Bangalore SHG Dec 30 meeting report..

First the weather report! The weather was just perfect, to
take the bike out and head out towards the most important activity for Sunday
– The all important SHG (Self help group) meet.

I reached the venue at about 10:15, I was pleasantly surprised
to see Subodh who had already reached and was doing his last
minute preparation for his prepared speech today.

We were soon joined by Rohit and Animesh. For the last meet of 2012 we had a healthy attendance. Animesh, Abhinav, Mayank, Rohit, Sairam, Pramod, Subodh,
Anshuman, Kishen, Chandrashekar, Chandan and I were the attendees.

I set the agenda for the day on the white broad – 10:30 to
11:30 reading, followed by prepared speeches, then Table Topics and lastly Group discussion.

Without wasting anytime we directly kick started on the
reading activity. Today we read the 6th Chapter of AHJ. During the read
following topics under chapter 6 were highly appreciated by everyone.

1) “Breathing” – most vital part to produce sound.
Before talking breathe..
2) “Valsalva reflex” – when speaking is perceived
as a threat, brains instructs to
to hold the breath. This is body defence to either fight or
to take flight, under
Valsalva affect body is not in a condition to produce sound
– We did few practicals on this!
3) “Pausing” – We practiced that with meaningful
pauses, speech is enhanced and quite effortless.
4) “Active Listening” – Listening is 90% of the
communication.

As we had many participants today, we just had brief
introduction after this. Each participant had to add an Adjective to his name and
spell out loud. The next participant had to remember all the names
(Adjective+names) before him and then proceed to add this adjective.

For eg. Animesh first would say “Active Animesh”
then Abhinav who is second should first repeat

“Active Animesh” and then say “Amazing”
Abhinav”.. in this way the last participant should recal all the names used before him !! 🙂

We jumped to the prepared speeches after this, Kishen was the time keeper, Chandrashekar noted the filler
words and Chandan was the grammarian. They read out the objective of their roles.

First speaker for the day was Subodh, he spoke passionately
about “Love”, it was his first speech and it
was evident that he spent a lot of effort on the practice. He was evaluated by Abhinav. Abhinav was all praise for Subodh.

Pramod was the second speaker for the day, this was his
third speech in the SHG meeting and he is

quite a story teller. He brings up mystic ideas and conveys
them well. He spoke about the concept of “Hollow earth”. The speech was very informative
and captivating. Rohit was the evaluator and he highlighted improvement areas well for the Pramod.

I was the last speaker of the day! I was quite clumsy and
shared some of the blunders I made.

I emphasised that itis important to make blunders!! 🙂
Sairam did catch my blunders in the speech and suggested some improvements.

We then moved to table topic session. This is an activity to
practice impromptu speaking.

Participants are called randomly one by one and are assigned
a topic on which they have to speak for a minimum for 2 mins.

Some of the interesting topics were..
What will you do if you become the PM of the country?
What is purpose of your life according to you?
What will you do if you were Dhone? etc

We enjoyed this session thoroughly and often broke into
uncontrollable laugters for the responses received!! 🙂

Kishen (Time Keeper), Chandrashekar(Filler counter), Chandan
(Grammarian) presented their findings to the group and were meticulous in their
role plays.

In our last segment, we had a Group discussion. Sairam is an
expert co-ordinator for this. He split the group in to 2 and threw open the forum with a
controversial question.

Why are we so inclined towards English Language/Culture? The
good and bad effects of it.

The best part was, he ensured everyone had their say and did
not let anyone to monopolise the discussion. All were given equal and fair
chance to speak. He interrupted fequenctly and smoothly conducted the group
discussion. Kudos to him for that.

This is how we wound up yet another awesome Bangalore SHG
meet..

Spread the message, spread the cheer, join a SHG and dispel
the fear! 🙂 See ya.

Warm Regards

Dinesh (98800 50526)

dinesh.daredevil @ gmail . com