Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club (#8141): MEETING #364 Euphoric Evening on the eve of Mid-Autumn Festival

Our 364th meeting was on 13^th of September and this year the mid-autumn festival falls on 15-Sept-2016. Thus, we set the theme of the day as “Mid-Autumn Festival”.

It was an euphoric moment gathering all members to celebrate this occasion in advance. Together, we learnt and at the same time enjoyed a lot, that’s what exactly we do in our Toastmasters meetings.

The assistant SAA, Kelvin Chong, ACB called meeting to order at 7.15pm sharp, introduced the house rules and led the recital of “A Toastmaster's Promise”.

Kelvin Chong likes to speak and can feel that he enjoys the stage very much. Sure,he would grab this opportunity to give his solo talks before passing the control to president. We were always engulfed with euphoria after hearing his talk. So far I don’t see he daunting.

Without further a due, let’s welcome our President, Ron Yeap, CC. First of all, Mr. President gave a warmly welcome speech to all the members and guests.Today was a very special day.We have 4 guests in the meeting including the sweetie General Evaluator (GE) Chelsea, ACB from Phoenix Toastmasters Club. The 2^nd guest was Chelsea’s love Calvin. The 3^rdvisitor was a young and studious guy, Joel. The 4^thvisitor was Dr. Natasha, our member Chitirra’s best friend.This was the best time to make our networking with such beautiful people and friends.

Ron, invited Grammarian, CP Lau, ACB, ALB to share with us the word of the day “Euphoria”. CP Lau explained the meaning of the word and also gave some examples on how to use the word correctly. Euphoria means a feeling of great happiness and excitement which we already had about Mid Autumn festival.

Subsequently, the first challenge came. All the attendees need to introduce them and speak something related to the theme of the day and the word of the day. You can see some of the attendees rolling their eyes to think of an idea. This moment was not easy to speak but since we all accepted the challenge to speak. We spoke well and it was full of euphoria around all the beautiful faces. See, I used the word of the day again ha haha.

Now, the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), Kevin Khoo, CC gave all the guests some idea about Toastmasters and how it works. I like to see him on the podium, he is a very confident and charming speaker. Kevin also introduced all the role players and called all the role players to explain their roles tonight.

Next, we came to another nerve wrecking session which was Table Topics session.Manish Jha, CC was in charge of the whole session, he came out a few challenging topics which related to the theme of the day. All members and guests are encouraged to participate in this 2 minutes speech. This is really a good session to train our impromptu speaking skill.

Time to Begin“Assigned Speech session”:- There was another special occasion whereby we had two Ice Breaker speeches on the same day. Chitrra and Mandy, our new members were giving their first speech, The Ice Breaker. This speech is mainly to introduce something regarding themselves to let the audience know more about them.

Chitirra’s topic was “Passion is Purpose”. She shares with us her family, herself and then telling us about her passion. Her passion is teaching. She reminds us that every one should have own passion in life and put their passion in the purpose to make the life more meaningful and beautiful.

Next speaker, Mandy speech Title “Myself”, she shared with us how her name came about, her school time, and her feeling of euphoria on waived of RM80K study loan because of the first class honor achievement in her degree!!! My God, RM80K my eyes remained wide open till her speech got over. Awesome.

The 3^rd speaker was CS Quah, a very friendly and funny guy. You can always find his face is full of smiles. He was doing Project# 3 from competent communication manual Get to the Point. His speech title “Idea MISS Validate”.

He pointed out that we always must validate our billion dollar idea before someone else steal this idea. The idea which is really beneficial should be validated by bringing into Action. If you are able to bring your idea into Action you are succeeded if not the value of the idea will remain 0 always, but may be someone else can create the worth later.

Ops, He challenged me that he will complete his CC projects faster than me. Quah, Challenge accepted, see you in the race. Ha ha ha.

Other than the Competent Communication project speech, Dr. Thilla, ACG, ALB, was doing her High Performance Leadership speech today. Her speech title “Leadership Learning Experience” After this speech, she will be awarded the Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) title, the highest honor in the Toastmasters’ educational program. Congratulations Dr. Thilla. Hat’s off to you.

As usual, we were having a 10 minutes break after the assigned speech session. Let me show you what we have today for dinner. Nasi Lemak, egg, fried chicken, curry puff, biscuit and more, can’t wait anymore, mouth watering. Also ‘Moon cake’ in advance, I’m sure you also wish, I had been there. Mouth is watering right, I see ha ha ha ha Yummy….

Today, there was no banana as Quah explained he had no time to get any. Hmm, I guessed he wanted to practice his speech. I can understand buddy. Yet, all food was tasty.

Time flies, 10 minutes passed very quickly while all Toastmasters were busy eating and what? chatting.Timer Ooi Yee (my self) alerted the SAA Kelvin Chong, ACB to call meeting to order. I still remember, Kelvin Chong was non-stop talking with other members when I reached him. It seemed, he got dampened by me as I had interrupted his solo talk, haha. Luckily he was able to manage his euphoric mood and called meeting to order. Once all the members settled to their place, he passed the control back to TME, Kevin Khoo, CC.

Kevin Khoo, invited the famous sucker of the MM-KL Toastmasters club DTM, Ken Chan, to practice his speech for the upcoming Area Humorous Speech contest. We had a lot of food before he could suck. After hearing his speech, all attendees were giving chance to evaluate Ken’s performance so that we could share some idea to him on how he can do better in the contest.

Afterwards, we were at Evaluation to be done for the lovely speeches. The GE Chelsea, ACB took control of the stage and explained the purpose of evaluation session and called each evaluator to give their best evaluation, table topic evolution followed by assignment speech evaluation.

by the end grammarian report by CP Lau, ACB, ALB. “Ah” Counter report by EK Yeo, CC, CL. Timer report by myself Ooi Yee.

Lastly, GE Chelsea provided her reports based on her observation. She gave some constructive suggestions on how to improve the club and member's speech. She is really a sweetie and smiley girl, she even never fade away her smile when giving the evaluation.

Finally, this was the last exciting session before the meeting adjourned. Mr. President Ron, CC presented the awards to the following winners and announced upcoming events adjourned the meeting with his closing address.

For your information, we saw 3 standing ovationon this special day. For, Chitirra, Mandy chan and Dr. Thilla. Cheers to all!

Last but not least, he also welcomes guests to give some feedback on overall the conduct of the meeting.Ron officially adjourned the meeting by knocking the gavel on the lectern.