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Meeting #389 Merdeka: United We Stand




Month of August means very differently to Malaysians. 60 years ago, this country, which was then called Malaya, gained her independence from the British’s colonialism.
Time lapsed to 60 years later, zoomed in to a small club called Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club, taking the opportunity to celebrate the National Day, by calling the meeting with the theme: Merdeka: United We Stand. Members were asked to dress in colourful outfits that showed the multi-cultural environment of our country.

It was 29th August 2017, 2 days before the National Day break was about to start, we had our 3rd meeting of the month, which fell on the 5th week of the Month.
The weather did not show any sign of cooperation, as it turned cloudy and dark at 6.30pm. That didn’t stop dedicated members like Joel, Chitirra to arrive early at the meeting venue at for early preparation.

As time got closer, more and more members and guests turned and finally by 7.15pm, the meeting was ready to start. Our Assistant SAA, Srikant, called the meeting to order. He greeted everyone, and stated the rule of the meeting clearly to the attendees. Next, he led the members to recite the Toastmasters promises.

As soon as the solemn drill was over, President Wendy Sim, CC was invited to the stage for her President’s Address. She recalled her childhood memory of watching National Day fireworks and enjoyed shopping spree with her family.
Members and guests were asked to introduced themselves to the meeting. They also recited what the theme meant to them and used the word of the day, “liberated”.
When the self-introduction session was over, the meeting was handed over to the first-time Toastmaster of the Evening, Shain Anand. Shain, although was first time in his role, he came prepared and handed the situations swiftly. To the benefits of the first-time guest, he introduced Toastmasters history and club history with pride.


Another interesting session was due to begin when Shain called upon the Table TopicsTM Master, Mary de Silva to lead the session. Mary challenged the members and guests on the topics she prepared that were related to the theme of the meeting. 4 courageous participants attempted the topics. Started by Srikant, the flow continued with 3 other guests Olivia, Stanley and Crystal.

The meeting entered another session for the prepared speeches. The first speaker of the day was Chong Ji Sheng, advancing to Competent Communicator speech no. 8, that was “Get Comfortable with Visual Aids”. Ji Sheng shared his story with title “My Basketball Life”. He told us his rise and fall in the involvement of basketball, with photos of the past and demo-ed a little skill with a basketball.


Ken Chan, DTM, the 2nd speaker, was also delivering from the Competent Communication manual. Ken was delivering Project Speech no. 10 - Inspire Your Audience. Ken’s title was “Now Everyone Can…Humour!”. Ken shared with us how he turned himself from homor-proof to a humorist. The trophies that he won from numerous Humorous Speech contests were the solid proof that he had made it.


Moving on to the Advanced Communication Speech, Victor Wan, ACS, ALB kick-started with the speech from Public Relations manual, which he was attempting the Project Speech No. 1 - The Good Will Speech. Victor brought to us his speech titled “The Club of your Life”. His speech was motivating. He complemented the members and guests who were attending the Toastmasters meeting over other priorities were those who are eager and persistent for their personal development.

CP Lau, ACB, ALB was the last speaker of the day, speaking from speech Manual – Speaking to Inform. He delivered the speech titled “E.R.P.” from Project No. 3 “The Demonstration Talk”. Through this software demonstration, we felt the relevance to upgrade our legacy system to improve “efficiency, resource, and productivity” of our workplace.

A 10 mins break were all we had to rejuvenate ourselves for the next session. Coming back from the break, Toastmaster of the Evening invited Mr. General Evaluator, Lim Thian Seng, DTM to take over the Evaluation Session.


The first evaluation speech came from Ron Yeap, ACB who were evaluating the Table TopicsTM session. The 4 participants, albeit their relatively new experience with Table Topics TM session, attempted the topics well. Ron suggested them to be more natural with their body language and assure them that they would benefit more if they come again to the club meeting.

The assigned speech evaluation, started off by Kang Fong Luan, CC, the president of My Puchong TMC, to Ji Sheng. Kang suggested Ji Sheng to get familiarized with his visual aids prior to presentation. Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB reviewed Ken Chan’s performance with more stringent criteria for his improvement, as Ken is a senior speaker in Toastmasters. Serena Kong, ACB who evaluated Victor Wan, complemented him for selecting the right venue (Toastmaster’s Meeting) for his speech. As of Ken, this time as an evaluator to CP Lau, offered different perspective that CP could consider in his presentation.
Thian Seng, our General Evaluator, felt good with our club’s setup, including the banner at the downstairs which he found very important and useful to locate our venue. He encouraged us to uphold the standard of our club for future to come.
The meeting had seen the speakers and role players put in their best effort, and announcement of the best performers of the meeting was a breath-holding moment for us.
  • Best Table TopicsTM Speaker: Stanley (Guest)
  • Best Project Speech: Ken Chan, DTM
  • Best Speech Evaluator: Kang Fong Luan, CC



After Madam President took over the stage, she thanked everyone who attended the meeting and enhanced the meeting with colourful outfits, and wished us a peaceful and prosperous weekend ahead of us.



Meeting ended closer to 10pm, but everyone went back with a smile on their face, waiting to enjoy their long weekend.

Blog writer: Ron Yeap, ACB

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