ABOUT US

The second,  in North India, the DWARKA GAVELS CLUB is nothing short of an angel for those of you who suffer from petty everyday problems such as having trouble speaking in front of a crowd, answering the teacher in the classroom even when you have something very valid to say, or having a conversation with a person you just met. 

Here's how!

We have meetings every once in 2 weeks. The meetings involve a lot of preparation before hand depending on the role you have volunteered to play. The meeting consists of prepared speeches (usually given by 2 or 3 members every meeting). Prepared speeches are based on a planned criteria where in each speech has specified objectives. This helps us improve skills such as body language, voice modulation, and ofcourse, it  most of all helps in getting rid of the shivering knees (also know as nervousness ;)that magically appear everytime you are asked to address a crowd. 



Then comes the tabletopics session. Designed like 'Just a minute', it involves one of the members ( members volunteer to take up roles) becoming the tabletopics master. The tabletopics master prepares a few topics that the members can speak on. 

Members are asked to volunteer during the tabletopics session and speak on one of the topics for about 1-2 minutes. This session is all about learning how to think on your feet! 

The most important (and detested) of all, is the last session called the evaluation session. 

Now while the meeting has been going on, certain gaveliers who have simultaneously been participating in other sections of the meeting, have also been observing certain aspects of it. The grammarian, has been keeping a check on the grammar usage of the speaker, the ah counter has been counting the ahs and ums which have been (accidently) been used by the speakers, and the list goes on. 

Prepared speeches have special evaluators who evaluate speeches keeping in mind the objective and the progress of the speaker. 

Evaluating others not only helps us to learn from other people's mistakes, but also helps improve our listening skills.

Those of you who are familiar with the Toastmasters International Organisation (http://www.toastmasters.org/ )  would be delighted to learn that Gavels Club is officially an underage toastmasters and an integral part of the toastmaster network. Although there are only 3 in India (yet!), there are more in other countries around the globe. Gavel's meetings follows the same pattern as any regular toastmaster's meeting. On turning 18, Gaveliers can transfer to any toastmaster club of their choice.