Stories about you and Shenzhen
The Meeting Manager who wouldn’t give up
Andy wore two hats this week: Meeting Manager and sole speaker. That alone is a full evening’s work. But the backstory makes it better.
In the days leading up to the meeting, Andy kept reaching out for help. Could someone generate the voting code? Could someone modify the Table Topics slides? Could someone bring a laptop for the projector? Each time, the answer he got was some version of “don’t worry, it’ll work out” rather than someone stepping in to do it for him. Nobody took over. The voting code got sorted on site. The slides ran as they were. The laptop showed up.
And then Andy went ahead and ran the whole meeting, delivered his ice breaker, personally messaged members one by one to recruit them for roles, and walked away with Best Speaker. After the meeting, the group chat was unanimous: Andy was the star of the night. One member said she wanted to learn from his approach and do the same next week. Another admitted he felt bad for declining Andy’s invitation to attend.
Sometimes the best thing a club can do for a new Meeting Manager is to not rescue them.
Prepared speeches
Andy’s ice breaker was his only speech this evening. It was also his first formal role of any kind at SZTM. The room noticed: one member called him stunning, another said he dominated the evening. Tao recorded a video of the speech for the archive, noting that every ice breaker deserves one.
Table topics: Shenzhen at 46
Stella designed the Table Topics around Shenzhen’s 46th Special Economic Zone anniversary, with the theme “Stories about you and Shenzhen.” Because Stella was moving house, Christy stepped in as TTM on the night.
The ten questions traced a personal arc through the city: when your story with Shenzhen began, a place that holds your personal history, something the city gave you that you didn’t expect, something it took from you, how it changed you, the one memory you’d keep, and what gift you’d give Shenzhen on its 50th birthday. Each question had a title card: THE BEGINNING, YOUR MAP, THE GIFT, THE PRICE.
Brian, a guest attending for the first time, won Best Table Topic Speaker and Best Facilitator. He also volunteered as Ah-Counter and opened his report by pointing out three people by name, which the room found impressive for someone who’d just walked in.
All five Best awards went to men
Jason (Best Host), Andy (Best Speaker), Brian (Best TT Speaker and Best Facilitator), Danny (Best Evaluator). In a club where women are the majority and typically more active, an all-male sweep is unusual.
Is it statistically anomalous? Not really. With four or five awards at roughly even gender odds, the probability of all winners being the same gender is about 1 in 8. It happens. The interesting part is the context: globally, Toastmasters is 55.9% women as of 2025. In China the ratio is closer to 50-50, and in Shenzhen clubs, women tend to outnumber men and participate more actively. This week just happened to be the men’s night.
For reference, women were not allowed to join Toastmasters until 1973. Before that, Helen Blanchard had to register under the name “Homer” to get in. She later became the first female International President.
Sammi behind the camera
Sammi served as On-Camera Master and the results spoke for themselves. After the photos landed in the group chat, the compliments piled up: the photos were called stunning, members tagged Sammi with praise, and multiple people noted the quality was noticeably higher than usual. Good photography at a club meeting matters more than people realize. These photos become the memory.
The iron rice bowl
The club gives every ice breaker speaker a gift. This time, Christy picked a real iron rice bowl for Andy. The chat reaction was warm: someone called it the childhood dream everyone wanted, another said it needed gold plating. A fitting reward for someone who ran the whole meeting and still delivered a speech worth celebrating.
Jason’s birthday
It happened to be Jason’s birthday. The club celebrated during the meeting, and he sent a red envelope to the group chat afterward. Happy birthday, Jason.
