrases in bold letters.

Evaluation summary with the points, strength and areas of improvement which in effect is as good as a written evaluation to the speaker.

Table topics with the listing of speakers along with the topics they attempted.

General evaluation with a bullet point summary of all points highlighted by the general evaluator which gives opportunities to everyone including the club officers to go over them again which again in effect works as a written general evaluation.

President’s closing remarks with bullet point summary of the message conveyed and the announcements.

It also lists the number of members and guests who attended the meeting.

A photo gallery of all the proceedings and role players which reflects as snap shots of what all happened during the meeting. And closed with minutes of meeting message with a relevant

and relatable quote.


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A TALK WITH MTM SAIMA IMRAN

What were your thoughts when you sat down to prepare your first minutes of meeting? My worry towards preparation of minutes of meeting started right from the day when I was selected as Club Secretary. I always love to take up new challenges and master new things, but this challenge really confused me in the beginning as I couldn’t focus from where and how to start.

Preparation of first MOM was really hard as I only reviewed two sample minutes of meeting and had no idea how to perform this task in an appropriate and interesting way. Anyhow I started just by taking interest in what I was doing and new ideas clicked as I was stepping forward from one activity to the other. It is strange and hard to believe that I spent approximately 5 hours to prepare the 1st MOM.

How do you bring the innovation into the meat of meet? By focusing on happenings during the meeting like noticing toastmasters and their speech delivery during the meeting and penning it down immediately if something clicks in my mind. Sometimes ideas are generated when I am listening to meeting recording.

What were the challenges? First challenge was time management that scared me after 1st MOM, but with the passage of time it became manageable. Another noticeable challenge always is the write up and contents of minutes, decision for what to pen down and what not to mention is difficult. Especially when I want to add something funny using club members photograph, I always think twice and usually take advice also.

Here I would like to thank our President TM Loyola Pinto for his continuous support in preparation of meat of the meet. He always reviews the meat and advises me accordingly, without his support I would not have been able to meet the challenges.

How did the members respond? I don’t have words to appreciate the club members, who have been sending emails and personally appreciating me after the release of minutes of meeting. It is rightly said by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that, “Correction does much, but encouragement does more. Encouragement after censure is as the sun after a shower.” In my case also tremendous encouragement is leading to improvement in meat of the meat and boosting my craving to do more for the club. Thanks to all the club members for spending time in reading minutes of the meeting and encouraging me to do better.

As we pass almost half the of Toastmaster year how do you look at your experience at the club? A wonderful experience that brings positive change in terms of improved confidence, speaking power, learning skills and perspective towards different things. As a person also I have changed a lot after joining toastmasters club and have learnt specially from good lessons shared by toastmasters in their project speeches.

Any tip or advice to your successor? I am still a starter in the journey of Toastmasters and have a long way to learn and proceed with completing my projects especially. My advice anyway would be what I always believed and that is rightly explained in the quote below:

‘The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”

I am feeling blessed today for making me feel so important and for the token of appreciation by my Club team members for this wonderful talk and opportunity to share my feelings. Thanks and stay blessed.


A Talk with MTM Saima Imran

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NO PAIN NO GAIN BY TM SALIM SAYYID

The Toastmaster journey is a fascinating life changing journey. There is so much to learn from this fantastic program founded by the great Ralph C Smedley.

I read a brilliant quote in the November 2013 issue of Toastmasters by him which is so profound and thought provoking. He writes, “Speech is much more than merely standing before an audience and saying something” This beautiful quote if understood and implemented can make a world of a difference to all Toastmasters who aspire to become outstanding communicators and leaders. I have watched so many speakers from my Chapter and other Clubs giving their project speeches and many times they are not able to correctly pronounce English words they use in their speeches.

It is a pity that even very seasoned speakers continue mispronouncing and at times are hampered by their accent which unfortunately is not correct.

The sad part is that in the quest for achieving at times DTM status, these important aspects of communication are ignored. This creates a very poor impression of a speaker.

One of the fascinating examples of taking pains and care in improving one’s pronunciation and accent is that of the present World Champion of Public Speaking – Presiyan Vasilev.

I would love to quote his words which should inspire us all to achieve excellence. He says, “I knew I had good content and a good message, so I thought what if I lose the audience by mispronouncing just one word? What a pity that would be.”

He has been a Toastmaster for 11 years and he has worked determinedly over the years to improve his English skills.

As a new member he would spell out the phonetic translations of practically every word when drafting his speeches. It was crucial to this Bulgarian immigrant that the audiences understand everything he said as he advanced through the International Speech Contest.

What was the result? He became Toastmasters International World Champion of Public Speaking for 2013. It’s never too late he says to catch up on improving one’s accent and pronunciation.

So friends do remember those words of wisdom from Ralph C Smedley - “Speech is much more than merely standing before an audience and saying something”. One needs to take pains to achieve excellence in communication and this is no rocket science for if Presiyan Vaislev can do it why can’t we?

Don’t forget “No pain no gain”


No Pain No Gain

Speech is much more than merely standing before an audience and saying something

One of the fascinating examples of taking pains and care in improving one’s pronunciation and accent

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COME OUT OF P ZONE FAST BY TM UMAKANTH

“In 2008, American President George Bush Visited Abu Dhabi, he met UAE president UAE Vice President, Crown Prince and all higher officials in UAE, but he didn't meet me. The reason, he was angry with me. Why he was angry with me? The only reason was, when I went to USA in 2007, I didn’t meet him

The above same question was asked to one of the candidates in the one of world’s best Management Institute, IIM Ahmedabad. The question was absolutely illogical but to test how fast the candidate jumps in to PANIC zone, and how fast he is coming out of it and how confidently he is responding. This is a very critical parameter or character they are looking in the candidates.

I want to share with you another interesting incident which happened on the first day of my GULF life. I got selected to Bechtel Saudi Arabia, I booked my first International flight on 4th Dec,1995. Just 3 days before the flight, my friend in Saudi told me that I need to manage Database Activities and I should know the fundamentals Microsoft ACCESS.

My knowledge of MS Software was very minimal. In order to equip myself better I bought 2 books, one is “A B C of Access” which is very small, the other is very thick one titled “ACCESS BIBLE”.

In fact I was reading the Access Bible continuously in my first International flight to Saudi Arabia. At

Saudi airport customs counter I was asked about the book in my Hand. On seeing the word BIBLE, the officer misunderstood it as real bible, and he told politely that I cannot take it directly and there is a procedure. I have to fill up a form and come after 10 days to collect the book.

I got very upset, and got myself into panic mode. I tried to convey the officer that the book is very important book to me, I have to study it etc. Since I got into panic and tension mode, I was repeating the same thing more aggressively. I was taken to a separate room. After 3 hours, another officer came to my room, by that time I had calmed down a little bit so I could think and analyze the situation. I explained the new officer about the book, the Computer, software and data base. The officer un der s t ood and r egr e t t ed fo r th e miscommunication and returned the book. I came out of the airport after 4 hours.

Just comparing this incident with another one, my good friend Janakiraman joined Bechtel after one month. I advised him of the customs procedures in Saudi. His wife Uma, a typical sentimental housewife, put a religious priest photo in the front zip of his hand bag. He was totally unaware of photo in his hand bag. At the customs counter they pulled out the photo. He went through the similar situation I underwent, but he could come out fast and as he responded smartly. He said “that’s my grandfather’s picture”

Now, in reality, in everyday life we will be pushed into uncomfortable or difficult situations and panic zones. How do we come out of it? The answer is very simple, just maintain the following 3 steps.

1. “Be composed”

2. “don’t lose the balance”

3. “Stay focused”

By bring and adopting these 3 parameters in your thoughts, behavior and approach you could respond to any situation instantly and smartly and come out of the situation easily and successfully.


Come Out of P Zone FAST

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INTERESTING MEETING THEMES


ENDOWMENT by TME Rizvi Rasheed TM Rizvi explained the audience on various aspects of endowment fund and how it could make difference in our approach to charity One can wisely distribute charity to needed one in different areas and fields. He highlighted need for paying the society and to the less privileged ones

LIFE IS A CELEBRATION by TME Devi Narayan MTM Devi conveyed to audience that each and every happy and joyful moment with loved ones be that close relatives, friends and colleagues is a celebration of life. Successful organizations are also celebrate their success with teams

HALLOWEEN by TME Srinivasan Ramaswamy TM Srinivasan explained the origin of the Halloween and how Halloween is celebrated in different parts of the world and costumes the people wear and bonfires etc. He also informed the audience that Halloween is the world’s second largest celebration

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TAKE PLEASURE IN LITTLE THINGS by TME Raveedra Rai TM Raveedra Rai rejuvenated the audience with the idea of finding happiness from the events, happening around us and in our day to day life and living. He asked audience to be simpler and not to waster present moment waiting for big pleasure to come in future.

THE NATIONAL DAY by TME Masood Balkhair TM Masood refreshed the audience about the UAE national day, its origin, how it is celebrated and other important aspects of national day. He paid rich tribute to wise leadership of UAE for the multifaceted growth and progress that UAE achieved in a short span of time.

SORRY WRONG NUMBER By TME Abdul Sattar Khan TM Abdul Sattar Khan talked about the issues that wrong number creates. He shared some facts about the mobile phone penetration in UAE market. Total mobile subscribers in UAE is 11.5 million, which means almost everyone in UAE has 2 mobile phones with high probability of wrong numbers it could create.

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The Toastmasters experience has been so much more enriching than what I had anticipated. Every meeting I have attended has taught me something whether it is the importance of voice modulation, meeting etiquette, use of phrases, new words, how to optimally utilize the stage , the value of effective eye contact etc. With every speech there is something new to learn not only pertaining to the way it is delivered but also the message that the speaker is trying to convey. The evaluation session has been very useful to me in particular because even though the evaluation is direct feedback for the speaker it points out aspects that I can incorporate in my future speeches. During the course of the meetings I had attended so far I have already gained so much not only in the area of speaking but various other areas such as time management, shouldering responsibility (Role Players), presentation and I look forward to learning more from Toastmasters.

WHY SO SERIOUS BY TME Salim Sayyid TM Salim enlightened the audience with the thought of “life is seriously serious but life is also laughingly laughable” Joy of life comes when challenges in life are met with courage and sense of humor. day to day life and living. Lets find humor and joy in our daily life challenges

NEW MEMBER SPEAKS - TM JASON ANGELO DIAS

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A PHOTO FEATURE ON 2013 MEMORIES


Club Annual Picnic in Pictures

We Enjoyed Doing Our Project Speeches

Memories of 2013

We Enjoyed and Shared Our Joy with Our Fellow Members

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A PHOTO FEATURE ON 2013 MEMORIES


We Enjoyed Our Dinner We Halloweend

We Celebrated, Played and Had Fun

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PIRACY BY TM ABDUL SATTAR KHAN

“You have songs in your smart phone and movies in your iPod, notebook or laptop but how many of you paid for them? My guess is not many, obviously this leads to my next question Why? The simple answer is due to our approach and our views. We would call flicking 1 AED pen as a theft or inappropriate action but we just overlook downloading a 100AED movie or 200AED blue ray DVD. We display great values when dealing with materialistic properties but when it comes to intellectual property we simply forget all those values.

Statistics and researches blame the Asia Pacific especially India and China for the growing level of piracy. Even though these countries are bringing down the piracy rates, still they are way ahead of others. Reports places India as the fourth largest global hub of online film piracy, behind the United States, Britain and Canada. To give an example, Hindi movie KAMINEY was downloaded 350,000 times on bit torrent and about o 2/3rds of the downloaders were from India.

It’s not that the governments do no act over on this. Laws and regulations have been amended and upgraded from time to time. But the rapid enhancements in technologies makes the implementation of these laws difficult. The digital pirates keep using new methods to copy and distribute the copyrighted products.

Microsoft has admitted that piracy of its Window Operating System has helped giving it huge

market share in China. Bill Gates said, “it is easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not” With reference to China, Bill gates stated, “As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They will get sort of addicted, and then we will somehow figure out how to collect sometimes in the next decade.”

Perhaps the most publicized threat to the software industry is piracy. It was estimated that last year alone, 20 billion dollars were lost due to the unauthorized duplication and distribution of various software. Some claim that piracy has not hurt the industry, only helped, since users are more likely to buy a product after they’ve tried it. But whether 20 billion dollars is lost due to piracy or 20 trillion dollar is gained is irrelevant. The real question is whether or not piracy is unethical.

It is difficult to determine the ethicality of piracy as a whole, since there is such a wide range of piracy offenses to consider. For example consider a situation in which a high school student needs a powerful graphics application in order to create graphics for a web site. Unfortunately, he cannot afford to spend big money required for a professional piece of software. So he decides he has no choice but to download a pirated copy of the software from the Internet. Similarly, consider a case in which a person requires a very specialized feature of an expensive piece of software for a small, one-time task. This person decides that it is not worth paying for it when he or she will never even run the software again and downloads a copy from the Internet, accomplishes the task, and then deletes the program immediately after the use.

It’s time to relook and be realistic on our aged perception and practice of giving great values to materialistic properties level and less value to intellectual property level” as the world is increasing by becoming more and more digital and more and more techno savvy and more and more IT driven.


Piracy

we display great values when dealing with materialistic properties but when it comes to intellectual property we simply forget all those values.

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BODY CONFIDENCE BY MTM AFREEN SHAIKH

How do I look? Am I happy with the way I look? Am I dressed up well? All must have surely asked such questions to ourselves, while dressing up for work or party.

Most of us must have at least once in our lifetime self-pitied about the way we look.

Let us explore what exactly is body confidence and how we can build it.

Body confidence is how confident do you perceive yourself.

Your body confidence is based on how you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror. If you don't like your features or your shape, your body confidence will fall, you'll feel not up to the mark and you will be less likely to draw attention to yourself in every arena of your life, from work to romance.

If you can learn to love your reflection, your body confidence will skyrocket. Which means you'll be more likely to pull the spotlight onto yourself and show the world how great you really are, inside and out.

Just imagine, whilst at a presentation you look really dull or you are conscious about the way you are dressed up, whether it looks good or not, you are surely going to mess it up.

Do you know that each year millions of dollars are spent in US just to improve body image by individuals who want improve their body confidence to achieve desired results.

There are two ways to improve your body confidence, you can change how you look, or you can change how you feel about how you look.

In the first one losing some excess flab, or stacking some muscle onto your frame is a great idea. It will make you feel healthier, more energetic and more in control.

In the second one changing your attitude towards your appearance will help to achieve better sense of body confidence no matter what "flaws" you see in you in the mirror.

To truly love your body, focus on being active, healthy and fit. Get out and move. Walk, swim, bike, dance, do yoga, aerobics and participate in any kind of physical activity.

Focus on inner character and integrity. "allow the inner beauty in you to be merged with the visual appearance of your outer shell. Loving yourself just the way you are provides confidence.

Be nice, "When you get into the habit of sincerely complimenting other people, you will, in effect, build yourself up."

Dress comfortably - Use proper size to feel good in your clothes.


Body Confidence

two ways to improve your body confidence; you can change how you look, or you can change how you feel about how you look.

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SOCIAL NETWORKING BY TM MOHAMMED FAIZ

Here are some facts about one of the buzz words of this century “ Social Networking”

It’s the most popular online activity, 25% of online time is spent on social networks and 62% of adults worldwide use it.

Brazilians have the highest online friends – average of 481 per user and Japanese have the lowest average online friends – average of just 29.

65% of the world’s top companies have an active Twitter profile. There are 4 billion views per day on YouTube. Adults spend 15 hours a week on the internet

How do you benefit?

Build Your Personal Reputation

Display Your Resume

Find a Job

Showcase Your Talents And Establish Yourself as an Expert

Enhance Your Business Contacts and Enhance Personal Relationships

Share Information with Like-Minded People

Connect with other professionals in your field to share information

How does a business benefit?

Establish a Brand and Raise Awareness

Spy on the Competition

Pitch Products in a More Human, Interactive Way

Bring Attention to Your Products

Increase Customer Loyalty And Trust

Listen to Your Customer’s Opinion

Conduct Market Research

Strengthen Customer Service

The drawbacks

Opens up the possibility for hackers to commit fraud and launch spam and virus attacks

Harassment – Cyber bullying

May result in negative comments

Potentially results in lost productivity

Lack of privacy

People will be isolated

Wasting valuable time & money

Reduces the time spent in physical exercises

Diverts you from more enjoyable activities


Social Networking

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DAYDREAM NATION BY MTM KRITIKA

When I close my eyes, the world is as beautiful as a rainbow! There are birds singing, bees dancing, wizards playing a furious game of Quidditch, hobbits having a ravenous feast, Saphira the dragon, keeping us warm on a cold winter’s night with her fiery breath, Willy Wonka distributing chocolates to us and Batman keeping our city safe from the looming dangers. When I opened my eyes and blinked twice and I realized that I’m not in Hogwarts, or the Shire or even Gotham City.

Needless to say, I’ve always prided myself on my ability to fantasize and get lost in alternate realities. In truth, I’m just a daydreamer.

I’m very sure many of you have drifted off in some not very interesting classes of yours and entered a much better world inside those fast paced minds of yours. But is this really such a bad thing?

My intuitive, intelligent inner consciousness tells me to wake up and smell the coffee! Time is ticking! But I’m a defensive person by nature and I will not go down without a fight. So with arrogance, I disregard my smarter self and tell myself that daydreamers are known for their creativity! Why, I’m sure J.K. Rowling was hit with her inspiration while daydreaming on her long

train journey! So who knows, I just might be the next best author in the making.

But my inner self is much harder to please. So I break out into a fully-fledged rebuttal with myself saying “did you know that” Besides, how else would I evaluate and re-evaluate my goals without building them up in my mind first!

I have often come across the saying “You’re as big as the dreams you dream”. However, I do not concur. I believe dreaming is the easier bit. In my opinion, that statement must be amended to say “You are only as big as the dreams you have turned into reality”.

We all live in a society where our lives are measured in terms of how productive we are. We are all in a constant pressure to achieve, succeed or impress.

Daydreaming in this fast paced world relates to nothing-doing. In other words, it is a loss of time and productivity. But I believe we can find middle ground here. After all, who are we without our dreams?

My word to everyone out there would be to dream, dream as big as you can, but never forget reality.

We all start out with great intentions but lack of voice and will makes our confidence waiver! This world is ours to take and ours to make.

Imagine all the things we can do together if we start turning all our greatest dreams to reality.

So, let us be dreamers, but more importantly, let us be doers! That is when a daydream nation like ours will wake up to be a dream come true.


Daydream Nation

daydreaming has been proven to relax your mind and getting back to work after a moment of daydreaming can boost your productivity.

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THE WASTE OF PLENTY IS THE RESOURCE OF SCARCITY BY MTM DEVI

Last weekend I had gone to a restaurant for dinner

with my family. On the table next to us, was a family of four- 2 adults & 2 kids. When their food arrived, I was surprised – that was enough for at least ten people!. After they finished their meal I glanced at the leftover, almost 60% of the food they ordered was wasted! As I stepped out of the restaurant, across the

street I saw a huge advertisement about some new treatment for obesity. As I walked further down, I saw another advertisement about a charity drive for providing food & clothes for children in Africa. In the advertisement was a picture of malnourished starving children. Now, how ironical and contrasting were these

three situations! UAE a has a country that has a large amount of

solid food wastage ! What exactly leads to such a high amount of food wastage? Much of the food waste occurs due to spoilage,

overcooking, plate waste and over purchasing. Restaurants also contribute a lot to food wastage

with portions size.

Food wastage also happens due to the confusion between “use-by” and “best-by” dates.

Even groceries discard products once they pass the “sell-by” dates, though they have shelf life left.

What can we do about it?

Significant reduction in food wastage can occur by minor changes in food purchasing, storage and preparation.

Governments and corporates in the food industry can contribute by an efficient collection from farms, transporting, and warehousing and distribution network.

The stores and retailers can go for a zero wastage policy by proper inventory and sell off.

Each one of us can contribute towards reducing food wastage by small initiatives at home.

For example, planning our weekly menu, listing out the ingredients required. This helps us to purchase only selected items in the required quantities.

Also we can also downsize our meals, use left overs, avoid over-ordering, over purchasing, extravagant parties and do a periodical clean-up of our fridge.

As everything we do is connected to everything else, we need to remind ourselves that these simple steps can save our own bills, keep us healthy, save our environment & precious resources and give life to a lot of hungry mouths miles away!

So live simply, so that others may simply live!

.


Each one of us can contribute towards reducing food wastage by small initiatives at home.

The waste of plenty is the resource of scarcity

20

LAUGHTER CORNER BY TM SALIM SAYYID

Well Toastmasters, you will soon realize how dumb I am and why I am named Dumbo.

It was a beautiful evening – very romantic. My wife and I had just finished watching Dumb and Dumber. Most of the time my wife took jibes at me whenever there were dumb moments and you know my friends there are many many dumb moments in that film.

I was getting ready for a sumptuous dinner and a romantic evening. I just casually made my way to the bedroom and… surprise, surprise – it had a

fragrance that immediately set my heart beating and then as I glanced at the bed sheet, I got a shock of my life – potato chips were all over the bed-sheet.

My wife and I have been married for nearly 25 years + now and believe me I still have not understood her. So it would be love evoking while eating potato chips. God! Was this her idea of a romantic evening? It’s difficult to understand woman. Okay, if she would have strewn the bed-sheet with mutton chops, it would have been better. Just then my wife walked into the bedroom looking so radiant and so beautiful. She was smiling all along.

I looked at her lovingly and said, “Hey darling, great – what an Idea - Potato chips for dinner?

Her smile vanished and giving me a look of contempt said,

"What Potato chips?” These are Potato Chips? These are dried scented rose petals you Dumbo. You are a Dumbo – a Dumbo.

Once after the Toastmaster meeting, one of the senior Toastmasters of my Abu Dhabi Chapter had asked me, “Salim, when did you make this sign.” I answered just today. He smiled at me and said nothing.

I asked him, “Please tell me why did you ask?”

He said with a straight face, “You should have made this long back.”


The Dumbo

21

LAUGHTER CORNER BY TM SALIM SAYYID

But Toastmasters take heart and remember, you are not alone, there are hundreds of Dumbos Search for one and you find hundreds. Let me give you some personal examples:

A couple of days ago, I was at my desk in the Volkswagen Showroom in Corniche. A man in his forties comes to me and says,.

“Jennifer?” and stood in front of me sheepishly.

I was stunned. Here was a man matured and so easily he had mixed genders. I looked at him with amazement and without blinking my eyelid said, Jennifer Lopez. You can imagine how dumb he was.

He said, “I have a bill for you from the newspaper Akhbar Al Arab.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. He seemed to be the king of dumbos – a title which my wife had earlier given me.

I asked him, “Jennifer is a boy’s name or a girl’s name?”

Can you imagine what he replied, “Sorry, Jennifer, I am new here.”

I didn’t know where to look. In sheer exasperation, I directed him to our Volkswagen Secretary Jennifer Alacantra.

Years ago, we were changing our house in Abu Dhabi as the rents were soaring and my wife decided to shift to a more economical two bedroom house. We had packed all our belongings in neat cardboard boxes and were waiting for the Movers and Packers. Just then one of the neighbors comes out and says,

“Moving?

I smiled at him and said,

“No, no once or twice in a month we pack our things in these boxes just to see how it looks scattered in the floor.”

Can you believe it – he believed it and said,

“Good, good very good.”

I stared at him and said,

‘Dumbo, dumbo – big Dumbo” in my mind off course.

I could go on and on with such examples and however smart I may sound or try to behave, one day, just come over to my house and over dinner you could hear my wife talking nonstop as to how dumb I am.

I love being considered dumb or dumbo by my wife for that’s the success of my marriage – a marriage that is brimming with love and love.

Unlike poles attract?

One Intelligento and the other Dumbo.


The Dumbo

22

CLUB NEWS


Club Activity During October to December

Meeting Number Best Speaker Best Evaluator Best Table Topic Speaker

475

476

477

478

479

480

Devi Narayan

Kritika Kadekodi

Narayana Pillai

Jayakrishnan

Devi Narayan

Sanjay Vissa

Bharat Mehta

Umakanth & Shailesh

Salim Sayyid

Salim Sayyid

Abraham Thomas

Abraham Thomas

Devkusum Datta

Rizvi Rasheed

Bharat Mehta

Abraham Thomas

Bharat Mehta

Salim Sayyid

NEW MEMBER SPEAKS - MTM AFREEN SHAIKH

Did you know that some people would rather die than speak in public? Pubic speaking fear is one of the greatest. Toastmasters International gives you an opportunity to overcome this fear by a step by step or a smooth process. I was introduced to Toastmasters by one of my colleagues, who himself has been a part of this amazing movement. Toastmasters International also helps you to improve your leadership skills. I have completed only few months with the club but I have improved a lot in my presentation skills and also gained a lot of confidence. The evaluations and the guidance you receive from the mentors helps you enhance your skills in every aspect. I would recommend Toastmasters International to every professional I come across. And I totally agree with the tagline of Toastmasters International "Where Leaders are Made”

23

CLUB NEWS - EDUCATION SESSION BY TM SANJAY VISSA


Enjoy Doing Your Evaluation

As part of club’s periodical education session to members, TM Sanjay Vissa conducted a very informative presentation titled “Enjoy Doing Your Evaluation” to Improve Evaluation Skills. Those who attend the meeting rea l l y benef i t ted out o f th is presentation

TM ABY HANS - VP EDUCATION SPEAKS

The club is inching towards achieving the goal of President’s Distinguished Club status. We will achieve it soon, we just need one new member. I request all member to spread the news of Toastmasters among your friends and colleagues and encourage them to visit our club as guests. We had an excellent education session on improving the evaluation skills by our champion evaluator TM Sanjay Vissa. Going forward, we are planning to conduct an education session on international speech and humorous speech.

24

CLUB MEMBERS’ PROGRESS CHART


1013

105

1110

4014

03

1077

310

01

1010

733

33

013

12

05

01010

440

342

019

1011

110

164

402

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Abdul Sattar KhanAbraham Thomas

Aby HansAfreen Begum Shaikh

Althaf AhmedAnuj Tyagi

Bharat MehtaBhojraj N. Mane

Binsal AbdulkaderChitra Gopi NairDevkusum Datta

Devi NarayanDr.Oudi Abuchacra

Elizabeth VazFaiz Mohamed Hashim

Hammad RabbaniJason Angelo Dias

Jayakrishnan T.K.Joseph Roy

Kritika KadekodiLoyola Pinto

Masood BalkhairMayank Gupta

Michael Jude AlfonsoMohammed Rizvi

Makhbul Ahmed KhaziMohammed Akram

Mohammed Imran JiffreyNarayana Pilai

Pradeep ChandranivasRajgopalan Ramesh

Rao D. A.Raveendra RaiReyaaz Hassan

Salim SayyidSaima Imran

Saravana KumarSanjay Vissa

Santhana AnandramanShashi Kumar Nair

Shailesh SawantSrinivasan Ramasamy

Subramanyam PalabathuniSudha Datta

Sujatha ParthasarathyUmakanth Devarajan

Projects Completed

Toastmaster Abu Dhabi Chapter Club Progress Chart as of

31 December 2013

25

DIVISION H NEWS


Member of division H enjoyed the Education Session by World Champion Speaker MTM Shurooq Al Banna, 2nd Runner Up – TMI World Champion Speaker-2013 MTM Shurooq Al banna gave an interesting Education Session on “How to craft and deliver a winning speech” on 4 October 2013 at the Gasco Auditorium – Abu Dhabi.

Division H conducted a Talent show for Toastmaster for the first time, with various competition such as Hindi Singing, English Singing, Stand-up Comedy, Men Fashion Show and Ladies Fashion Show MTM Chithra Nair won the Ladies Fashion Show and TM Sudha Datta become 2nd runner-up in Stand-up Comedy.

26

LAST MEETING - 2013


Glimpse of 2013 last meeting celebration

27

OBITURY - FOUNDER & LATE PRESIDENT P.V. MENON


One of the founding members of the Abu Dhabi Chapter Toastmaster

Club TM P.V MENON passed away on 10th December 2013 at Trichur, Kerala, India. TM Menon was passionate Toastmasters and excellent speaker. It was his vision & initiative led to the formation of Millennium Toastmaster Club with members from Abu Dhabi Chapter. He was also responsible for the formation New Medical Centre Corporate Club. He was the Past President of Abu Dhabi Chapter and also the Past Area 2 Governor. He was so knowledgeable about Toastmasters and was often referred as Walking and Talking Toastmaster Encyclopedia, TM Menon was known for his subtle humor. A nice human being, a gentleman and a wonderful Toastmaster. Club President TM Loyola Pinto recalls TM Menon as his mentor and the person responsible for getting him into the Toastmaster Leadership track. He says he will miss a good friend and a wonderful Toastmaster.

28

TOASTMATERS WHERE LEADERS ARE MADE

SPEAKING UP

NEWSLETTER OF ABU DHABI CHAPTER 1950NEWSLETTER OF ABU DHABI CHAPTER 1950

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