Toastmasters Youth Leadership Program 2022 commences with it’s first in-person session in Jeddah.

The first physical meeting of the Toastmasters Youth Leadership Program 2022, for Affreej E-Learning Solutions took place on Saturday, June 11th 2022, between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. The venue was Humming Tree. The theme was “Take the Plunge”. The event was presided by Toastmaster Fatima Syed, planned by Toastmaster Abubakr Syed and overseen by DTM Sara Ansari.

The event was graciously supported by Ms. Farah Ubaid, CEO of Affreej, and Ms. Ayesha Masroor, Affreej educator, both of whom were in attendance as well.

The event started off with an exchange of introductions between the enrollees and Toastmaster and Gavel representatives, also called the YLP Coordinators and Officers respectively. This was followed by an introduction to the Toastmasters development program, it’s outreach activities in the form of Youth Leadership, and a brief on the charm of joining a global community of leaders, by becoming a Gavel Club member. The importance of learning communication skills was then discussed.

This led to a quick icebreaker activity, and a brief discussion between the mentors and mentees-to-be.

The educational session then commenced, and the mentors introduced the concept of a Toastmasters meeting, wherein the approach is “to learn by doing!”. They introduced the roles that are required for each meeting, and then elaborated on those, before proceeding to make a demonstration, wherein the roles were distributed among the Coordinator and the officers, Gaveliers, Gav. Abdurahman Syed and Gav. Areej Ubaid.

The roles taken by Gav. Abdurahman Syed were: Gavelier of the Day & Timer
The role taken by Gav. Areej Ubaid were: Grammarian, Ah Counter & Award Master
The role taken by TM Fatima Syed were: Table Topic Master & General Evaluator

The ‘word of the day’ was introduced, where every speaking participant is encouraged to use the word in the speeches. In order to encourage participant engagement, YLP participants were called to speak in the Table Topic session, on topics that weren’t previously known to them for 1 to 2 minutes. It was a fun segment and each speaker did a wonderful job. All speeches were timed, and speakers who were able to adhere to the timings were deemed eligible to be voted as a ‘winner’. All the attendees then cast their vote, and this was used to determine one ‘best speaker’. A General Evaluation session then ensued, and the role players presented their reports – the Grammarian appreciated good use of language and congratulated everyone who used the word of the day. During the Ah-Counter report, the number of times speakers used different crutch words (such as um, uh, aah, so, like, etc.) was revealed, then the Coordinator talked about the good aspects that were showcased, as well as the improvements needed to take the meeting to a better level.

The meeting ended with the announcement of the winner of the Table Topics session, Mustafa Khan. Lastly, everyone gathered for a group picture before the Coordinator declared the adjournment of the meeting.