Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club (#8141): Meeting #366: Wisdom Of The Ages

1. ASAA- Joel 2. Grammarian- Fung Jiun 3. Introduction from EK Yeo,CC, CL
4. President- Ron Yeap, CC

The meeting #366 was led by a very newly joined member, Joel. It was his maiden moment, stood in front and called the meeting to order. He was the assistant Sergeant-At-Arm and was the first person to spoken in the meeting. He led us in the recital of the Toastmasters’ promises. Well done, Joel!

Then, the President Ron Yeap, Competent Communicator (CC) took over the floor. He extended his welcome to our Area Director, Advance Communicator Bronze, Advance Leader Bronze (ACB,ALB) Charmine Lee, who came and played the role as our meeting General Evaluator. It was such a privilege to have her in our club meeting.

Ron Yeap, CC, kicked off the meeting by inviting present to introduce themselves briefly. It was our club culture to get all members and guests to introduce themselves and at the same time to encourage all to use the word of the day “Ambivalent” in their introduction. The theme of the night was “Wisdom of The Ages”, a very engaging theme. Many uplifted the meeting by sharing meaningful and wonderful quotes.

After the stirring introduction from the members, Ron Yeap, CC handed over the meeting to the Toastmasters of the evening, Serena Kong, ACB. She informed that in the month of October, Toastmasters International was celebrating its 92th Anniversary. Every toastmaster’s journey starts with a single speech. We learn to tell our stories, we listen and answer. We plan and we lead. We give and accept feedbacks. We are grateful as we are at the right place where we empower the members to become more effective communicators and leaders.

The table topics™ session was led by Competent Communicator, Competent Leader (CC,CL) EK Yeo . As usual, topics were given, where speakers would speak off the cuff. In this meeting we had 4 speakers and they were:

A) Kelvin Chong, ACB- “Self-suggestion makes you master of yourself.”

B) CP Lau, ACB, ALB- “Giving opens the way of receiving.”

C) Guest Chiao- “A mistake is simply another way of doing things.”

D) Manish Jha, CC- “Quick decision is unsafe decision."

Everyone was paying the attention to speakers and witnessed how the speakers aced the impromptu speech. Some spoke with confident, some shared their experiences, stories or ideas. The session was indeed very interesting.

During the prepared speech presentation, toastmaster Chitirra told us an engrossing story. She told us that she had thanatophobia, fear of death. She shared her experience on how this phobia had tortured her mental and how she had dealt with it. The story was completely enthralling together with her facial expression, we listened from the beginning to end.

Toastmaster Ooi Yee, on the other hand, shared her story, “10 Years” to us. She broke the silence by telling us the she quit her job. It was a surprise as she was a long service staff in her company as a project team leader. She was always worked like the cat on the hot tin roof. “10 YEARS!” She ended her speech by asking us “how many 10 YEARS do we have?” It was really a good closing that gave us a wakeup call, reminded us to prioritize what matters more.

The last speaker for the session was done by the President, Ron Yeap, CC. He was persuading the members to keep speaking, keep making mistakes, keep strive for being a confident speaker, from Good to Great! He told how he had transformed from a low self-esteem speaker to become a more confident speaker. He encouraged the members to explore their potentials. “Just Do It!” In his speech, he tried to build the confidence among the members by asking them to keep telling themselves, “I can do it!”. Practice makes perfection!

After hearing three riveting presentations, we had a short break of ten minutes. The first agenda after resuming from the break was to induct a new member. It was a very important session as the new member was officially being introduced to the club. The Vice President Membership (VPM), Wendy Sim inducted Joel and introduced his mentor, Ken Chan, DTM to him.

1. Toastmaster of The Evening: Serena, ACB 2. Table Topics Master: EK. Yeo, CC, CL
3. VPM Wendy Sim inducted Joel

Next, we had a special session. Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) Ken Chan, gave his area winning speech “I’m a sucker” in the club. It was so happy to see that the members contributed their thoughts over his speech. Their constructive and sincere feedback was the sign of supports to highlight the blind side of his presentation.

After that, General Evaluator, Charmine Lee, ACB, ALB took stage control and started leading the report and evaluation session. Table Topics™ Evaluator, Kevin Khoo, CC highlighted the strength and the areas of improvement of each table topics speakers. Here was the summary of his suggestions or commands to the speakers:

Kelvin Chong, ACB-	Used vivid words to paint the picture in the eyes of the audience
Cp Lau, ACB, ALB-	Had good language and had enough thought over the topic
Guest Chiao-	Took out the hands from the pants would help him to feel more relax while speaking
Manish Jha, CC-	Very enthusiastic speaker, engagement with the audience was important also

For the prepared speech evaluation, Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL, suggested toastmaster Chitirra to ask question in the beginning of the speech to get the attention of her speech. Advance Communicator Gold, Advance Leader Bronze (ACG, ALB) Dr. Thilla, on the other hand, highlighted Ooi Yee’s potential and encouraged her to utilize her body language to carry her speech message in her future presentation. Followed by, Mathew P., CC, ALB, started with his evaluation with humor. He mentioned that, “boss always forget the time as they speak and walk out of the boundaries…” He reminded speaker Ron Yeap, CC always spoke within the allocated time and permitted area.

The honorable General Evaluator, Charmaine Lee, ACB, ALB gave her report after her team of technical evaluators had given their reports. She advised that our members should practice to introduce the next role player or speakers during the program transition. This will help to edify and adding the credibility of the role player like Toastmaster of the Evening, Table Topic Master. Charmaine’s observant and detailed report has left us with valuable take-home-points for improvement.

The night reached its peak during the award presentation. The best performers of the meeting were announced.

The Best Table Topic Speaker goes to: CP Lau, ACB, ALB

The Best Speech Evaluator goes to: Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB

The meeting adjourned after the closing address by the President, Ron Yeap, CC. Then, we quickly moved to cake cutting for Dr. Thilla C., ACG, ALB, born in October. Cesare Pavese says, “We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Indeed, we had a great evening.