On 3rd September
2019, I visited EMinent Communicators Toastmasters Club as Project Evaluator. It was my 46th club visit on the
65th day of the Toastmasters year.
That is one club every 1.4 days.
I do not recommend the schedule.
Evaluators who visit that often tend to develop opinions.
The Meeting
Mithun Malani, DTM, President
of the club, was Toastmaster of the Day.
Penny Radcliffe served as Language Evaluator. Khoo Li Shan kept time. Lily Hu ran Table Topics. Alexander Gummenscheimer, Ulrike Agostin, and
I evaluated.
The Opening
Address
Mithun opened on
consumerism. He spoke of abundance, the
compulsion to accumulate, and the need for balance. He said accumulation for its own sake harms
the climate and our own psychological health.
He was right on both counts.
Humanity exhausted its annual
resource budget on 29th July 2019, according to the Global Footprint
Network. That was the earliest date on
record. We were using nature 1.75 times
faster than the planet regenerates it.
The United Nations Global Resources Outlook 2019 found that extraction
of materials grew from twenty-seven billion tonnes in 1970 to 92 billion tonnes
in 2017. It attributed half of global
greenhouse gas emissions to the extraction and processing of materials, fuels,
and food.
The psychology agrees. Helga Dittmar and colleagues pooled 753
effect sizes from 259 independent samples.
They found that prioritising money and possessions is negatively associated
with personal well-being. The audience
nodded. Then it went home and ordered
something.
The Toast
Ulrike’s project was a toast
to Mithun. She quoted, “Supporting
another’s success has never dampened your own.”
She admitted the quote has no known author. A toast built on an orphan quote starts from
a weak position. The content recovered
it. She called Mithun the living
embodiment that giving brings happiness.
The research backs her, with a
caveat. Dr Elizabeth Dunn, Dr Lara
Aknin, and Dr Michael Norton published “Spending Money on Others Promotes
Happiness” in Science in 2008. A
later study across 136 countries found prosocial spending linked to greater
happiness in poor and rich countries alike.
A 2022 replication of the original experiment found no significant
effect. The evidence is strong. It is not spotless.
The Chocolate
Speech
Angela Lansbury spoke on cocoa
cultivation and extraction. It was an
informative speech. A speech on
cultivation also owes its audience the labour question.
A University of Chicago
survey, published by NORC in October 2020, covered the 2018-19 season, the one
ending as Angela spoke. It found 1.56
million children in child labour in cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire and
Ghana. Of those, 1.48 million were exposed
to hazardous work. The two countries
produce almost 60 per cent of the world’s cocoa. The chocolate industry is worth US$100
billion. Every bar carries that number.
The Award for
Integrity
Mithun then delivered his
project speech on receiving an award for integrity. He praised his team at length and dedicated
the award to them. That is the right
response to an award.
Enron would have approved of
the topic. Its published values were
respect, integrity, communication, and excellence. Fortune named it America's Most
Innovative Company for six consecutive years, from 1996 to 2001. Enron filed for bankruptcy in December 2001, the
largest bankruptcy in American corporate history at the time. Integrity is not a trophy. It is what a person does when nobody is
handing out trophies.
The Guest and the
Evaluator
Best Table Topics Speaker was
a guest. Lily Hu ran the segment. The club named me Best Evaluator. I accept the award with all the humility it
deserves, which is none.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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