Meeting #396 If I were, I’d be

“Every bush can burn if you fire it with your imagination” – Stanishlaw Jerzy Lec

“If I were, I’d be” was the meeting theme for meeting #396. It was not only interesting; in fact the theme had fired our imagination, gave us the chance to make our imagination sparkle with possibility. Our club meeting began with the quintessential flow, that is to start the meeting by reciting the “A Toastmaster’s Promise”. The session was led by our newly joined member, Daniel Tham. Even though, this was his first time in playing this role, he did it with poise. Well done, Daniel!

The President, Wendy Sim, CC took over the floor and invited Grammarian, Chitirra to introduce the word of the day, “Quintessential”. All of us went with the flow by using the word “quintessential” in our introduction. I particularly loved Ken’s introduction. He made humor about how to become a quintessential Toastmaster. He told, “First, you need to show up in the meeting. Second, you need to stand up and speak. Once you have spoken, remember to shut up.” His speech has lightened up the introduction session. After the short introduction session, the President briskly handed the floor to Humor master, Kelvin Chong, ACB.

Humor master, Kelvin Chong, ACB, on the other hand, upbeat the audience by telling why Men and Women could never understand each other. It was a quintessential joke when a man was being accused when he went too closed to a woman. Or he would be accused being disrespectful when he kept a distance to the woman.  Indeed, we had a good laugh, a splendid moment.

The meeting transited smoothly into the Table Topics™ session. If you were one of the guests, you would be very keen to know how the speakers were going to answer the given questions. We had 5 speakers and they had given their thoughts to the audience. Some of the speeches are very inspiring because they shared their own stories and some spoke with sincerity that touched the heart of others.

Table Topics participants:

A) CP Lau –“What will you do to make this society a better place?”

B) Sugawaran Takuya – “Will you change your citizenship?”

C) KT Chok– “Who has inspired you to become who you’re today?”

D) Wendy Sim–“Are you living the life that you want or you need?”

E) Daniel Tham – “Things that you like to do for your parents.”

F) Hj Hashim-“If you could invent something, what would it be?”

At 8pm, it was the time when the assigned speakers were ready to feed the appetite of the audience. Ken Chan, DTM taught us how to narrate a speech by using story telling method. He used FROG as the example and demonstrated in his speech. Second speaker, Mandy, reminded us to treat our closest family better than our friends. This was because they deserved the best from us. Lastly, Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB talked himself by using butterfly as a metaphor. He went through a metamorphosis and each phases, he received protection, love, encouragement that helped him to escape from the cocoon and transformed to become a beautiful butterfly. 

Whilst our brains were well fed with the performance from the speakers, our stomachs were also looking out for food to digest. It was time to call for a refreshment break. After the break, our General Evaluator Dinesh Jayabalan, ACG, ALB took over the control and invited EK Yeo, CC, CL to give his evaluation to all the speakers participated in Table Topics™ session. In general, he encouraged the speakers to focus on their vocal variety, eye contact, hand gestures and the structure of the speeches.

For the assigned speeches evaluation, we have 3 speech evaluators:

A) Ron Yeap, CC- He suggested Ken Chan, DTM to change his speech title to add credit to his speech.

B) Kelvin Chong, ACB- He encouraged Mandy to fill the pause with the examples to support her point.

C)Hj Hashim, DTM- He suggested Mathew to reduce the speed of his speech delivery.

The meeting was about to come to the end, when all the functional role players and General Evaluator had given their reports. President Wendy, CC presented certificates to the best performers as well as a token of appreciation to our General Evaluator, Dinesh Jayabalan, ACG, ALB.

Finally, the night was completed and while it was sad to see such a great meeting coming to an end. We had so much fun and “good night!”

Blog Writer: Serena Kong ACB