Anyone Can MC

The art of an emcee requires linking what sometimes can be disparate or different ideas into a flow in less than a minute. Very much like an elevator talk, this can be very challenging, but when done right it is a thing of beauty - poignant as well as thought provoking. An emcee can really keep the pace of the sabha moving and keep everyone involved and focused. Today we look at a few examples. The video below from RadioLab (a must listen podcast) shows how you can relate almost anything based on a word. See if you can find the word that links one scene to the next. It is harder than it sounds.



In kishori mandal emcee is made much easier since we have MC notes every week to help us make these transitions. This week we focus on "Paradigm Shifts" and we can start with a great unexpected story that really highlights paradigm shifts. In the story a woman mistakenly thinks someone is eating the cookies that she bought.

Sometime we do a great job of linking the topic with the presentations, but dhoon and prarthna get left behind. This week we can anchor and pivot on the words paradigm shift to move from the story about the woman and cookies in the MC notes into dhoon and prarthna seamlessly (like the video).

Here is one example: The woman in this story only realized her mistake when she saw the packet of cookies she had bought were still in her purse. She had a paradigm shift. When Maharaj was present on earth many people met him, but only the people who realized who he truly was had a paradigm shift that changed their lives. Today we want to investigate this same paradigm shift - so let's start by focusing our minds by singing the dhoon Bhaj mane Swaminarayan. This dhoon very concisely explains the qualties of Maharaj that we need to think about to get a paradigm shift. See if you can spot them. After dhoon we will invite Maharaj and Swami to our sabha while sining the prarthna Shriji Maharaj Maangu Sharan Tamaru. This prarthna also recounts the actions and accomplishments of Shriji Maharaj that can jolt us into a paradigm shift and enable us to see Maharaj as he really is.

Any other ideas on how to anchor and shift next week?