JUBAIL — Toastmasters Division L of District 79 conducted an impressive conference at Humaidan Hall last Friday with the theme “Fostering Fellowship, Delivering Value”, under the leadership of their Division Director DTM Asif Ali Siddiqui, Conference Chair DTM Safare Mohammed and Vice Chair DTM Sadagopan Natarajan. The Chief Guest and the keynote speaker at the conference was Mark Brown, the 1995 world champion of public speaking. Mark Brown delivered two scintillating keynote speeches on either side of the break, the first one titled “Are you Listening?”, where he inspired the audience to actually start listening and not simply pretend to be listening. In his second keynote speech, he emphasized the need for people to foster fellowship, which in turn delivers long lasting values. “Most of the fostering fellowships happens not at the conference main hall but at the hallway, at the break on a cup of coffee or at the dining table, eagerly look forward to such opportunities,” opined Brown. The event public relations team lead by Toastmaster Abdul Raheem Masoud had generated unprecedented popularity for the conference on social media, which attracted several Toastmasters to travel all the way from Riyadh and Khobar to attend this flagship event. Some of the dignitaries who attended the event included District 79 Director James Taruc, Program Quality Director Abdul Ghafoor, Club Growth Director Omer Farooq, Past District Director Nazeer Ghazzaq, IIS Jubail Principal Syed Hameed and Vice Principals Naushad Ali and Saadia Siddiqui, Jubail Dunes School Principal Amir Khan and several division, area directors and club officials. The conference saw four absorbing contests in Table Topics, Evaluation Speech, International Speech and Humorous speech conducted by Sameena Mazher, Sajeera Anju, Ajith Kumar and VCS Nair respectively. Veteran Toastmaster DTM Sushil Kumar Agarwal was the master of ceremonies. DTM Saadia Khan and DTM Jolly Kollamparambil were the chief judge at the contests. DTM Jamil Akhter proposed vote of thanks. DTM Suresh Kumar won the first prize in International Speech, while the second and third were earned by Vijay Kumar and Uzma Khalid Siddiqui. The Table Topic contest was won by DTM Suresh Kumar, where Vijay Kumar and Shanti Rekha Rao stood second and third respectively. Vijay Kumar won evaluation Speech Contest, while Siva DAS and Uzma Khalid Siddiqui stood second and third respectively. In Humorous speech contest Kunkuma Manjunath won the first prize while Mohanned Abdelhadi and Uzma Khalid Siddiqui stood second and third respectively. The event also witnessed the official launch of Toastmasters new education program called Pathways Learning Experience by Chief Ambassador Syed Waheed Lateef and the two world champions Mark Brown and Mohammed Qahtani. Toastmasters have revitalized their current education system of two tracks, Leadership and Public Speaking integrated into 10 Path, based on five Core Competences namely Public Speaking, Interpersonal Communications Skills, Strategic Leadership Development, Management Skills, and Building Confidence. This successful conduct of the conference was a result of planning by several teams who worked day and night on every minute detail. Oommen Thomas, Abul Khasim, Khalid Siddiqui, Abdul Raheem, BV Rao, Manjunath Hiregange, Shanti Rekha Rao, Harish Bhargavan, C Nooh, Jeyasankar, Mufeeduzzaman, Rajendra Kumar, Sneha Suresh, Saira Oommen, Nilesh Belsare, Karthik and Mohammed Osama led these teams. The Conference Team expressed their “sincere thanks” and appreciation to everyone, all sponsors, all valued guests and diligent contestants for the support and motivation with words of encouragement and applause of recognition. — SG