On 10th December
2019, I was at EMinent Communicators Toastmasters Club as Language Evaluator,
my 134th club visit on the 163rd day of the Toastmasters
year. Mithun Malani, DTM, served
as Sergeant-at-Arms. Raymond Zhang, DTM,
served as Toastmaster of the Day. Soe
Myat Hein served as Ah Counter.
In his President's opening
address, Mithun Malani, DTM, spoke of a friend he had known for over 17
years. The day before, that friend was
killed by a hit-and-run driver, the day before his own wedding
anniversary. Mithun, DTM, drew
the only lesson such a loss allows: life ends without warning, and the people
we love deserve our attention now, not at some later point we assume we will
still have. Public speaking has few
moments where the words matter less than the silence around them. This was one of them.
The Fine Line between
Altruism and Avarice
Adith Chandrasekhar, in his
first speech, addressed altruism, citing a series of economic experiments. Public goods games, run repeatedly across
behavioural economics research, show participants contributing roughly half
their stake toward the shared good in early rounds. That contribution shrinks with each
repetition, as players watch others hold back and adjust their own generosity
downward to match. Dictator game studies
across fifteen societies found offers averaging 37 per cent of an endowment,
ranging from 26 to 47 per cent depending on the culture tested. Generosity is real, measurable, and
consistent across the world. It is also
conditional, and it erodes the moment trust in reciprocity weakens. Altruism and self-interest sit closer
together than most people assume, separated by circumstance rather than
character.
A Festival
Remembered from Distance
Soe Myat Hein gave an account
of Thingyan, the Burmese New Year water festival, held in mid-April according
to the Burmese calendar and celebrated over four to five days leading into the
new year. He gave his own account of the
festival, and of missing home while describing it. This was a speech delivered with homesickness
which carried a texture no amount of research can produce.
Automation and the
Careers under Threat
Swaminathan Rajamanickam, DTM,
gave a presentation on the Fourth Industrial Revolution, covering how
automation and artificial intelligence are reshaping business. He addressed both the careers growing under
this shift and the ones already at risk.
The World Economic Forum’s own Future of Jobs Report later confirmed the
shape of this concern: 92 million jobs displaced globally by 2030,
alongside 170 million newly created, a net gain that still leaves pain
concentrated in whichever roles land on the wrong side of that count.
The Evaluators and
Results
Lim Chang Jing, DTM,
Putu Sanjaya, and Penny Radcliffe served as Project Evaluators. Best Evaluator went to Penny Radcliffe. Best Table Topics Speaker went to a
guest. There was no vote for Best
Speaker on this occasion.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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