Sculpting a Toastmasters club
The biggest challenges(and solutions)faced by Tirunelveli Toastmasters from Day 1(Demo meet) till Day 365(The celebration)
Tirunelveli,popularly called as the Halwa town of Tamilnadu, witnessed a grand celebration of public speaking and leadership when Tirunelveli Toastmasters organized their chartering ceremony on July 1st, 2017.
To summarize the celebration in just 3 words, it would simply be,Enthusiastic. Inspirational. Grandeur. The audience owe one to the members of Tirunelveli Toastmasters for giving such a fantastic ceremony.
At the same time, Division L’s PR team got in touch with TM Rengaraj Eswar. Eswar is the founding member of Tirunelveli Toastmasters who sowed the idea of having a public speaking club in Tirunelveli and made tremendous effort to make his idea, a reality.
Here’s the interview,
Question: What was the stimulus behind the initiation of Tirunelveli Toastmasters?
To attend a toastmasters meeting, I used to travel to Madurai every single week. It takes a little more than 3 hours to reach the destination from Tirunelveli.Some of my friends were interested in joining toastmasters and they were ready to dedicate time for self-improvement, but a hectic travel plan including more than 6 hours of travel every single week was a very difficult change to fit in. This is where I got the idea of starting a club here,in Tirunelveli, benefiting all the people who are interested in developing their public speaking and leadership skills.
Question: What was the initial situation when you started the club?
When I started the club, I thought it would be easy to carry forward but only after the demo meeting, I realized that even picking suitable office bearers was so difficult, empty slots transformed into cancelled meetings and the energy of the meeting got down day by day.
Question: What was your response to the problem?
We went to Virudhunagar Toastmasters club for a meeting and we learned a lot from them,from making the meeting energetic to making the meeting fun to attend. I have to mention TM Srinithi, VPE of Tirunelveli TM for introducing engaging content including the display of champion speeches(like Dananjaya Hettiarachchi’s speech) from toastmasters and inspirational speeches(A fantastic speech by Actor Madhavan)from other sources. She introduced a session called “Listening session” to our regular meetings. This helped us a lot to improve.
Question: Do you have any happy stories to tell me?
Sure, I do. Its about TM Subramanian ,before toastmasters he had a lot of difficulties related to performing well in the interview, but after joining here, he practiced a lot of impromptu situations and he got selected into one of the top companies(Bosch) in the list. We celebrated his achievement together as a club and when the club was in its lows, TM Subramanian came to us and said “We ,as a club, can sustain anything!” and his belief kept us together.
Question: What did you learn from Tirunelveli Toastmasters?
Perseverance, patience and the love towards work!
Question: Who do you like to say a big “thank you”?
The whole credit for the chartering ceremony goes to TM Srinithi and my dad, TM Ramkumar(President of Tirunelveli TM) and to all the members of Tirunelveli toastmasters. I would like to thank TM Suganthi Periasamy, TM Mythily Ramanan, TM Mala Balasubramanian for motivating us when we needed it the most. Special thanks to Madurai Toastmasters and TM Sachin Sundar who were motivating me throughout the process. I would also like to extend my gratitude to TM Prasanna, TM Bala and TM Ravanan.
Question: Can you summarize the ideas to our readers?
Regular meetings. Engaging content. Inviting speakers. Club leaders’ co-ordination. Motivational mentor-mentee sessions. That’s all about it.
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We understood TM Eswar’s love for the club, as he mentioned “She” and “her” denoting Tirunelveli Toastmasters throughout the interview, what else can describe this single man’s love for his club, folks?
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Get in touch with Tirunelveli Toastmasters through facebook,
https://www.facebook.com/tirunelvelitm/
Get in touch with Division L, District 82 through facebook,
