USD Challenge pics uploaded !

The inaugural edition of the USD Challenge Table Topics Contest to commemorate the memory of our dear U S Dev was conducted in style at Hotel AJ International.

All the pics have been uploaded at the Smedz album

www

And if you thought 'world wide web', you are wrong!

We at Smedleys conducted a speech contest for all the lady smedz on the occasion of international women's day. The topic for speech was "What women want". While all the ladies went the wordy way to express what women really want, Malora Fernandes went the poetic way. She had penned down this nice poem.

* * * *
What women want

Women are shallow
Women are vain
Women, men feel
Are often a pain.

Now if that’s true
What’re you to do?
I must ask then
What’s a woman to you?

A mother, a wife;
Or a sister beside
Here are some women
Men walk alongside.

We say we are equal,
We say we are strong
Truth of the matter is;
We are rarely wrong!

What do we want?
You ask us today,
Will you ask again tomorrow?
What happened to yesterday?

Are you ready to listen?
That list runs long
No expense necessary
But you must be strong.

We want love & respect
Not be spoken down to
Some understanding & compassion
For the work that we do.

We play many roles
We try not to hurt,
We pretend to be strong
Whenever you are curt.

We say we are equal
We say we are strong
Truth of the matter is
We are sometimes wrong.

We want to be cherished
Thought of as wise
A compliment from you
Will be really nice.

Treat us sweet
Treat us kind
Treat us like Queens
We don’t mind!

Be nice to a lady
For how lovely she is
Her smile & her warmth
Is one you will miss.

Buy her some flowers
A trinket or two
A bar of chocolate
And she’s closer to you.

A call in the day
‘Hi! How do you do?’
A hug in the night
To say ‘I love you’

Hold our hand
Please make us laugh
Listen to our woes
They will divide by half

Let me end my rambling
Let me stop this jaunt
I have answered the question
Of what women want!

- Malora Fernandes

ET: The Extra Terrestrial

I may not be the most famous person on earth but certainly the most famous on Mars. Don't believe me?? Well.. then wait till the NASA discovers some life there. Anyway as I stand here today, I promise that you are part of history, listening to the most famous Martian.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine died. I am very happy that he did. As kids we had decided that we will share our achievements in life. He betrayed… and took the throne of Iraq himself. His name was Saddam Hussain. Now I know what you are wondering about… our age difference... but I have an answer for this. Big people grow up faster!

I was born in a place not considered very different from Iraq by Raj Thackarey, but better known as Champaran where Gandhiji started his first satyaagraha. Being a Bihari, I was a gifted hard worker but used this talent of mine very economically throughout my life as my father is a banker. I had to be a good cook as my mother is a housewife and one of world's best cooks. I am a born role-model for my two younger sisters and a brother, Anamika, Abhilasha and Amod; though I am the only one who thinks so. As a kid, I displayed my ability for being a biggest gangster of my area by learning most abusive language in shortest possible time. As a result, I was thrown into a boarding school named Vikas Vidyalaya at Ranchi.

They said boarding school is heaven, and good for my future. It was a strictly-vegetarian, all-boys residential school and the only thing responsible for me not having a girlfriend till date. Eventually it turned out to be heaven. It was here that I was introduced to cricket, poetry, public speaking, table tennis, hockey, acting, direction, script writing, tabla, singing, etc. It was my decision to take up all of them at once, and so I ended up being 'jack of all, and master of none'. It did not mean that i did everything in my school days, there was one thing I did not do – studying. God knows how I passed my 12th or maybe the guy who was sitting next to me in the exam hall would know better.

Then, my engineering life at Cochin University of Science And Technology was a different story altogether. Due to my 'economical' hard work in my schooling, I was the last guy to be admitted in my class. Then I decided to try studying. Later, my friends used to say that I had the keys of the university library and the job to open and close it everyday. I also had my share of fun. Once I did a lead role in a play, and acted so well that people could not even realize that I had forgotten my dialogs, until i said 'shit!'.. I got great friends there; one of them even forgot his father's name once... now you can make out how crazy me and my friends were!!! Finally i completed my engineering somehow and got a decent job at Cisco, and came to Bangalore.

I always wondered how Julius Caesar saw only things he could conquer. I tried seeing science in this way , and thought of being a scientist, but turned out to be a poet. I tried to see myself as Sachin Tendulkar, but ended up being 12th man. Now, if you think that I was the team owner 12th man as ShahRukh khan is for his IPL team, you are wrong. I was the 12th player of the team.

This is the story of my happily unmarried tiny little life. One of my dearest wishes was to take part in world war and have a shot at Hitler. I am confident I will have my chance when I get married. I wish to travel the world at a time when every single person would recognize me. I want to live life in such a way that if I were to be born again, I would like to be born as myself. I want to be one of the immortalized mortals. I want to conquer planet earth in such a way that people here should get to know that people as good as me, are not breed of this earth; they are E.T., the extra terrestrials.

* * * *
This is the first speech (called Icebreaker) of Alok Shankar, one of our new members. With such cool attitude, I guess Alok makes an ideal smedlian!

Santosh.. Animated..

During his speech on 30th March, 2008.

Prescriptions for Living

Theme for meeting last Sunday was 'Prescriptions for living'. I was the MC for the day, I asked members to come up with their own prescriptions and write down those things in a sheet of paper. I asked them to make it very prescription-like, the way doctors write their prescriptions, and even prefix their names with the title Dr, and suffix with degrees as they please.

And... I was amazed by the response I got! All of them got creative, donned doctor's hat, and came up with such good prescriptions for living! I am sharing some of them here.

--------------------------
Dr. Priya Kansal, MD

Rx.

Eye tonic - cut lots of onion and see lots of hot boys
Sleeping pill - lots of kisses
Headache - listen to rock music and dance to it
Cough Syrup - shout loudly

Additionally, have large quantities of love & give more to others.

------------------------------------
Dr. Sandeep Ganapathy
FRCS, MD, ETC, ETC.

Rx.

Blood transfusion
B+
10 litres

----------------------------------------
Dr. Adnan Nakhoda

Rx.

Go dancing 1 - 1 -1 x 365 days
Water tonic 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 x 365 days

----------------------------------------------------
Dr. Rohit Raman

Rx.

Vitamin ' B yourself' tablets

--------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Pankaj Upadyay
[Doctorate in Funology & Specialist in making people happy]

Rx.

A big stretch with a big smile 1 -1-1
- before and after breakfast, lunch, and dinner
Heavy dose of Hugs every 2 hrs.

-------------------------------------------------
Dr. Monica Pereira

Rx.

Happy pill - 1 - 1 -1
Rest pill - 1 - 1 -1
Sleep pill - 3 pills a day
Enjoyment pill - many
Chill pill - as many as possible

-------------------------------------------
Dr. Bhavana Hiremath

Rx.

2 dosages of comic strips in the morning - Blondie, Dennis the Menace, etc.
Side effects: A smile on the face and it's worth it.
1 big dosage of work at office
Side effects: Laziness, dizziness, tired feeling - but try it out. In the log run, you'll be cured of lots of diseases.
A dosage of listening to music with a book in the had in the evening - this is like giving chocolates for eating bitter medicines the whole day

-------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Pramod Shankar, MD
Consultant Gastro-Enterologist

Rx.

Tab. Sunshine 500 mg 1 - 1 - 1
Cap. Laughter 1000 mg 1 - 0 - 1
Tab. Love 500 mg 1 - 1 - 2
Compassion syrup - one tablespoon daily

* * * *
It was real fun reading all these prescriptions.

-Shrilatha Puthi

'Clicked' Together

Do I even need to say anything about this shot?

Riding Fundas

Check out riding fundas by Monica Pereira, in her speech titled "Riding to learn or learning to ride?"

A ‘Prestige’ous Story

It’s a known thing in the town that ‘Smedleys’ and ‘Fun’ are synonyms. Living upto it’s fame, Smedleys thought of doing something different on a meeting, we conducted meeting at one of it’s member’s residence!
Toastmaster Amit, and his better-half, soon-to-be toastmaster Priya, graciously came forward to play hosts. No. 437, Prestige Palms, Whitefield is the lovely nest of this newly-married couple; but on 7th of October, this home-sweet-home witnessed a different day. A day filled with laughter, emotions, and of-course… lots of talking.
Why this change of venue? You might wonder. Though Smedz don’t need much reason when it comes to celebration, we had good reason to do break the norms on that Sunday. One of our members, Amanpreet, was relocating to Chandigarh to find marital bliss. So we thought of dedicating the day to this Punjabi kudi; making it as colorful, vibrant, and fun-filled as Aman is.
Agreed. Whitefield isn’t a good place to hold meeting when you think of the traveling involved. But it’s not so when smedz come together (literally)! The whole gang was transported to Prestige Palms easily, the mantra was pooling. Members who own cars and bikes generously agreed to offer rides to others. Thus we reached Prestige Palms, though a bit late. When we all finally got there, it was as if we got together for a party. While Smedz got busy exchanging pleasantries, Sergeant-at-arms Shankar Dev had to remind them that they were there for a toastmasters meeting! He set the right tone for the meeting with his opening address, and called it the ‘Prestige Palms edition’ of Smedleys meetings.

When President Francis Gama got up to speak, he had a customized gavel in his hand! After his short-but-great address, and the round-robin where all the members get to speak on the theme, the meeting was handed over to the MC for the day, Malora Fernandes.

When Malora starts speaking, Smedz not only listen, they are all ears, as if they are hypnotized. It’s cliché to say that she has a way with words. As she unfolded the meeting, it only got more and more interesting. We had four speakers that day. Of them, Tasneem Nakhoda went on with a little serious note, in her project 6 speech. Latha did ample justice to her icebreaker speech titled ‘I, Me, and Myself’. Rohit took us on a journey as he narrated his experiences of a trekking expedition. Last but not the least; Hemant had his audience on splits when presented a tall-tale. He showed us that he is the master when it comes to humor. To add to the excitement, he had won an inter-club speech contest with the same tall-tale.
After these four speakers made their audience listen, listen, and listen more, it was time for them to speak as well. Husna, table-topic master for the day, had all the ingredients to make the session successful. Next in turn was the general evaluator for the day, Kalyani. She had able assistance in the form of individual evaluations by Francis, Ramya, Pramod, and CK. Then, it was time to talk about, and bid farewell to Aman. It was quite an emotional affair. Love and affection Aman has got in the club was clearly showing. Hosts Amit and Priya handed over a gift to Aman on behalf of the club. We had Nitasha, one of our founder members, with us in the meeting. We enjoyed her presence; it made the occasion all the more special.

We also had Ramya’s husband Pratap as a special guest. Funnily, Priya was being addressed as a ‘guest’ in her own residence because she is not a toastmaster yet.

Lunch followed the meeting, and lots of informal talking too. After good lunch, we called it a day and dispersed. Few lucky members stayed for a little longer than others; settled themselves in the bean-bags, lazed, and relaxed. They were treated with nice-hot adhrak-chai from Priya.
Bonding and camaraderie are definitely buzz-words at smedleys; it was a memorable day for them, and a day well-spent.
-Shrilatha Puthi
[written on November 14, 2007]

Here Comes, Smedleys

I take immense pleasure in welcoming you for an insider’s view at the Smedley’s Speakers Society, a Toastmasters club in Bangalore.
We at Smedley’s have aspirations to be the best toastmasters club in the world, and we have the fire and the drive to get there slowly but surely. We want this blog to be a chronicle of our journey towards 8848. We will capture our experiences at the boot camp, base camp and weathering the treacherous terrain.
We will upload acclaimed speeches and witty table topics and the humourous and original spins that our members put on these. We will also record minutes of all our meetings and those inevitable flashes of brilliance - customized anecdotes or linguistic innovations and manipulations from our community that create an indelible impact and often tickle our funny bone, on a mere reminiscence months later. These are as surreal as the smile their memoirs bring upon the lucky ones who experienced these firsthand.
We will do things exactly as per the Toastmasters code of conduct on this blog and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do in 'sharing it all' with you.
- Nitin Agrawal
[written on July 15, 2007]