Speakers Hive - Progress Report - 06-Jan-2026

Speaker Hive is now 23 weeks old. We have made several phenomenal accomplishments, in the last 2 months (Read our last progress update from 9th Nov 2025). This blog post captures some of our key accomplishments, goals/future plans and challenges.

Key Accomplishments:

1. Membership - We have 79 registered members as of today (24 members registered for the offline hive and 55 members registered for the online hive). Our Speakers Hive Interest group has 288 participants. 

2. Chapters - We kick started our first offline hive chapter in Hari OM Vidhyalaya School, K.K Nagar on 16th Nov 2025. Our chief guest was Mr. V. Nandakumar IRS. Since chartering, we have conducted 7 successful meetings.  We now have 2 online chapters (Sat/Sun) and 1 offline chapter (Sun). Each of our online and offline meetings are attended by an average of 20 participants (including members and guests). So, we are able to help nearly 60 people develop their speaking skills every week. 

3. Curriculum - Our first set of manuals were printed and handed over to members of the offline hive. We have started working on the advance project manuals. 

4. Hive Officers - We have officially installed Hive Officers for Saturday and Sunday Online chapters. This is a major milestone in the evolution of Speakers Hive. And the first set of hive officers are going to be very special. Our new hive officers have taken complete ownership of our online chapters. 

• Saturday Chapter - Bhavana C (Chief Hive Officer), Rajalakshmi G (L&D Manager), Balaguru S (Members Success Manager) and Rithika B (Hive Growth Manager).
• Sunday Chapter - Vijay Prasaad KT (Chief Hive Officer), Shanthini AJ (L&D Manager), Anjaneyulu B (Members Success Manager) and Ganeshkumar SK (Hive Growth Manager).

5. Marketing & Promotion - We continue to share periodic updates regarding Speakers Hive in all the social media channels - LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. Recently, we listed ourselves in Meetup and EventBrite. We also placed a small advertisement in Mambalam Times. 

6. Educational Programs - We conducted 2 educational workshops during this period in our online chapters - Mentoring (Ilavenil) and Giving Constructive Feedback (Saro Velrajan). We conduct a workshop almost every week in our offline chapter. We have conducted workshop on voice modulation, hand gestures, speech topics selection and using rhetorical devices. We completed the New Members Orientation for all the 3 hive chapters. 

7. Administration & IT - We successfully opened a bank account after lots of hardships. We were able to automate our members enrollment process by integrating with Razor Pay. Members/Guests will automatically get a welcome email post their registration from our website. We were also able to simplify the roll out of agenda to all the members/guests every week by using Zoho Campaigns. 

Goals / Future Plans

1. Administration & IT - Integrate guest/membership enrollment with Zoho CRM to automate the process of mailing list management. This will also help in the future when we manage membership renewals. Explore options to copyright certain terms and materials. 

2. Curriculum - Complete the preparation of all the advanced manuals

3. Certifications - Define and Streamline the process of issuing certificates when educational milestones are achieved. 

4. Membership - Reach 40 offline members by Jun 2026. 

Challenges

1. At this point, we are facing 2 significant challenges - finding mentors for members; finding peer-reviewers to evaluate the performance of speakers. A handful of people are stepping up to fill this gap. As members make progress in their educational journey and achieve more proficiency, we expect the overhead to come down.

Voices Take Flight at Speakers Hive In-Person Meetings in K.K. Nagar

Speakers Hive celebrates its landmark first in-person gathering at K.K Nagar

Chennai, K.K. Nagar - November 16, 2025 - What began with just a few sparks of voices, has now grown into a buzzing community of 270 participants, spreading wings not only across Chennai, but across India. Speakers Hive, is a non-profit organization that helps students, professionals and members from the community develop public speaking and leadership skills. Speakers Hive has been conducting meetings online for the last 6 months. Now, they have officially launched their first in-person chapter with a vibrant gathering at Hari OM Vidyalaya School, KK Nagar, Chennai.

An Inspiring Keynote

On November 16th, Speakers Hive’s first in-person chapter was inaugurated by Mr. V. Nandakumar, Indian Revenue Service (IRS), whose life journey is itself a metaphor for resilience. From a dyslexic child asked to leave the school, to a child laborer and then, to a government officer - his story proves that even broken wings can learn to soar.

Mr. V. Nandakumar reminded participants that speaking is sound, but communication is connection. Like a bridge, it must reach the listener through both words and body language. He urged members to look inward, as leadership is not just about leading others but discovering oneself. 

The Hive’s Next Flight

Mr. V. Nandakumar’s message inspired Speakers Hive’s diverse members that include company secretaries, IT engineers, corporate professionals, students, homemakers and Gen Z creatives. Speakers Hive is redefining what a community-led speaking club can be - a place where voices take flight and confidence blossoms. Like bees drawn to nectar, members gather over the weekend both online and in-person, to practice their speaking and leadership skills.

“We’ve been meeting online for a while now. We want our members in Chennai to experience the butterflies in their stomach while speaking and get comfortable with it”, says Sudha Rajesh, one of the founders of Speakers Hive. Being a storyteller, Sudha feels “Our Speakers Hive stage is the place where stories come alive.”

Adding to the buzz, Speakers’ Hive will conduct Improv workshops in its in-person meetings every week, designed to sharpen creativity, spontaneity, and communication skills - giving members a fresh, hands-on way to develop speaking skills.

Registrations Open

Like a hive welcoming new bees, Speakers Hive invites anyone who wishes to speak, listen, or simply be inspired. 📧 info@speakershive.org 📞 +91 9940110924 🌐 www.speakershive.org

Hive Meetings - Templates for Hive Officers

This blog post has the templates for the Meeting Agenda / MC Flyer and Best Role Players Flyers for the weekly Speakers Hive Meetings

Meeting Agenda - 1 Hive Talk / 3 Hive Talks

MC Flyer - Sample 1 / Sample 2

Best Role Players - Template 1 / Template 2 

Speakers Hive - Progress Report - 09-Nov-2025

Speakers Hive is now 17 weeks old. It is about a month and a half since we shared our last progress update. This blog post captures our goals, accomplishments, progress and challenges for Speakers Hive.

Key Accomplishments:

1. We kick started our official membership enrollment towards the end of Oct (30th Oct, to be precise). We have 43 registered members as of today. 

2. We have developed a program curriculum that provides "real-world" communication and leadership skills for both professionals and students. It's a structured program that provides nearly 3 years of continuous/self-paced learning path for our members. 

3. We managed to complete the development of manuals for the Leadership Mastery Beginner Level. 

4. Speakers Hive Interest - our official Whatsapp group for guests and members have reached a total count of 264, as of today. Our growth momentum is continuing. 

5. A number of volunteers are continuously stepping up to own tasks - to organize weekly meetings, to prepare promotional materials, to recognize role players, to prepare agenda for the meeting, to organize regular educational workshops etc.,

6. We conducted 2 educational workshops during this period - How to handle Impromptu Speaking (by Sidharth) and How to include Voice Modulation (by Thomas Abraham). We also conducted a live IMPROV workshop, where speakers learned to bring voice modulation and gestures effectively into their speeches. 

7. Our website is revamped to capture the new program curriculum, hive chapters, volunteers etc., We also experimented moving our website from Google Sites to Github.

8. We periodically share updates regarding our meetings and member recognitions on these social media platforms - LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

Goals / Future Plans

1. The process of setting up a bank account is still continuing. We realized that setting up a bank account for a Non-Profit Organization in India has become a very tiresome process that involves a lot of paperwork. (One of our trustees was travelling outside of the country, which was a key reason for the delay)

2. We are gearing up to setup our first offline chapter on Nov 16th in Hari OM Vidhyalaya, K.K Nagar. Lots of preparatory work is going on in full swing. We are quite excited about rolling out the offline chapter and learn from that experience. 

3. We are still working on creating the advanced manuals for speech and leadership mastery programs. Hoping to complete this activity in the next 3 months.

4. We want to simplify the new members enrollment by integrating our members enrollment form with a payment gateway. We also have to streamline the communication with our new members.

5. We need to kick off new members orientation programs. 

6. We are yet to officially roll out the "Leadership Mastery" program to our members. This will help us to develop leadership skills in our members.

Challenges

1. We are getting a lot of requests from colleges and other public institutions to set up a Speakers Hive chapter. However, we have to hold them - since we are building our volunteering muscle to support the growth. 

Speakers Hive - Progress Report - 29-Sep-2025

Speakers Hive is now 12 weeks old. It is about a month and a half since we shared our last progress update. 

This blog post captures the goals, accomplishments, progress and challenges for Speakers Hive.

1. Hive Chapters & Meetings

• Total Hive Chapters: 2 Community Hives (online) + 1 Corporate Hive (offline/Tantude)
• Started a new online Hive that meets on Saturdays (3 pm - 4 pm) and completed 4 meetings.
• Completed 11 online community hive meetings on Sundays (8 am - 9 am)
• Tantude Corporate Hive has completed 10 online meetings.
• Organizing weekly meetings have become like clock work now. 
• We have now volunteers completely owning the preparation of meeting agenda, pre-meeting flyer, issuing certificates and post-meeting recognitions. This helps us to scale and take the benefits of Speakers Hive to lot more people in the community. 
• We conducted two workshops during this period - Front Office to Board Room Executive (By Lalitha Giridhar) and How to prepare for speeches (by Sudha Rajesh)

2. Membership & Mentorship

• We have 250 members in our community. Average attendance is 20 - 25 (Sunday meetings) and 15+ (Saturday meetings). We are able to provide speaking opportunities for 40+ people every week. 
• We are yet to formally enrol members into the community, as there is a delay in the opening of the bank account.
• Membership growth focus took a back seat, as we were focused on establishing course curriculum / structure, mentoring existing role players and creating training materials for the new joiners. 
• We have 25 mentors who are helping us in coaching / training our role players. This is our significant differentiator for now and it is helping our members learn the most. This is also helping us to run a high-quality meeting. 

3. Curriculum Development

• The Speech Mastery Beginner Level 2 manual (with 5 speeches) is now available (Thanks to Sudha Rajesh for giving this a final shape). 
• We are working on the Leadership Mastery Track currently.

4. Promotions & Marketing

• Created a new youtube channel to host some role-player videos. This would help us to quickly train the new joiners on the various roles played in Speakers Hive.
• We also have a presence in LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. We periodically share updates regarding our meetings and member recognitions on these social media platforms.

5. Administration & Operations

• We received our PAN card (There was a delay of 10 days for this).
• We applied for a Bank Account - and it is under process by the bank. Hoping to complete this task before the end of Oct 2025.

What is ahead of us?

1. Bank account creation and Members enrolment
2. Leadership Mastery Beginner Level curriculum creation
3. Identify Hive Office Bearers from each chapter and support / train them to run the Hive Chapters independently. 
4. Conduct weekly educational programs to make our members and volunteers more informed (a new volunteer has stepped up to own this)
5. Grooming more volunteers to sign-up for leadership roles - this will help us to scale the movement and benefit lot more people in the community.

Checklist for Dry Run for an Online Speakers Hive Meetings

This blog post captures the checklist for the dry-run for online meetings. 

What & Why?

Speakers Hive looks at our weekly meetings as the platform to perform, learn and grow. We believe that a high-quality hive meeting maximises the learning opportunities for all of our meeting participants. Hence, we practice before we perform. We do a dry-run before our online meetings to ensure that everyone is well prepared for a high-quality meeting.  During the dry-runs, the meeting organizer checks if all the role players are prepared adequately for a high-quality meeting.

When?

The dry run happens online typically a day before the actual meeting. 

Who?

It is a must for MC, JAM Talks Master, Time Keeper, Wordsmith, Votes Counter and ALL the first time role players to complete a dry run once with the meeting organiser / coordinator.

ALL role players should consult their mentors before performing their roles. Dry run is a not a substitute for working with mentors.

Hive Talks Speakers should've got their speech scripts reviewed by their mentors and changes incorporated in the speech before the dry run.

Where?

All role players should be educated by the meeting organizer to connect to the dry run / real meeting: 

• from a laptop (all unwanted apps to be closed to maximise the laptop performance)
• with broadband Internet access (video should not freeze, voice quality should be high/clear/audible)
• a quiet place 
• good lighting and preferably a plain background

How?

During the dry run, the meeting organizer/coordinater checks for the following items to prepare the role players.

1. MC anchors the meeting as-if he/she does it in a real meeting. The meeting organiser checks

• if the role players are properly introduced as per the meeting theme
• if the different segments are properly explained/introduced
• the flow of the meeting is as per the meeting agenda
• if the handovers and transitions are smooth 
• meeting is properly wrapped up

2. Time Keeper: This is one of the challenging roles for an online meeting. The meeting organiser checks:

• if the time keeper is able to introduce the role / display the cards without any hiccups (the role player template for Time Keeper provides some tips on how to do this effectively.)
• if the time keeper is able to read out the script properly during the introduction (specifically, mentioning about grace time for each speaker/qualification for voting and the fact that the red card will continue to be UP till the speaker finishes his/her speech)
• if the time keeper is able to show the timing cards during the speech
• if the time keeper knows the timing rules for Hive Talks, JAM Talks and Peer-Reviews
• if the time keeper knows how to "present" the report at the end of the meeting (details available in the role player template)

3. Wordsmith: The meeting organiser checks:

• if the wordsmith is able to introduce the role as per the script (If the word-of-the-day is already introduced by the MC, the wordsmith need not introduce again... )
• if the wordsmith is able to keep track and present the report at the end of the meeting (for word usage, right usage of English grammar, not-so-good usage of English grammar). For the not-so-good usages, the names of the speakers who made the error should not be mentioned. (The role player template already captures this input)

4. Votes Counter: The meeting organiser checks:

• if the votes counter has already prepared a form with the Hive Talks Speakers and Peer-Reviewers names. The JAM Section has to be left empty and needs to be populated during the time of the meeting.
• if the voting form is working properly. the meeting organiser casts his/her vote and asks the Votes Counter to check, if he is able to see the vote from the backend
• if the votes counter knows how to share the results with the group at the end of the meeting

5. JAM Talks Master: The meeting organiser checks:

• if the topics are appropriate for the audience (review done via Whatsapp, and outside of the meeting. Topics need not be shared during the dry-run)
• if the JAM master knows to introduce the role 
• if the JAM master knows to call non-role players first and then role players like Votes Counter and Wordsmith... before calling others. Specifically, the JAM master should not ask for volunteers and waste time. 
• JAM master has to first call the name of the person, wait for a second till the speaker gets ready and repeats the topic twice clearly. If the person is not responding, then the JAM master calls their name once more. If there is no response again, then the JAM master moves to the next person. 
• JAM master has to wrap-up the segment by 8.40 am (for the 8 - 9 am meeting) or when signalled by the MC (mechanisms for signalling needs to be agreed upon during the dry-run)

6. Hive Talks Speakers / Peer-Reviewers: The meeting organiser makes them say a few lines to ensure that their audio / video is good.

Cheat Sheet for Organizing Educational Programs for a Hive

Steps involved in Organizing an Educational Program

1. Identifying the speakers (Saro to help)
2. Connecting with the Speakers and deciding on a date / time (during weekends and not overlapping with Sat/Sun Hive meetings)
3. Getting the speech title / duration (workshop + Q/A) / speaker introduction. (Recommended duration will be 30 mins workshop + 10 mins Q/A and 5 mins marketing / promotion of Speakers Hive)
4. Scheduling the meeting in the Google Calendar (to get an online meeting link)
5. Create flyer and post in social media (LinkedIn, SH Whatsapp groups, FB and Insta)
6. Coach an MC to open the session, introduce the speaker and deliver a vote-of-thanks at the end 
7. Coach a timer to show the timing cards
8. Remind the educational speaker 2 days before the event. Inform the speaker about when the timing cards will be shown.
9. Successful conduct the educational workshop
10.  Send a word of thanks to the educational speaker and the role players (MC, time keeper etc.,)

Here is the list of recommended topics to conduct educational workshops for a budding Hive Chapter:

1.  Mentoring Matters
2.  ⁠Evaluate to Motivate
3.  ⁠Speech Topics are Everywhere
4.  ⁠Brining Voice Modulation in Speeches
5. ⁠ ⁠Using Body Language in Speeches
6. ⁠ ⁠How to Handle JAM Topics?
7. ⁠ ⁠Delivering Memorable Speeches
8. ⁠ ⁠Power of Story Telling
9. ⁠ ⁠Secrets of Champion Speakers
10. ⁠ ⁠Art of Persuading and Inspiring Others