Never underestimate the power of group!!

It might be little late to post this, but I have heard ‘better late than never’ and JPs Motivation so let me do this. Well….We all met on 4 April 2010 at our regular meet up place, but timing has changed from the past week, i.e. 10 am in the morning. We all came fresh in the early morning [for me 10 am on Sunday is do early ;-)] and all set to have the meeting. We were joined by Manohar and Sanjeeth who had been to Kolkata workshop and brought with them the abundance of experience and activities to share with. The meeting was coordinated for first half by Praveen. The meeting started with general discussion for 15 min or so. Then we had the some of the new activities which we came up in our last meeting. The group did meditation for 10 min, this is the first thing we always do and if done consciously definitely brings peace and relaxed state of mind. After this we did the vocal exercises, and slow reading in group for about 15-20 min each. These activities help to open up vocal cord in block and slow down the rate of speech respectively. As it is a known fact, slowing down the rate of speech helps a lot in speaking fluently and being in under control of situation. Also this helps to properly coordinate thinking and speaking at the same time. So, by now we were done with our new activities and most of us got exhausted. So the game time! Manohar coordinated the session from now. He made us play one-two games which help to enhance our listening skills. I am really fond of the games and keep waiting for it ;-). Then we did few bouncing (our main WEAPON) exercises, and good to see that people asking others to use it when some one forgot. As some of the people in the group are about to or have just passed degree and will be appearing in the group discussions for their selected, we had mock group discussion and people had a healthy group discussion. The main purpose of GD is to simulate the urge to speak while in the actual GD. And let me tell you people did face it, and tried to deal with it using the technique. So … it was a good discussion to have it altogether. Then we discussed our goals which we had set in the last meeting and if they were achieved. Some people had achieved them, some attained partially. Also we discussed goals for the upcoming meet and damn it, i have to achieve mine this time [I did not do last week :-(]. We also did discuss some of the things which we can have as goals on the weekly basis. At the last we had the general discussion about the meeting and the feedback from the individual people. This was done to make the meetings more interactive and do what the people want. Next week plan 1. Meditation-10 min 2. Vocal exercises-15 min 3. Slow Reading-20 min 4. Games -5 min 5. Bouncing-(A minimum of 4 activities)-20-30 min 6. Discussion of goals set and archived-10 min 7.Group Discusion/Interview/Public speaking-10 min 8. Presentation by Sanjeeth on any stuttering topic-10 min 9. General discussion and feedback from the people. We can add/remove activities based on availability of time. Looking forward for maximum participation.@others- Please add anything if you have