CDE & TMU Toastmasters Clubs Joint Meeting

After Grand and TMU joint meeting last Wednesday evening, I encouraged TMU to have a joint meeting with CDE during their winter break. To my delight, both CDE and TMU made it happen Tuesday noon, January 27th. Both CDE and TMU are protege clubs of Grand, I invited Billy Chen, Trini Ding, Mike Yang to support the joint meeting and I advanced my working schedule at pharmacy from Tuesday to Monday, so that I could serve as the grammarian.

Even Toastmaster Selina Liu just joined CDE, she served as Toastmaster of the Day with success. Two prepared speakers from CDE were Grace Wu (The Jungle Book) and Nancy Teng (Lantern Festival). Grace delivered her C4 (How to Say it) and Nancy delivered her C3 (Get to the Point). Two prepared speakers from TMU were Fanny Lin (Words Kill) and Gary Kuo (Twenty-four). They both delivered their C2s (Organize Your Speech). Gary won the best speaker award. How was I proud of Toastmasters from my alma mater, Taipei Medical Univeristy!

Being the grammarian, I selected "vital" as word of the day. I gave a few examples of vital, vitality, revitalize, and encouraged members to use the word of the day in their speeches. The reason I wanted to introduce the verb of "revitalize" for two reasons. Firstly, Toastmaster Mike Yang was invited to be the General Evaluator. He is the chief ambassador the Toastmasters Revitaliazed Education Program which is about to be launched at the end of this year. Secondly, I wish to know how much revitalized Kung-yang would be after Taipei City Mayor Ke removed the overpass, the first overpass he removed after he took the office.

During my language evaluation, I talked mainly about the Jungle Book and I encouraged members to read the famous book by English author Rudyard Kipling in 1894. The Jungle Book was about a "man cub" Mowgli raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. They are fables, using animals in an anthropomorphic manner to give moral lessons. Because of its moral tone, the Jungle Book was used as a motivational book by the Cub Scouts, a junior element of the Scouting movement. Akela, the head wolf in The Jungle Book, has become a senior figure in the movement, the name being traditionally adopted by the leader of each Cub Scout pack.

I also took the chance to encourage members to read the Graveyard Book by English author Neil Gaiman, simultaneously published in 2008. The Graveyard Book traces the story of the boy Nobody Owens who is adopted and raised by the supernatural occupants of a graveyard after his family is brutally murdered. To compare the Jungle Book and the Graveyard Book, we found similarities of the two, suggested by Thomas Foster in "How to read literature like a Professor : for Kids".

After the meeting, President Jean Lai spent 10 minutes briefing the CDE, Toastmaster Mike Yang updated the recent development  of Revitalized Education Program for 10 minutes. We took a glance at Toastmaster Magazine January issue "Dive into the New Year". Many thanks to CDE for the welcome poster and the western style lunch box of curry bread, raisin bread, and chocolate muffin.