British Toastmasters Club: British Toastmasters Club Meeting - The Taste of British

Do you know that "Union Jack" is the term used to refer to the British flag which is made up of the flags of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom?

That is one of the many interesting fun facts we learned together during our club meeting last week on Thursday, November 26, 2009 - The Taste of British. It was a FUN FUN meeting, especially since we had TM Mike Nicholson, one of our experts in "everything about British," as the TOM of the night. Good job, Mike! And thank you for all the cool British accessories you brought to the meeting, for displaying and explaining them to the audience.

The meeting was opened with new member induction ceremony to welcome our new members TM Miwa Suzuki and TM Mieke Rumambi into British Toastmasters Club. Our VPM, CC Lola Delfin, who pretended being Queen Elizabeth II that night, was the one who led this ceremony. As our new fellow Toastmasters Miwa and Mieke have agreed upon the Toastmaster's Promise by saying "I Do" during the induction ceremony, let us not forget to do our part as "more senior" Toastmasters to support their journey with us in becoming a better speaker, a more influential leader.

What was really extraordinary about our club's meeting last week was the name-tag. Every attendee was required to wear a name-tag of a famous British character, from a writer to a member of the Royal family, from a recent star to an ancient person...David Beckham, Charlie Chaplin, King Arthur, Queen Elizabeth II, Hugh Grant, and many more. Whichever name-tag the attendee chose to wear, he/she was required to pretend being such character until the meeting ended. It was indeed FUN seeing how all this arrangement came along during the Table Topic session where our King Arthur, Lord Nelson, David Beckham, and Charlie Chaplin wannabe's answered the simple, yet intriguing table topic questions thrown out by our Table Topic Master, CC Cindy Resita.

We had three prepared speakers that night. Our first speaker was TM Miwa Suzuki who delivered a speech about her life history and how she finally ended living in Jakarta after years of working as a flight attendant, a Certified Public Accountant, and also an Investment Banker. She was evaluated by ACB CL Indriati Permanasari. The second speaker was our one and only TM Didi Mujayadi, one of the most diligent and dedicated members of our club who is always there in our club meeting either it rains or shines. TM Didi delivered a speech about how things that we consider simple or unimportant can actually become disasters. He was evaluated by TM Ted Palawi, our guest evaluator from Metropolitan Toastmasters Club. Our last speaker of the day was our one and only club President ACB CL Indriati Permanasari. She delivered a speech from Advanced Manual Special Occasion Speeches - The Roast. And whom did she roast during the speech? Guess what....it was Enid Blyton a.k.a CC Cindy Resita, our VPE. And who evaluated her? Oh no...Enid Blyton as well. Ck ck ck. But hey...it was indeed a good "roast," especially when you saw how CC Cindy reacted to the jokes and anecdotes ACB CL Indri delivered during her speech.

Overall, as our General Evaluator of the day - Queen Elizabeth II said during her evaluation session, it was indeed a fun, fantastic, educational meeting. Not only we learned about communication and trained ourselves to be better communicators, we also learned a lot about anything related to "British." Maybe next...we can have a Japanese night? Indian night? Indonesian night? Javanese night? East Indonesian night? etc. etc. This will open up more opportunities for all of us to learn about our own and other countries' cultures, histories, and traditions.

Thank you for everyone who volunteered taking roles during the meeting --- TM Yulia as Um-Ah Counter, TM Fetty as Grammarian, TM Mieke as Ballot Counter, and of course CC Shabrina as the SAA of the meeting. Thank you also for all of you who came. We are all looking forward to seeing you in our next meeting on Thursday, December 10, 2009.