Bangalore SHG Dec 09, 2012 report

This meeting(from 10:30-1:30pm) saw 13 people attend, including two newbies Anilesh and Anshuman. Other regulars were Anandh, Dinesh, Kartik, Abhinav, Jitu, Sairam, Chandrashekhar, Pravin, Hema, Kiran and Kishan. The key highlights were

• Structure laid out at 10:30 itself to start off with reading practice for 1hr, so that those who come early do not waste time waiting for the rest. This involved reading aloud in front of the group, passages from the TISA booklet(http://stammer.in/publications/NewSHManual.pdf). This achieved dual purpose of understanding TISA content, and reading practice
• Next 1hr(11:30-12:30) went in introductions, where we learnt interesting things. Kartik shared the experience of a PWS from Delhi who got a bank job(involving client interaction) after attending Skype calls, and also cited the example of a 70yr old Czech who attends these calls and shares experiences. We learnt from a PWS who manages a team of 10-15ppl(involving daily meetings) and is active in his housing society affairs, both of which involving extensive communication. He was very fluent(except sometimes in his name!) which shows that necessity is the mother of invention, and that practice makes a person perfect. There was an example
• Next 40min went in a discussion on ‘how to build confidence’ where the group discussed factors that increase and reduce confidence. The consensus that emerged was that very few factors relate directly to fluency/speech itself, so blaming our lack of self confidence on stammering is not right, instead we should focus on things(like expert power, goals, self affirmation, healthy relationships etc) that make us confident.
• Last 20mins went in a group discussion on the topic ‘Do movies have negative effect on youth’. People were divided into groups with each person given 1min to speak, and then after everyone had spoken atleast once, floor was thrown open to rebuttal. Passions flew high, and it was noticed that in the excitement to speak, some people become less fluent. Hence, the importance of remaining calm and collected was apparent.

The meeting concluded, with Dinesh requesting everyone to get their copies of TISA SHG manual to the future meetings

Written by-Anandh