June 13, 2024
Hello Members, Parents, and Adult Leaders,
I request you to please read through this email till the end!
After a year of insightful, energetic, and engaging meetings, Gavel Club has come to our last meeting of the year. Thank you to everyone who came this evening and shared this journey with us.
Firstly, we thank our guest speaker Joshua for sharing his experience of public speaking used in his day-to-day life. It’s always fascinating to see how a club like this one can help us with applications and effectiveness of speaking. Take this session to find opportunities to find yourself and just talk – it brings out the best in you (quoted by Joshua). Fortunately for us, Joshua also led an entertaining and foreign activity for us – one we’ve never tried before!
After this session, we all indulged ourselves in a delicious potluck! Thanks to all those who contributed (even the parents who helped make the food 
) During this, those who brought a gift also participated in a cute gift-swap!
Last but not least, it was time to acknowledge everything we all as individuals and as a team have achieved over this course of Gavel Club. Annie and Shirley thoughtfully presented awards and recognitions to the members of our club.
Thank you all, parents and Gavel members, for making this an amazing year. Despite our ups and downs, we made it to the end and we had fun while doing so. As they say, “we cooked” 🙂
A 
very special thank you to our adult leaders:
Annie Bai, Shirley Richards, Tiffany Chen, Melanie Pereria, and Anam Biabani.
for their constant support, guidance, and enthusiasm. Meetings would not have been the same without you 
REMINDER:
Club field trip is happening on June 23rd, 2024!
Thank you and Congratulations 
Warmest Regards,
Aditi Prakash,CO-VP of Membership
May 30, 2024
On May 30, 2024, the Gavel club held an open house at the Vic Johnson Arena.
Our club counsellor Annie, encouraged club members to bring some of their “weirdest items” that they have.
The club members brought their weirdest items to the meeting, some of them included: an old doorbell, a drumstick in toy format, a stuffed doll, a memorabilia from a trip from ten years ago. All the members shared a brief story that they have with their “weirdest items.”
In the next session, Annie asked all the members to vote on who had the weirdest items.
After, members are asked to write a random table topic question – (A word like “Friends,”) a question like “What’s your favourite holiday spot?”
Before the meeting is adjourned, the winners for the weirdest items are…the drumstick and the doorbell!
Today, we had a fun meeting because all members are brave enough to share their “weirdest items” that they have. We all got to know the members a little bit more through their “weirdest items!”
Next meeting, the club will be having an online Table Topics contest on June 6!
Tiffany – Gavel Committee Member
May 23, 2024
Hello all Gavel members!
Although we had a small Zoom meeting, we had a full agenda with three speakers! Congratulations to everyone who came out and made a speech!
Our first speaker was David, who gave an educational but light-hearted speech about “Brainrot” – a term that describes those who experience mental fogginess and cognitive decline for excessive screen engagement.
Our second speaker Zeenia- who delivered a speech based on the project: Organizing your speech. In her speech, she mentioned that sleep is like an immunity booster and she also shared other benefits of sleep. For busy students and adults, it’s important to take notes from Zeenia’s speech and embrace the precious sleeping time!
Our third speaker Miraaya did her first speech! In her speech, she talks about her travels, her pets and her allergies to pets and her family.
Our table topics speaker Sia prepared some though-provoking but fun table topics questions and many students took part in answering.
Lastly, the evaluators were Anirudh, Darsh and Elham. These evaluators did a fantastic job on highlighting the strengths and improvements of the speakers. They were able to use concrete examples where things can be worked.
Today’s meeting was a successful one because many students stepped up to be speakers. Lastly, Annie and Tiffany spoke about membership renewals and upcoming events: Online Table Topics contest, club field trip.
On May 30, the club will meet again at Vic Johnson Arena!
May 16, 2024
Hello All,
This past meeting was an in-person meeting. As usual, in-person meetings are nothing short of exciting, engaging, highly interactive, and insightful. We were truly grateful to have another amazing in-person meeting.
This week, the theme of the meeting was “blend in or stand out?” where Shirley and Melanie inspired us all to be the best version of ourselves and stand out against the crowd.
The first session of the meeting was training for the upcoming Table Topics Contest (date will be announced later). First, we learned tips and tricks to help us master the art of a table topic. Then, we put those pieces of feedback to use by analyzing a winning Table Topics speech by breaking it down and using the official Toastmasters scoring system. The link to the speech if you wish to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBL7yrCeGP8
The second half of our session was a debate about whether students should be allowed to bring pets to school or not. Both our teams showed great passion and skill, leading us to end in a tie.
Thank you to all those who joined us, and of course, Melanie and Shirley who hosted a wonderful session for us all. See you next week!
REMINDERS:
– Sign up on EasySpeak for attendance and next week’s roles!
Would you choose to blend in or stand out? 🙂
Regards,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership
May 9, 2024
The meeting last Thursday was our club level Evaluation Contest, where members of our club signed up to participate in demonstrating their evaluation skills.
At this time, I would like to give a special thank you to our speaker Danielle Mustillo, who shared an encouraging speech with everyone, we truly appreciate it. Danielle’s speech was evaluated by our contestants for the evening; Ritesh, Rishi, Elham, Zeenia, and Abdullah.
The decision making was tough for our judges because the evaluations were so wonderfully presented. We would like to extend our gratitude to the judges for the evening, Chief judge Melanie Pereria, Annie Bai, Tiffany Chen, Shirley Richards, and Joshua Quilatan.
A huge congratulations to our contestants for the evening, you should all be proud of yourselves. Now for our top three;
3rd: Ritesh
2nd: Rishi
1st: Abdullah
Good luck to Abdullah, who will be representing our club at the international evaluation contest! We wish you the best!!
Thank you once again, see you all next week!
April 25, 2024
Good Morning Gavelliers and Parents,
This evening’s session was unique compared to the sessions we have had in the past. The group of us who were present at this week’s meeting had a wonderful time strengthening our presentation skills.
We began with our History Master, Teresa who beautifully shared with us a speech on an event that had occurred in the past. We next moved to a group presentation session where we were moved into breakout rooms to make a presentation about potential locations for a Gavel Club Field Trip!
We were all excited for this planning – therefore leading us to some amazing presentations. After much presentation and deliberation, we came to a consensus that the Hockey Hall of Fame was the best place to travel to as a club! More information will be shared shortly.
Thank you to everyone who was present and engaged during this meeting and we will see all of you next week!
*Reminder that May 9th is our club level evaluation contest, online*
April 18, 2024
For today’s meeting, we had Sanve, our new member did her ice-breaker speech. Congratulations to Sanve for stepping out of her comfort zone and shared her experience with the rest of the club!
Next, we had one of our adult leaders – Tiffany, who did a workshop on “Moments of Truth.” Moments of Truth workshop is adapted from the adult Toastmasters club, where the whole club discussed what’s working for the cub, and bring up any suggestions for the club. The club was split into two groups, one group discussion was facilitated by fellow adult leader – Shirley. Another group discussion was facilitated by fellow adult leaders – Melanie and Anam. The students contributed some ideas and insights for the club.
Next, we had our table topics masters – Miraaya, Daniella, Sia had some creative questions for the club members.
Tonight’s meeting gave students some opportunities to explore new possibilities to shape the club in a different direction!
April 11, 2024
Good evening Gavel Club members and parents,
I trust this email finds you well. Our meeting on April 11th, which was centered around the theme of “Continuous Learning,” was very interesting as we explored themes of personal growth, overcoming challenges, and giving feedback.
Throughout the meeting, Anirudh did a great job leading the session as our Toastmaster, setting the stage for an evening of insightful speeches.
Our Grammarian, Elham, introduced us to the word of the day, “apotheosis,” which means “the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax.” I thought it was a very interesting word of the day!
The Speech Session commenced with Zeenia bravely sharing how she has faced and overcome challenges through her journey to be more outgoing. She inspired us all to embrace personal growth with courage and determination.
Following Zeenia’s speech, Rishi captivated us with his speech around the challenges he faced with the Give and Go sports organization. He shared invaluable lessons that he learned from his experiences in gathering sports donations and navigating through failures, emphasizing the importance of resilience and adaptability in the face of setbacks.
Aditi did a great job as our Table Topics Master by uniquely asking interview questions such as, “If you were a cereal, what cereal would you be?” Finally, a special highlight of the meeting was Shirley and Melanie’s insightful message on the importance of evaluations, accompanied by a thought-provoking video. Their guidance will undoubtedly aid us all in becoming more adept evaluators, enhancing our ability to provide meaningful feedback and support to fellow members while delivering an interesting speech.
As we reflect on the enriching experiences of our last meeting, let us carry forward the spirit of continuous learning and growth into our upcoming sessions. I look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting!
Best regards,
Misimi Sanni
Co-VP of Membership
April 4, 2024
Hello Everyone,
The theme of our meeting last week was “Celebration and Reflection”. Toastmaster Rishi started our meeting by sharing a few remarks and then bringing forward our grammarian who shared the word of the day “ruminate”.
The short speech session consisted of Daniella’s show and tell through which she showed five objects that she values dearly. Each object she showed took us on a journey of her memories.
For the education session, Annie showed us a speech given by speech champion Cyril Junior Dim titled “Ndini”, translated to “This is Me’. We all took a moment to reflect on the impact and strength his speech and his speaking skills had on us. With that, we were inspired to have a quick speech session where we had 10 minutes to write our own speech inspired by the topic “This is Me”. After the time was up, we were able to hear three amazing speeches that were written quickly, but were very well presented.
Finally, our table topics session was led by Miraaya and Bianaca as they helped us critically think and speak about the engaging topics that were provided by them.
Overall, this was a fantastic meeting that left us all with a message “Be yourself because everyone else is already taken” (Shared by our very own Bianca).
Thank you so much, have a wonderful afternoon.
REMINDER: Next week is an ONLINE meeting
Regards,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership 🙂
March 28, 2024
Good Evening All,
It was a pleasure to see everyone back after spring break. Thank you to everyone who joined and were able to share the adventurous, or restful things they did over the break. I hope that you all are well rested and recharged to have more exciting meetings in the future!
As already mentioned, the Toastmaster for the evening, Annie, started the session by encouraging everyone to share the wonderful things that they did over the break. We then moved to our Table Topics game where we all tried our best to help reach the word goal of the day.
Next, we broke out into groups and prepared presentations that later made us feel like we took a quick trip all around the world to places such as; Bermuda, Chicago, India, Miami, and our very own Niagara Falls. What an exciting journey that was!
With that, we concluded our first meeting back from the break. Thank you to all those who joined, and we hope to see the rest of you at our next meeting.
***Please remember to sign-up for roles and attendance on EasySpeak***. See you soon.
Regards,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership
February 22, 2024
Good Morning Families,
This past week, we had a lovely in-person meeting hosted by our toastmaster Rishi. He did a fantastic job conducting the majority of the meeting. This week, our grammarian Mia chose the word of the day “accountable” meaning, someone who is responsible for what they do.
Ronn started off our short speech session with an inspirational speech about how our greatest fear is failure, and how fear dictates our actions which hinder our ability to reach our full potential, so we should “just do it.” Next, David gave us a short and sweet history about how family day came to be.
The long speech session began with Sia’s speech about overcoming challenges where she shared stories about how she faced some of the challenges in her life, leaving us all motivated to persevere through our challenges. Then, Aditi shared her speech about how our life is compared to a growing seed, no matter how old or young we are. For these two speeches, the evaluators Anam and Annie, respectively, shared valuable feedback that should be used to improve our next speeches.
For the third section of our meeting, we were joined by members of the “Women of Ericsson”. The presentation was conducted by Paru Dua who spoke about how the Ericsson company came to be. Most importantly however, she shared the importance of having STEM based skills is essential for the growth of the future generation. A BIG thank you to Melanie for coordinating the guest speaker/educational session for this evening. It was truly an insightful session.
Lastly, our table topics master Elham asked some thoughtful questions for us to speak about, and our quizmaster Zeenia asked some mind-boggling questions to test our listening ears throughout this meeting.
Once again, thank you to the Women of Ericsson who were able to join us this evening, and thank you to our members who were able to be present for this jam-packed, yet, eventful evening.
See you all online next week! (Don’t forget to sign up for roles on EasySpeak)
The theme for next week is Equality.
Regards,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership
February 15, 2024
Hello Fellow Gavelliers and Families,
At last week’s meeting, Elham was our toastmaster for the evening. She did a fantastic job by starting the meeting by introducing the theme of the week “Feel the Fear and do it Anyways”. She then introduced our grammarian who gave us the challenge to use the word of the day “Moxie”, seven times.
We then moved to our short speech session where David talked about the inspirational story of the first ever eye transplant, Mark told us the origins of Valentine’s Day, and Shrimayi shared a show and tell about how her books give her strength.
For our long speech session, Darsh told us the significance and historical context of Black History Month (commemorated during the month of February), and Ritesh shared with us the power of facing our fears. Their evaluators Rishi and Daniella shared some positive and constructive feedback.
Finally, we separated into groups for the Table Topics session that was hosted by Teresa and Zeenia.
Congratulations to everyone for surpassing our word of the day goal this week by almost double!!
REMINDER: Next week (February 22nd) is an IN-PERSON meeting where we will be joined by a guest speaker from the Women of Ericsson Group who will be talking about STEM.
We hope to see you all there! Have a wonderful week. 🙂
Regards,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership
February 8, 2024
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend, and a happy Lunar New Year to those celebrating! The meeting last Thursday, themed “Play It Backward,” was an excellent opportunity to think about our past and also explore the future.
The first speech of the evening was by Teresa, our History Master, who shared a captivating speech about Lunar New Year. I enjoyed how she dove into the history of the celebration and taught many of us new things, giving us unique perspectives on an important cultural event.
Next for the Inspirational speech, Ritesh started us off with the quote, “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.” His speech inspired us to reflect on our past and use those insights to shape a better future for ourselves.
For Show And Tell, Anam shared an inspiring speech about her past struggles with math. The way she explained her process of overcoming these challenges taught all of us the value of facing our difficulties.
To end off the meeting, Shirley delivered an engaging lesson on critical thinking and problem-solving that was both intriguing and practical. The group critical thinking exercise, where we had to problem-solve how to survive in a desert with only a stick, a rock, and a glass of water, provided a unique opportunity to practice critical thinking while having fun and collaborating. I especially enjoyed hearing the solutions of the other groups and seeing the abilities of creative minds.
As we go into our next meeting, I hope you all continue to grow from the past, conquer your future, and imbue critical thinking along the way. See you all next week!
Best regards,
Misimi Sanni
Co-VP of Membership
February 1, 2024
Good Evening All,
Thank you for another engaging evening, and those who participated.
The meeting started with our long speech session, where Zeenia and Anika shared their very first ice breaker speeches. Many congratulations and we hope to continue to hear more from you!
Then, our table topic session with a twist. The group split into two teams. Team Bianca and Team Daniella – who were our table topics masters for the night. We went back and forth from team to team and did our best to use the word of the day – “benevolent.” Lucky for us, the session ended with a tie.
Finally, we had our short speech session where Langji shared an inspirational quote, Aditi discussed the history of peace, and a nostalgic show and tell by Miraaya.
Throughout the meeting, toastmaster Annie kept us on our toes by asking interactive and insightful questions related to the theme of the week “peace”. With that, our quizmaster Elham popped some questions to see who was paying attention this evening.
Reminder to sign up on easy-speak to prepare for next week.
Thank you once again,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership
“There can be no peace in the world until there is peace within”
See you all next week 🙂
January 12, 2024
Hello everyone!
I hope you all enjoyed yesterday’s meeting. Here is a recap:
We started with warm New Year greetings, sharing our experiences during the holiday break. It was wonderful to hear about everyone’s adventures, whether it was traveling or enjoying a relaxing time at home. Following this, David, our club president, set a positive tone for the meeting with an inspiring address, encouraging us to embrace the opportunities and challenges that the new year brings.
We had one speech today: Draco! His icebreaker speech was very comprehensive, covering all the aspects of him, such as his passions for both math and sports. Great first speech, Draco!
From there, we had discussions on the enigmatic things in life, such as the uncanny ability of our moms to find things that we have been trying to find for hours.
Finally, instead of traditional New Year’s resolutions, we each worked on developing a personal mission statement. These were rooted in values such as honesty, growth, and humility and give us a goal that we can come back to over the year. It was inspiring to see what everyone is working towards!
A special shout-out goes to our Word of the Day, “enigma,” which was used 15 times during the meeting! Thank you to everyone who contributed to making this meeting both enjoyable and meaningful.
Quick Reminder: Next week’s meeting is in person! See you all there 🙂
Best regards,
Misimi Sanni
Co-VP of Membership
December 7, 2023
Good Evening Everyone,
Thank you to everyone who joined us during the meeting this past week!
The meeting started with our toastmaster David who introduced the theme for the week, exploration. We started our short speech session with Zeenia’s inspirational speech about Smoky the Dog who was a mighty warrior and companion during World War II. Then, Elham shared the significance that her yellow cape holds for her during the Show and Tell session.
Our main speech session started with Aditi’s speech about her entertaining encounter with a dog and Mohammad gave his ice breaker speech, we hope to hear more from you! Their evaluators Anam and Annie respectively, provided them with some useful feedback. Thank you evaluators!
Next, an extremely engaging table topics session hosted by Miraaya made everyone think about the various aspects of exploration and surely kept us on the edge of our seats.
Finally, adult leader Annie hosted a fun session where all members got to explore a career in pairs and see what it would be like in the future. We then presented our exploration with the rest of the group. This was very exciting! Thank you Annie 🙂
Just some reminders;
-Next week is an IN PERSON meeting + holiday party with a potluck. Everyone is encouraged to bring something to the potluck. Please refer to the spreadsheet sent earlier this week to sign up for the potluck and list ingredients.
– The interclub speech contest is December 10th!
Thank you,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership
November 30, 2023
Good Evening All,
Cheers to another lovely meeting!
The meeting started with Rishi as our Toastmaster for the evening, who shared “Peak Performance” as the theme of this evening. Then, our grammarian introduced us to the word “proficient” as the word of the day. To be proficient, means to be skilled or skillful.
Our short speech for the evening was presented by Anika, who told the inspirational story about Terry Fox and how we should learn to think and care for others.
For our main speech session, we had Langji make his very first icebreaker speech! Congratulations! His evaluator Bianca shared positive and constructive feedback that could all learn from. We hope to hear more, this is just the beginning.
Next, we did a large table topic session hosted by Ritesh, who provided some interesting topics, and we were able to learn a lot of new things.
Finally, the highlight of the evening, an activity hosted by our adult leader Annie! Through this game “Wonders of the World” our leaders and gavel club members travelled virtually around the world as each group or person shared quick speeches that were written within the span of a five-minute preparation session. Thank you Annie, for this creative session!
IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
– Next week is an online meeting, please remember to sign up on EasySpeak to confirm your roles!
– Thursday December 14th, IN PERSON year-end celebration + potluck
– Please see the attached flyer for important information about the international speech competition
Thank you all for another wonderful evening! See you online next week!
Regards,
Aditi Prakash
November 23, 2023
Good Morning All,
This Thursday we had our online inspirational speech contest with 8 competitors.
I personally commend all competitors for their speeches, they were all truly inspirational.
Special congratulations to our top three competitors:
1. Daniella
2. David
3. Sia
IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
– Next meeting: November 30th, 2023
– Make sure to sign up for roles on easy speak!
Thank you to everyone who made this competition possible! Let us continue to have great competitions like this one in the future!
Best Regards,
Rishi Jagirdar | Co-VP of Public Relations
Nov. 16, 2023
This Thursday we had our dedicated in-person meeting for the month with sessions led by our adult leaders Annie and Shirley as well as our president David.
The meeting started off with an awesome “learn how to write a speech in 5 minutes” lesson by Annie. We learned the important elements of a speech and how to structure a speech. By the end, Mark and Elham presented some incredible inspirational speeches based on personal stories.
Then Shirley led a session based on the delivery of a speech. Zeenia, Daniella, Bianca, and Devansh were given small speeches which were focused on specific delivery topics (Inspirational, informational etc.) to deliver to our members. All of these speeches were extremely well done!
Lastly, we had a quick debate session which had Teresa, Sia, Ronn, and myself debated about paper straws. Sia and Teresa ended up winning the debate via the strength of their stance. (David manipulated the vote:) ).
IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
– Next meeting: November 23rd, 2023
– Inspirational speech contest: sign up on easyspeak if you haven’t already and have your speeches ready!
Thank you to everyone who showed up and participated in the in-person meeting, we all truly appreciate it!
Best Regards,
Rishi Jagirdar | Co-VP of Public Relations
Nov. 9, 2023
We had a great online meeting on Nov. 9!
With closer to 20 students attended, Toastmaster Rishi opened the meeting with the theme – “Continuity vs. Change.”
Grammarian Zeenia introduced the word of the day – Progress.
Miraaya, Teresa, David did a great job with their roles in Quizmaster, Inspirational speaker and History Master.
Our first speaker, Anirudh, delivered a storytelling speech about Genghis Khan. Anirudh defended Genghis Khan’s savage character in a pretend trial.
Our second speaker Sia, delivered an inspirational speech.
The next part of the meeting continued where the group was sent into breakout rooms.
Table topics master had prepared some fun questions about change.
Lastly, club founder Annie introduced the inspirational speech online contest for Nov. 23 and encouraged all students to participate.
It was great to see students performed in their roles and thank you to those who showed their initiative and braveness to take on new roles like Devansh.
Next meeting on Nov. 16 will be an in-person meeting at Vic Johnson Arena.
By Tiffany C – Gavel club adult leader
Nov. 2, 2023
On Nov. 2, the Gavel club welcomed a special guest speaker, Crystal Samuels, a speaker and a meditator to deliver a workshop.
Before the meeting started with Crystal’s portion, our Toastmaster, Ronn opened the meeting with the theme – Adventure.
Then, our Timer Miraaya described the role of the timer.
Lastly, our Grammarian Teresa gave us the Word of the day, which was Exhilarating.
Next, the following all shined in their roles: Devansh (Inspirational Master), Ritesh (History Master), Zeenia (Show and Tell.)
We only had one speaker today – Rishi, who delivered a personal speech from the Storytelling manual about his experience with playing tennis.
Our guest speaker, Crystal shared her time with us and interacted with the students during her workshop. There were a following take-away from her informative workshop. Crystal uses her expertise in mindfulness to help the students become more confident in their daily speaking tasks and public speaking endeavors. It was a wonderful workshop from Crystal who shared her warm energy with the group.
Lastly, the students were sent into breakout rooms to have a table topics session with the table topics master. One of the table topics master asks about adventure related questions.
The meeting ended on a positive note with students gaining some resources to become confidence with their public speaking and we had three speakers wanted to do their speech right away at the next meeting!
Next meeting on Nov. 9 will be online.
By Tiffany C – Gavel club adult leader
Oct. 26, 2023
Good Afternoon Everyone!
This past Thursday, we heard some amazing speeches, and an insightful education session.
Firstly, our Toastmaster of the evening, David, gave us a spooky introduction to our theme, Halloween! To tie into this theme, our grammarian Anam, shared the word of the day “Gruesome”. Next, the history master Mark talked about the creation of Halloween. We were then inspired by our inspiration master Devansh’s speech about a quote from Cristiano Ronaldo, on how our hard work can lead to success. Finally, for the show and tell session, David gave us a humorous description about his shopping adventure at his school’s thrift store.
For the more formal speeches, Shrimayi spoke about her burnt popcorn fiasco and left us with a lesson on embracing the humour of our mishaps. Then Ritesh gave everyone a lesson about the advantages and disadvantages of social media through his speech.
We then moved on to a crucial part of our evening; The education session from Tiffany, our adult leader, about how to come up with a speech topic.
The biggest learnings from this is that speech topics can come from our personal experiences such as:
Inspiration: hobbies, entertainment, goals, etc.
Family: culture, vacations, someone you look up to, etc.
Education: achievements, extra curriculars, favourite subject, memorable teachers, etc.
There are also numerous reference materials that you can look towards for coming up with a speech topic like websites, social media, and books.
Thank you Tiffany for this wonderful and beneficial session!
Lastly, we had an engaging table topics session with Zeenia and a tricky quiz session with Langji!
IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
-Next meeting: November 2nd, 2023
– If you have signed up for a role, please attend the meeting, or let us know beforehand about your possible absence so we can arrange for alternates ahead of time 🙂
-International Table Topics contest: Sunday, October 29th, 2023 at 1:00pm (Go Rishi!!!)
– Next week’s theme: Adventure
Thank you so much for this meeting and see you all next week! 🙂
October 12, 2023
Good afternoon Everyone,
I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!
Our meeting on October 12th was filled with insightful speeches and learning opportunities, all centred around the theme of “Innovation.” Here’s a recap of the highlights from the meeting:
Our Toastmaster Anirudh, started the meeting off strong with our theme of “Innovation”. Following this, Ammar delivered an inspirational speech about overcoming fear. He emphasized how fear is our greatest teacher and that when we confront our anxieties, we unlock our full potential. It was a motivational talk that I’m sure resonated with many of us. Ronn switched things up with his speech, discussing an unusual but fascinating historical event – the Boston Molasses disaster of 1919. He shared the intriguing story of how Boston was flooded with molasses and the cleanup that followed. David gave an informative presentation on glaciers, recounting his experience visiting the Athabaskan Glacier. He discussed the disappearance of glaciers and offered solutions to combat climate change, leaving us with valuable insights. Anam conducted an educational session, highlighting how science is embedded in everything, including giving a speech. She covered various aspects, including the anatomy of the mouth, the science behind sound production, and the role of the brain in speech. Thank you to all the speakers and participants for making the meeting engaging and educational!
Some quick reminders:
– Next Meeting: October 19, 2023 – Please sign up for roles and confirm attendance on EasySpeak
– Saturday, October 21, 2023 (3:30 pm – 5:30 pm): Table Topics and Debate Contest (IN-PERSON: See attachment)
– Sunday, October 29, 2023 (1 pm) : Global Table Topics Contest (ONLINE: join to cheer on our representative, Daniella!)
I look forward to seeing you at our next meeting. Keep those innovative ideas flowing!
Best regards,
Misimi Sanni
October 5, 2023
Good Evening All,
I want to start off by saying what a great evening we had with our table topics contest. A huge congratulations to all the participants for putting in their best efforts and delivering some fantastic speeches. With that being said, three contestants stood out the most…
Congratulations to Abdullah in third place, Rishi in second place, and Daniella in First place. We wish best of luck to Daniella who will move forward to represent our club in the inter-club contest!
Of course, this contest would not have been successful without the presence and diligence of our judges; Steven, Kennedy, Joshua, Camilla, Shirley, Tiffany, and Melanie. Last but not least, we express our heartfelt gratitude to Annie, who conducted this meeting and ensured that everything ran smoothly.
Thank you ALL! I cannot wait to see what amazing skills you have to share with us in the future.
IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
– Next week is an online meeting, please remember to sign up on EasySpeak to confirm your roles (I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and try new things, we’re all here to support you :))
– Please see attached flyers for important information about upcoming events
- Saturday October 21, 2023: Table Topics and Debate Contest (IN-PERSON: See more info)
- Sunday October 29, 2023: Global Table Topics Contest (ONLINE: join to cheer on our representative!)
Thank you and see you all next week 🙂
September 28, 2023
Good Evening All,
What an awesome first in-person meeting! It was truly amazing to finally connect with you all.
Thank you to everyone who could make it.
The meeting started off with an in-person introduction of our adult leaders and members who were present. Then, we began our very first table topics contest of the year!
For those who may not know, a table topics session is where members are given a topic and they are to present an impromptu speech for up to two minutes.
Everyone who participated gave the topic their best shot, and provided us with some great results. In the end, our judges Melanie, Shirley, and Tiffany shared the winners with the rest of the group.
Congratulations to our top three with Bianca in third place, David in second place, and Aditi in first place.
Thank you to those who participated and making this first in person meeting memorable for us all. We encourage you to continue to participate and showcase the skills you are building throughout these meetings. Most of all, our biggest gratitude goes to the judges who took their time, patience, and expertise to provide us with valuable feedback for future sessions.
Once again, thank you all for an amazing in-person meeting. See you all virtually on Zoom, next week (October 5th, 2023)
(Just a reminder to sign up for roles and attendance on EasySpeak)
Regards,
Aditi Prakash, Co-VP of Membership
September 21, 2023:
Cheers to a fantastic second meeting!
We started the meeting with an introduction from our Toastmaster for the evening: David about the theme of the week, “Courage and Fear”. We then began with our short speeches session that started with our inspirational master Anirudh who talked about Thomas Edison’s optimistic point of view on failures. Next, Rishi presented a historical presentation about the entertaining Emu War. To conclude the short speech session, our show and tell master Bianca spoke about her love for Harry Potter and closed off the session by reminding us to do things that make you step out of your comfort zone.
Our next speech session started off with Daniella who shared her experiences as well as some valuable advice about how she survived ninth grade. We then listened to Ammar’s speech that motivated all of us to chase our dreams and make our dreams a reality. Their evaluators Ronn and Abdullah, respectively shared some constructive feedback that we can all use to constantly improve our speeches.
With those insightful speeches in mind, we moved on to participate in an engaging table topics session where we were given topics related to this week’s theme.
To close our meeting, we had our quizmaster Elham ask us questions to reveal who was paying attention during the meeting and who was not 😉
Overall, this was another great meeting and we can’t wait to see you all in person next week.
IMPORTANT REMINDER:
Next week will be an in-person meeting where we will be hosting a table topics contest so don’t forget to sign up on EasySpeak to participate and to confirm your attendance!! This meeting is a great opportunity to socialize and get to know one another better. We can also seize this opportunity to have the courage and practice our impromptu speaking and debate skills.
Thank you and see you all next week!
Regards,
Aditi Prakash | Co-VP of Membership
September 14, 2023:
It was a pleasure to meet new and returning members at our first Gavel club meeting of the year!
We began the session with a brief introduction of the adult leaders and youth executive team. Afterwards, we discussed the club calendar and exciting monthly awards!
Shirley demonstrated how to use the platform easy-Speak, a great tool to sign up for roles throughout the year. Melanie then delivered an amazing presentation on speech writing, sharing some noteworthy tips and tricks that we should all keep in mind.
From grammarian to quizmaster, Rishi and David explained the various roles that we encourage you to sign up for each meeting.
Finally, Daniella facilitated the first table topics session of the year with some “Would You Rather” questions that helped spark conversations.
All in all, this meeting was a great start to the year at Gavel. I look forward to listening to inspiring speeches and growing our public speaking skills together this year!
Daniella Almeida, Co-VP of Public Relations