What's Going on in Goa SHG? - Updates (27th Jun & 11th Jul)

After two weeks of postponement, finally I and Harish decided to meet.

As the monsoon has begun in Goa we had to change our venue from the outdoors of Nehru Park to the shelter of swimming pool complex in Fatorda. We both reached at 5:00pm and started the meeting with quick exchange of 'hellos'.

I began by describing my Ganpatipule (near Ratnagiri, Maharashtra) trip to Harish by using methods such as bouncing and prolongation, to which Harish asked me questions about the place and shared his knowledge about the place by using the same techniques.

Then we discussed about TISA workshop and talked about the videos posted by Dr. Sachin. As we were discussing about the workshop, there was a series of discussions related to stammering on which we had a long discussion as how it happens in certain situations and how we can control.

We discussed as when we give more respect to the other person we unintentionally stammer. We concluded that we feel we are inferior then the other person and the stammering takes over us. Harish told me its a natural feeling like giving respect to some persons like elders and so our mind gets apprehensive about what to speak or what not to.

We then discussed "TOASTMASTERS". I had seen the word in TISA BLOG by Manohar (Pune SHG) but was oblivious of the concept. So harish told me that its a group of people clubbed to improve their public speaking skills. He also told me that he has found the contact number of Goa chapter of Toastmaster’s Club and was deciding to join to which I promptly replied that I am ready to follow suit.

We talked about organising a TISA communication workshop in Goa, but were of the opinion that the dates should be finalised as per the convenience of Dr. Sachin, Goa SHG members, and members from near-by SHGs who would want to attend the same.

As discussions moved on, we went back into the nostalgia of our childhood. We shared various extra curricular courses which we had attended in our childhood days.

I then remembered a piece of advice I had got during my childhood from a wise man- "One should always keep himself busy in work or activities he is fond of doing, or else evil or negative thoughts pave their way in our minds". As a child I couldn’t interpret much from it, but I realize how right he was now.

Finally, we decided to set an agenda for our next meeting. Following was decided:

1] 10 mins meditation.

2] 10 mins belly breathing.

3] 15 mins slow reading.

4] Preparing on one topic and then speaking about it to attending members by using any techniques like bouncing, prolongation, etc.

We then decided to phone Dr. sachin to update him on our meet. As I have phobia towards phone conversations, Harish told me to face my fear by calling Dr. sachin myself. I was initially reluctant and nervous about calling, but then decided to face it. I managed to call and speak by bouncing.

We also called other members of Goa SHG Prakash and Santosh, who couldn’t make it to the meeting, to update them about this meeting and to set the timing of the next meeting.

-As reported by Rahul

To add to it more…

We had also met two weeks previous to this, ie, 27th of Jun, a report of which I was not able to post. During that meeting, I spoke about my Kullu-Manali trip to Rahul with bouncing. Rahul then talked about some of the nouvelle project ideas which he has and wants to do it as his Final Year project. To add some fun in, we then played a game called – “Do you Coffee-pot?” In this game, one player thinks of any action (verb) which he (or people) does as a part of their routine. The opponent has to ask as many questions by substituting the action with the word “Coffee-pot”, and the objective is to successfully guess the opponents action. The questions could be – “Do you coffee-pot?”, “Do everybody coffee-pot?”, “How often do you coffee-pot?”. This game also instils some communication skills along with fun. Before winding up, I decided to get a bit brave, and try speaking to one stranger about stammering. The stranger I met unfortunately had no clue about what to say. He didn’t understand the meaning of Stammer, and when I said what advice do you have for PWS, all he had to say was – “Nothing”. Well, I learnt that along with wrong notions, there are people who do not know anything about stammer!