Meeting #390- Going Places !!

Meeting Number 390 was held on 12^th Sept 2017.   The club meeting is called to order by Competent Toastmaster, Competent leader (CTM CL) Tan Ben Hoe.  As usual after introducing the House Rules, he led the club members to recite the Toastmasters’ promise.  The promises are printed on the club agenda. He then handed the meeting over to the President Wendy Sim. She welcomed the members and guests to the meeting.  In her opening address she signified the Theme of the Day which is “Going Places”. She then calls upon the Grammarian for the Day, Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) Serena Kong to introduce the Word of the Day. The word we learnt on this day is “Wanderlust”.  President Wendy then turns to the audience seated in a U-shaped format to start introducing themselves. I should say everyone, including the guests, attempted to say something on the theme of the day and word of the day. The President gave a strong opening to the theme and invited the Toastmaster of the Evening Evening (TME) Competent Communicator Foo Fung Jiun to take control of the meeting.

The TME introduced the role-players of the meeting to introduce the purpose of their roles. So we had the Grammarian Serena Kong, Ah-Counter E.K Yeo and Timer Wendy Sim and the GE Jerry Wong to introduce their roles for the meeting that evening.  These roles will add much meaning at the end of the day adding to the progress of the club.  The TME now invites again our senior member Advanced Toastmaster Gold KL Loh who presents an innovation speech and uplifts the spirit of all seated.  One of the key functions of the TME is helping to run through the agenda of the day. He called upon the Table Topics™ Master EK Yeo, CC, CL for a fun filled session.

 

In this session we had both members and guests giving a try to do impromptu speeches within the time allocated. We had a good group of eager participants for this session.  The first speaker Ron Yeap, CC spoke on the topic “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door”. He was followed by Manish Jha,CCwho spoke on the topic, “Life is short, lets enjoy it”.Our 3^rd speaker Jia Ming, also a guest, spoke on the topic “Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”.The 4^th speaker Olivia, also a guest, spoke on the topic “There are no short cuts to any place worth going”. And the final speaker Mathew spoke on the topic“If you have a dream what you want to be?”  As the impromptu speeches ended a vote was taken for the Best Table Topics™ Speaker.

As the TME took control again of the meeting again. He led the club to witness the Assigned Speech Sessions.   We have 2 groups of speeches, one was from the pathway guide and the second was from the Competent Communication Manual.  The speaker from the prepared speeches was Srikant who gave an Ice Breaker speech with the speech title, A lifelong learner.  He spoke very fluently, although it is his first speech and the eloquence of the English language helped us to understand how his life was a lifelong learning experience. Our 2^nd speaker was Chitirra who also gave an ice breaker speech with speech title Passion is Purpose. She actually burned with much passion throughout her speech. This was followed by our 3^rd speaker, Joel Silas, from the CC manual on the topic Vocal Variety with the speech title Travelling with Excitement. In this speech , Joel spoke very different from his previous speeches. He spoke confidently, with humor and excitement. Our final speaker was Yap Ooi Yee who gave her 8^th speech from the CC manual.  The title of the speech was “Roller Coaster Interviews”.  All the speeches was very inspiring and rewarding listening to them. TME took a vote for the best speaker and adjourned the meeting for a break.

During the break, there was much food like the favourite “Nasi Lemak”, fried eggs, fried chicken, curry puffs, cakes and bananas. As the break ended the SAA called the meeting to order and passed it over to the TME. The TME invited the GE Jerry to preside over the meeting.  Yes, Jerry with a cheerful face invited the evaluators to give their evaluations. The first evaluator was Tan Ben Hoe CC, CL who gave evaluation on the table topics session. He gave a vivid finding on each speaker and with encouraging notes for improvement.  This was followed by speech evaluators KL Loh ATMG, Manish Jha, CC Ron Yeap ACB and Mathew Philippose , CC, ALB.  Each evaluator gave clear evaluations that not only helped speakers but the listeners to improve.  As the evaluation ended there was vote for the Best Evaluator.  

The next session is what we are also keen to know how we performed on the day.  The Ah Counter, Grammarian and Timer gave their reports.  This was followed by the GE’s report who summed up the meeting with a good analysis of the meeting and encouraging us in the direction of the club.  

GE Jerry wong passed the control back to the TME who then invited President Wendy to give away the prizes for the best performers for the day. The best table topics speaker went to Manish Jha.He was overjoyed to receive this award. Our best evaluator went to KL Loh ATMG.He took the award beaming with smile. The Best speaker was almost everybody’s guess, it was Chitirra. 

After the giving away the awards President Wendy gave a token of appreciation to the General Evaluator.  She then closed the meeting with her closing address. The club then took a group photo and had a cake cutting for those whose birthdays fell in September.  It was a great and satisfying meeting.

See you all again on 26th. September.

Blog writer: Mathew Philippose.