KeyForce Toasmasters Club

  On 12/6 we had the 10th regular meeting which was an online one starting from 20:00. 22 members including some guests were present at the meeting. It’s a pretty healthy number of attendances, isn’t it? I usually attached only a few photos each occasion, but this time I will post more pictures than usual. Some of them were cute. Enjoy!

 We are going to have a Keyforce Christmas Gala on December 20th. Please see below for more information!!

 On 11/15 we had the 9th regular meeting which was a hybrid one starting from 19:00.  This night, TM Tokky Mariko made her debut as a prepared speech speaker by delivering her “Icebreaker”. The Icebreaker is a self-introduction speech and the very first one that every new Toastmaster must perform before making any other prepared speeches. TM Mai Araki, Tokky’s evaluator, praised her for making the audience laugh within a minute from the start of the speech. Mai knew that making people laugh by an English speech was not easy. Tokky also went through her speech without the help of speech notes. It was a great accomplishment! By the way, are you interested in our club? If so, feel free to contact us and be our guest to start with! I am looking forward to listening to your Icebreaker eventually.

On 11/1 we had the 8th regular meeting online starting from 20:00. (I personally was late to come by 30 minutes,,,) Although we had no human guest this time, we had a special non-human guest. That was Shin-san’s cat! His (her?) meowing made us smile and provided a cordial atmosphere. This kind of accidental guests was a beauty of the online meeting. But I failed to take a picture of his cat. What a shame,,,. It was not the last online meeting so I should be able to have another opportunity. I need to stay prepared for anything to happen.

 On October 18th was another day when we found us improved as a Toastmasters Club. It was a hybrid day that means some participants were on-line to take part in and others got together at our home base, Tokyo Women's Plaza. Until that day, our president, Toastmaster Mai Araki, played a key role to set up our hybrid meetings. Unfortunately, her work didn’t allow her to come to the meeting on that day, but she gave us a comprehensive instruction for how to set up a meeting room. Thanks for this instruction and our joint efforts, we could successfully hold the meeting. We will keep improving ourselves to become more sophisticated club!

 Five!!   This is the number of guests who visited our online meeting on October the 4 th . I really do not know the record number of guests we’ve ever had, but I would say 5 is fairly large.   On this day, TM Jassica Kan made her debut as a prepared speech speaker by delivering her “Icebreaker”. The Icebreaker is a self-introduction speech and the very first one that every new Toastmaster must perform before making any other prepared speeches.   Are you interested in our club? If so, feel free to contact us and be our guest to start with! I am looking forward to listening to your Icebreaker eventually.

On September 20th, we had the 5th regular meeting of this term that was the second hybrid meeting. "Hybrid" means that participating members are either online or at the Tokyo Women's Plaza that is our historical home ground. We demonstrated much more improved ways to prepare the meeting so that we were able to start it on time. The last time, we started it at 19:15.   We had two distinguished guests, TM Ogino from the Minatomirai TMC and Alan, a Canadian guy, who once belonged to a TMC in Canada. In addition, TM Arai has joined our club formally. We, Keyforce Toastmasters Club, is proud the fact that the number of participants has been constantly over 15 even in the corona situation. As was usual when we got together at TMC, we had a socializing supper at UnCafe afterward!

Our 4th regular meeting was another impressive opportunity for all of us. Two new members, TM Jessica Kan and TM Mariko ‘Tukky’ Kawamura were inducted in a stately manner designed by the Toastmasters International at the beginning of the meeting.   As a matter of fact, both of them just visited our meeting as guests on the August 2nd for the first time, then joined our Summer Gala on the 16th. Now they have become our club mates. What a quick decision they made! All existing members highly respect their prompt decision and pledge to give them the highest value possible from our club. In addition to these 2 new members, 15 members and a guest, TM Yuriko Arai from the Toyota Friendship TMC, presented the last session. 18 total was supposedly a fairly large number in Toastmasters online meetings amid the Coronavirus pandemic. Actually, Covid-19 situation has not been all bad. Forced online meetings have made our fellow member, Jeffrey, living in the U.S., possible to take part in Keyfor

 On August 23rd, the Keyforce Toastmasters Club had a summer gala 2022. Before the pandemic, we had galas twice a year in August and December each. The last time we had one off-line was back in December 2019.  The door of the Hive JINNAN opened at 19:00. Keyforce mebers, toastmasters from other clubs and non-toastmaster people got together and the party started at 19:30. Since we have acted only on online for about two years, one of our members said it was her first time to meet other members in person. Having an off-line socialization meant a lot. We enjoyed a small impromptu speech contest, a group game, a magic show and a music performance.  Some photographs of the gala were below. You can see all other photographs and videos of the magic show and the song of Keyforce that we sang along at the night on our Facebook page .  We will back to a normal meeting that will be online on September 6th and may need to discuss a gala in December soon!

We have made it a rule to have the 1 st meeting of the month online. So, on August 2 nd , members of the Keyforce Toastmasters Club got together online to conduct our 3 rd regular meeting. It was another special session because we were joined by two fabulous guests! Not only did they make self-introduction but both of them took part in a table topic session. A table topic session is one of our regular menus where a member is randomly appointed to answer a given question impromptu. Of course it was their first time to do it but they were very good at answering a question spontaneously, which made all the members impressed. I personally hope that they have a good idea about what Toastmasters is all about and will decide to join us before long. We will skip a regular meeting next time but will have a summer gala on August 23rd instead. Still you are welcome to join us if you like.   *I am sorry to have forgotten to take screenshots of the meeting.

 July the 19th became our memorial day, the first online-offline hybrid meeting in the Keyforce Toastmaster Club's history. We connected our home ground, the Tokyo Women's Plaza where 9 people including 2 guests got together, to Zoom where other Keyforce members got themselves connected.  Thanks for President TM Mai Araki's great efforts together with other member's support, the meeting could start at 19:15 and finished by 21:00 that was the time we must vacate the room altogether.  Of course we found several points to improve but will continue to set the second meeting of the month as a hybrid one going forward.

 July the 1st is the start of a new term for Toastmasters activities. We, Kerforce Toastmasters Club, had the first regular meeting online on July the 5th for this new term.  As is usual at the first meeting, we had an inaugulation ceremony for new officers that was conducted by TM Tak Yamaki, the new Area Director, who we invited for the night. Our President, TM Mai Araki, delivered a fabulous induction speech followed by other respective officers speeches. After the inaugulation ceremony, we spent this night having 4 prepared speeches and other regular contents. We made a good start and we believe that the new term (Jul. 1st 2022 - Jun. 30th 2023) will be another successful year for the Keyforce Toastmasters Club.