Club meeting #424 : A Christmas Carol

Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters club (MM-KL) had come to the final meeting of the year 2018. The meeting No: 424 had a flavor or the year end Christmas season.

The meeting commenced with Toastmaster Wendy Sim as the Sergeant At Arms (SAA) calling the meeting to order. With smiles on her face and a little spotting Santa hat she stood in the front of the lectern & spelled out the house rules so that the meeting can proceed without any interruption.  She then led the members to recite the Toastmaster’s promise.

It was a cheerful atmosphere with all the members lifting their right hands as their upheld the promises of the club. It was a Christmas spirit with balloons & decorations around the meeting room. it could be seen members wearing Santa caps and party spectacles.

The acting President Manish Jha came to the scene after the SAA called upon the Acting president. He welcomed the guest and members and gave a wonderful introduction to the theme, “A Christmas Carol”. He ignited the Christmas spirit and called upon the Grammarian EK Yeo to introduce the Word of the Day, “Bliss”.  The Word “Bliss” which carries the meaning , perfect joy , great happiness & euphoria added a special light brightening up the place, especially when acting President asked the members and guests to introduce themselves and the word of the day was used along with the theme of the day in each introduction.

Manish Jha,  was also the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), continued the meeting by giving a brief history of Toastmasters & our club MM-KL for the benefit of new guest. He then introduced the role-players Ah Counter Mike Chin, on speech crutches, Grammarian EK Yeo, on proper use of language, Timer Chew Yee, to ensure that the meeting runs according to schedule and finally the General Evaluator to monitor the atmosphere and activities of the meeting.

The invocation speaker Mathew Philippose spoke on the theme “A Christmas Carol” as he was called upon. He demonstrated a few Christmas carols to create the joy of Christmas and charge the atmosphere.

The next on the agenda was Table Topics where members and guests were challenges to give impromptu speech. The Table Topics Master was also Manish Jha, Some sometimes may  wonder why is Manish playing another role again. Well in Christmas season normally many members are on vacation so we have a Manish Jha who has special gift of wearing different hats in a meeting with triple roles so that the meeting goes on smoothly.

As Table Topics Master took to the stage the first person to run to the stage was our toastmaster guest from Brazil by the name of Tiago. He was giving a topic should everyone celebrate Christmas, He shared his trips to many nations and he said Malaysia is so unique, so he said here everyone can celebrate and therefore no reason why all cannot to join in the festivity.  The next participant surprisingly was a first timer guest to toastmaster Balkev. His topic on Christmas shopping due to cheap sale. He said he will only buy if necessary and moved by special prices.  Yes, interestingly our next speaker was also a guest by the name of Sharadha from Indrahana Toastmasters Club. She was asked a unique question what will she ask if she got a call from Jesus Christ. She rolled the floor with laughter as she said her name is translated as Holy mother and she said it will not be surprising to get a call from Lord Jesus. She said she will ask for world peace. Our final speaker was Wendy, on a question what are 5 things you will do during Christmas. She answered it in a simple way sharing the normal things anyone could do during a festive season with holidays.

As we moved to Prepared speeches, our first speaker was Abdul Rahman who joined toastmasters recently and this is his second speech.  He spoke on the topic “The Art of Patience”, as he began he got the audience engaged by asking how many of you have patience and then he asked for those who did not take up their hands to raise their hands because they do believe they have patience. In his speech he shared of various experience of being tested for patience example in driving and in exams.  He highlighted two statements in his speech, patience is a virtue and also patience is an art.  He concluded by saying we all have some patience and we need to develop.  

The second speaker, KT Chok, has been speaking much during our club meetings and now he is going in pathway Presentation Mastery series in level 4.  A very inspiring speaker, this time in his topic he is to manage difficult audience. With a speech title “Why the Rich gets richer”.  His principle he said is taking from the book by Robert T Kiyosaki “ Rich Dad and Poor Dad”.  His speech was interrupted by a number of vocabulary questions, He very craftly try to answer by drawing on the board the quadrant on the principles of the theory.

Our final speaker was Julia Leong, she was speaking from the advance communication manual, her topic this time was on Interpretive reading. The title of her speech “ Why Men don’t Listen & Women Can’t.  Julia spoke with lots of expression and had much humor that got the floor into laughter. She helped everyone to understand somethings that we seem to perceive in everyday life that men don’t listen, is something that men are wired different from woman.A good humorous speech before we all broke for some refreshments.

The refreshments recharged everyone to come back for the next session. The SAA Wendy called the meeting to order and handed over to the TME to take charge. The TME invited our General Evaluator (GE) Dr Jaya Rudralingam IP4, PM4.  Our GE started off the session by saying evaluation is the breakfast for champions. She invited first of all the Table topic evaluator KL Loh who evaluated the four speakers, In his analysis he was very encouraging pointing out the strength in each speaker. Some of the points of improvements were try not to cross the speakers line and walk towards the audience. He said it was a good point to repeat the speech title, He said it was good to be natural in your sharing. He said one of the ways to improve nervousness was to take more occasion to participate in table topic speeches.

As Haji Hashim came forward to evaluate Abdul Rahman, he encouraged him of his talent to create simple laughter, He said the speakers confident level was much better than his first ice-breaker speech. He encouraged him to improve on his vocabulary and improve on his expression. The 2nd evaluator Mathew said KT Chok had much confidence in his challenging speeches. He managed to illustrate and clarify each of the question by pointing to the quadrant diagram.However, he need to take care to get the audience attention to draw and show rather than explaining as he draws the diagram. The final evaluator Sharada Rudralingam congratulated to Julia for the excellent interpretive reading and said she can dramatize the story further to create more interest.

The General Evaluator summed up the meeting. She than called up the role-players to give their respective reports. The Ah counter Mike spotted a number of speech crutches, The Grammarian EK Yeo commented almost all used the word of the day, he pointed out some misused words and commented on excellent phrases, like my glass is half full by Saradha and patience is an art by Abdul Rahman, The rich gets richer by K T chok, It is stupidity doing the something again and again by 

KT Chok , An amazing acquired analysis by Haji Hashim. Finally the GE summed up the meeting and passed the floor back to TME. TME thanked GE, Called all the best performers and apprecite them , can see in the pics above. Also TME as acting president did his closing. Asked feedback from the Guests to share on how he/She felt about the whole conduct of the meeting, made necessary announcements about our upcoming COT2 and our club ISTT contests on 22nd Jan 2019. Finally adjourned the meeting with a colourful Christmas photo with unique decorations with party glasses. See you all on 8th Jan. 2019 in our next Toastmasters meeting. 

Thanks to blog writer Mathew Philippose, CC ALB, contributors, and reviewers

Sincerely

Dato Dr Mary de Silva, PM3

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2018/2019)

#Meeting 423: Let it Go - Relinquish

The meeting on the 4^th of December 2018 saw some terrific speeches given by DTMs. The General Evaluator too was a DTM. This means that the meeting was, in itself, a confluence of DTMs. Truly, it was inspirational to be in a meeting with top speakers in it. The meeting saw CP Lau being congratulated for obtaining the office of Distinguished Toastmaster.

Our SAA, Abdul Rahman did a very good job in order to start the meeting. He made sure we are all set. He took us through recital of Toastmasters promises and passed the floor to club president Chitirra LD1.

Chitirra was brilliant in her opening address and asked the Grammarian Vijayakumar to tell us about the word of the day and some examples so that other members could later use it correctly throughout the meeting. She asked all members to introduce themselves, use the theme of the day “Let It Go” and WOD “Relinquish”. Later I observed the WOD “Relinquish” was very well used by everyone in the meeting and at least once. Everybody spoke about the theme “Let It Go”.

The Toastmaster of the Evening, the charismatic CP Lau, DTM kicked off the meeting with the history of Toastmasters with detailed statistics of the worldwide membership of the organization as of the 2^nd of December 2018, but on that day’s meeting he added something I have never heard before. He told us about how Toastmasters first came to this country’s shores. He told us who the first club president was and that gentlemen’s efforts in progressing Toastmasters in this country. This illumination was interesting to note. I know one person who was one of Malaysia’s first Toastmasters. She was an administrator at a local private hospital in KL.  CP Lau went on to mention how our club was first setup.

As the Table Topics session arrived duly and CP Lau played the role of the Table Topics master he had written excellent speech titles to choose from the list. There were five speakers who participated in this Table Topics session and all of them did very good job. Our speakers were Chitirra, Srinivas K M, Julia, Rahman and Mike Chin. All the topics were very well based on theme of the day “Let It Go”.

The assigned speech session arrived. Chittra and DTM Srinivas, gave outstanding speeches. Chittra mentioned before giving her speech that she had never tried Table Topics much before and decided to do so on that day as a warm-up for the assigned speech she was to give at the meeting. Chittra’s speech was humorous. She spoke about her own tendency to procrastinate; it was indeed a funny speech. 

DTM Srinivas’s speech encapsulated a joke with a serious message. It was a wonderfully woven speech as it started with a joke about a headmaster who was told by his mother that he would be late for school and projected that story, into what at first seemed like going off on a tangent, and delivered a poignant tale about a teacher who taught her young students not to say ‘I can’t.’  The point in the message was never say “I can’t.’  Inspirational.  

Ron Yeap was the third speaker in the session. He spoke about a(fictional) account of how he had to decide to attend an ex-girlfriend’s wedding. It was done with much dramatic effort and vocal variety. KL Loh was the last speaker in the session and gave an account about making choices.

After the break, General Evaluator G. Sivalingam from D’Utama Toastmasters Club gave us his evaluation. He said to the evaluators that the evaluation of speakers should be about specific aspects of a speech, such as, body language, vocal variety, use of the floor space, engaging the audience. He said that evaluation of a speech is always to tell a speaker that they spoke well or if their speech was interesting or even if the speech needed specific improvements.

General Evaluator G. Sivalingam commented that he liked the President’s keynote address which had a very good a tone in it. He added about the President’s concern for time allocation. The General Evaluator remarked on how the Toastmaster of the Evening gave the history of the club. He executed the whole evaluation session very smartly. Gave specific recommendations for the club to improve and also highlighted the strength of the club meeting.

Thereafter it was time to appreciate our top performers:

Best Table Topics speech was by Srinivas K M.

Best Assigned Speech was by Ron Yeap.

A token of appreciation was given to our General Evaluator. Distinguished Toastmaster G. Sivalingam for his presence and constructive evaluation. Few announcements were made our club ISTT contests on 22.01.2019 and Dist.102 EXPO one day Workshop on 15.12.2018.

That’s all ladies and gentlemen. See you all again at the next meeting on 18.12.2018.

Thanks to blog writer Vijaykumar CC, contributors, and reviewers

Sincerely

Dato Dr Mary de Silva, PM3

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2018/2019)

#422 – Creativity: The Mother of Invention

Toastmasters club meetings are always fun, engaging, educational and fun. The club meeting on the 27^th of November 2018 was no exception. With the theme Creativity: The Mother of Invention, the Invocation speaker was Mathew Philippose CC, ALB who gave a lively invocation speech. It was a stirring speech on the use of creativity by club which has led to many new members becoming club presidents.  Mathew made note that many new members like Chittra LDI, and Wendy Sim CC became club presidents shortly after becoming members. He also pointed out that Abdul Rahman, who is one of the newest members, is making good effort by playing the role of assistant SAA that evening. Indeed, by playing roles one climbs up the ladder of hierarchy.

Ron Yeap ACB, CL played the role of Toastmaster of the Evening. He talked about his own endeavours in public speaking and use of creativity at work and as a Toastmaster. This goes to show how much creative thinking can be used. He also shared how he uses creativity in assisting his wife Serena for being creative in her career. He introduced the General Evaluator, Khalid Idris ACS, ALS, IP4, who is a Division Director.

The table topics session saw some very interesting and creative questions. This session has been described by a friend of the author of this blog article as ‘having monkeys playing in your head’. Table topics can make you marshal your thoughts to arrange them as coherently as one can. Creativity was a plenty when speakers came up to speak in this session.

For the assigned speech session three members gave their well-prepared speeches.  The first was Ken Chan DTM who presented Level 1 Project 4 – Researching & Presenting. His title was Laughter and therefore spoke about laughter and its curative powers. It was enlightening. His use of the floor space, having an engaging speech and extraordinary use of body language was very stimulating.

Next was Dato Dr Mary De Silva PM3 from Presentation Mastery Level 4: Project 2 who gave us an excellent Question & Answer speech titled Dine Divine. She made good use of PowerPoint slides in elucidating the proper use of cutlery, crockery and glassware for dinner in an elegant fashion. As an interesting illustration of using visual aids, she demonstrated with real cutlery how they should be used.  Her evaluator Ken Chan DTM gave her a favourable and constructive evaluation.

The third speaker was Shain Anand from the CC Manual, Project 5: Your Body Speaks.  His title was G.O.A.T and he magnificently had the subject woven and intricately linked the organisation of the human body with Toastmasters. He explained how the human body was the most advanced and sophisticated technology ever created. His evaluator was Hj. Hashim DTM who pointed out favourable speech observations and areas for consideration.

After the break, the evaluation session began. Mathew Philippose CC, ALB as the evaluator for the Table Topics session who gave useful insights and a thorough evaluation of the Table Topics speakers. He explained that doing the Table Topics session. He explained that it is by thinking about the topic first that one jumps in and speaks. Table Topics is very good training for any speaker as it gets you to think on your feet, marshal your thoughts and speak with courage and confidence.

The individual speech evaluation was first given by EK Yeo CC, CL. He evaluated Ken Chan.  Then Ken Chan DTM evaluated Dato Dr Mary De Silva PM3, and then Tuan Haji Hashim Adnan DTM evaluated Shain Anand. All the three evaluators made note of the presentation methods, speaking styles and use of visual aids and PowerPoint slides by the three commendable speakers. The individual evaluation saw all three speakers get useful advice and critique about their respective speeches.

The GE, Khalid Idris ACS, ALS, IP4 gave advice about the ideal length of speeches which as a direct correlation with the number of words in a speech. Khalid Idris gave praise to the club as one with considerable charisma. He advised the club to improve on the usage of name tags, the timing of speeches an recommended the use of Pathways evaluation forms. Grammarian Chittra gave us her report which she did with charm and eloquence. Time Keeper Manish Jha IP1 gave a meticulously recorded report.

The best part of the meeting was the rewarding of certificates to those deserving and for this meeting the Best Table Topic speaker was Dato Dr Mary De Silva PM3.  The best evaluator was swept by Ken Chan DTM

General Evaluator Khalid Idris ACS, ALS, IP4, received a token of appreciation from Money Mastery KL.

The meeting ended with a photo session to capture the club’s eureka moment in Meeting #422!

Thanks to blog writer Vijaykumar CC, contributors, and reviewers

Sincerely

Dato Dr Mary de Silva, PM3

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2018/2019)

#421: Deepavali: Sparks of Colour

Lights will guide the way, they say, to Toastmasters, to Money Mastery-KL, to our 421^st meeting themed “Deepavali: Sparks of Colour”, the light has brought me here today. At sharp 7.15pm our enthusiastic Sergeant-At-Arms, Mike Chin called the meeting to order, introduced the house rules, led us through the Toastmasters Promise and invited the President to officiate the meeting.

Chitirra, LD1 took stage to welcome the guests and called upon the Grammarian to introduce the word of the day “Alluring”. Indeed some looked alluring in their Indian outfits to be in sync with the theme of the evening. Everyone had the opportunity to speak by introducing themselves and speak about their Deepavali memories being Malaysians.

The night began with an interesting invocation by Shain Anand who explained further about how Deepavali is celebrated for various reasons in various parts of India and how despite the differences its one main purpose is that of the prevalence of light over darkness.

The floor was then passed to our alluring Toastmaster of the Evening, Manish Jha, IP1 who was all prepped up for the evening with his green Indian top and maroon Nehru collared vest. He briefly guided us through the history of Toastmasters and our club and called upon the role players to introduce themselves.

The Ah-Counter was managed by Wendy Sim; the Grammarian was Vijaykumar, CC and our Timer was E K Yeo, CC, CL. To honour and evaluate our meeting today we had Sue Ding, DTM a very experienced and knowledgeable Toastmaster.

The first official session at any Toastmasters meeting which is the Table Topics ™ session was kicked off by our Table Topics ™ Master, Yap Ooi Yee, CC. She had an array of interesting topics revolving around the theme Deepavali and we had many participants off the floor taking up the challenge to speak on their feet.

Having done that, we moved on to the key section of our meeting which was the Assigned Speech session. To start, our newest member Abdul Rahman attempted his Ice Breaker speech under his Pathway, Presentation Mastery. His title “The Immigrant” was apt as he mentioned about his journey here as a foreigner who loved Malaysia. A round of standing ovation, as our protocol for first speeches, was in store for Rahman. The encouragement was very much needed to give Rahman the motivation to move further.

Next up, we had our ever favourite Ken Chan, DTM embark on his 2^nd attempt at his Pathways Evaluation & Feedback programme. This time he did his practice speech for his Division contest entitled “Women”. His flair and charm sure kept the audience entertained.

Finally, touching on the Advanced Speech Manuals was Ron Yeap, ACB, CL doing his speech from the Humourous Speaking Manual under the Project entitled “Warm Up Your Audience”. He spoke about procrastination and the evils that come with it.

Alas, everyone adjourned for a short break to enjoy the snacks and enhance the camaraderie through the little chit chats.

We returned for the Evaluation session led by our General Evaluator, Sue Ding, DTM. The first session was the Table Topics ™ Evaluation by our prim and proper KT Chok, PM2. Following, we had the evaluations for the project speeches. Hj. Hashim, DTM evaluated our new comer Rahman. Chitirra, LD1 was nervous and excited at the same time to evaluate the big boss Ken Chan, DTM and finally Ken Chan, DTM himself evaluated Ron Yeap, ACB, CL.

We had a short open evaluation for all members to give their opinions on the speeches and then we had the technical reports from the role-players. Finally, Sue Ding, DTM gave her general evaluation on the club that she enjoyed coming to and left us with some good feedback.

The TME wrapped the meeting up by calling upon the President to give out the best awards for the night. Due to time disqualifications there was no voting for the best project speaker. However, the best Table Topics ™ speaker went to none other than our General Evaluator herself, Sue Ding, DTM. The best Evaluator award as always was bagged by Hj. Hashim, DTM.

The President drew the meeting to a close after several key announcements and her closing address. Everyone adjourned after the group photo and proceeded for the cake cutting session for the November babies in MMKL, Manish, Vijay and Ken Chan.

The meeting indeed was lit and full of colour and with the same level of hope that a light emits everyone went home looking forward to the next meeting.

Thanks to blog writer Chitirra, contributors, and reviewers.

Sincerely

Dato Dr Mary de Silva, PM3

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2018/2019)

#420: Halloween: Spooky Soiree

October is that ‘blessed’ time of year where people can be as spooky and terrifying as they like in a spooky soiree or festivity, that truly embodies the spirit of Halloween in the sense that it was so sweet it gave me cavities! I came in a cosplay mask as Dracula in line with the theme of the day “Halloween: Spooky Soiree” to attend Money Mastery–KL Toastmasters Club Meeting.   Take note that Dracula wasn’t just making a social call; I was on a mission as the ASAA.

The Spooky Soiree meeting took two and half hours to get all the endings. TME Dato’ Dr Mary, PM3 helped to ensure the meeting reconciled with each and everyone’s darker sides, and found the confidence to cosplay, or even hunt for bones in the creepy yet inspiring marathon speeches. There was nothing mean or cruel on any of the members’ routes; in fact this may well be the most awesome meeting of the club.

 @ 7:15pm ASAA EK Yeo, CC, CL called the meeting to order. The meeting begun with the Toastmaster’s Promise recited by Toastmasters members for their commitment in the Toastmasters educational program.

@7:17pm: Our Club Mdm. President Chitirra, LD1 took over the control of the meeting. In her welcome address, she greeting our club member and our distinguished guests, General Evaluator Ricky Soo, ACS, ALS, EC2 from MAD Toastmasters Club, Evaluator Samuel Selvaraju, DTM and an invited creepy assigned speaker Victor Ong, DTM to present an unexpected creepy speech. She then invited the Grammarian Chew Yee, CC to introduce the WOD “Creepy” and went on to invite all members and guests to give a self-introduction and encouraged them to use the WOD “Creepy” and theme of the day “Halloween: Spooky Soiree” as much as they could. All members and guests did very well during this segment of self- introduction.

@7:32pm: Our club member Vijayakumar, CC, given his Invocation Speech and shared with us journey towards DTM.  He interpreted DTM as “D” Determination to set up goal, “T” Time bar to achieve it and “M” Mentally challenge to complete it.

@7:35pm: The Toastmaster of The Evening Dato’ Dr. Mary, PM3 with her creepy cosplay costume as a good Witch, briefed on the history of Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. Then she introduced the role players for this meeting in the sequence.

Grammarian:   Chew Yee, CC 

“Ah” Counter:   Serena Kong, ACB, CL

Timer:   Wendy Sim, CC

General Evaluator:  Ricky Soo, ACS, ALS, EC3

All the role players introduced their roles and objectives for this evening.   Then the TME proceeded with the assigned speeches from Competent Communication Manual and Pathways.

1^stSpeaker - Victor Ong, DTM Speech Title - “My Favourite Food”

His speech evaluator was Hj. Hashim, DTM

This was his project speech from the Competent Communication Manual: Project 8: Get Comfortable with Visual Aids

Victor kicked off his speech sharing with us how Malaysia provides a variety of fusion food. He shared with us how he loved to eat food making it creepy by adding a few cockroaches to the dish. The taste, he said, was delicious and even good for health. He anticipated that by Year 2070, the world will have a shortage of food and that cockroaches will be the main source of protein. The speech became even more creepy when he offered everyone a packet of cockroach crackers.  He was indeed entertaining us with humour and surprises.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                      

2^nd speaker- Ken Chan, DTM Speech Title - “Power Presenting”. His speech evaluator was Samuel Selvaraju, DTM

He was doing his speech from Pathways: Presentation Mastery Level 1: Project 2 – Evaluation and Feedback.

Ken Chan demonstrated a variety of presentation style through body language, vocal variety and his roving eye contact. He commented that a presentation was a chance for one to impress others, such as a boss. Some of the key words during his presentation was Ethos (credibility), Pathos (exhibit) and Logos (content). His speech was inspiring, educational and entertaining.

3rd speaker- CP Lau, ACG, ALB Speech Title - “President’s Distinguished Area G4”. His speech evaluator was Ken Chan, DTM

He was presenting his speech under Project: High Performance Leadership (HPL) for him to achieve ACS, a journey toward DTM.  CP Lau did mention that he joined Money Mastery-KL Toastmaster Club in June 2011. He took up the role as Area Governor G4 during the term 2013/2014 that is under Region 14, District 51, Division G, Area G4 which makes up 4 clubs which are Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club, Money & You Toastmasters Club, WIM Toastmasters Club and Air Products Toastmasters Club. HPL trains one to achieve or accomplish Service Leadership, Vision Values, Direction, Persuasion, Support, Development and Appreciation. He also shared with us the key word – “STAR” which refer to:

 “S” – Stretch your limit

“T” – Train your team

“A” – Ask for result

“R” – reach out

4th speaker- Mike Chin, Speech Title - “Who Am I”. His speech evaluator was Olivia Chen, PM1

This first time speaker was doing his speech from Pathways: Dynamic Leadership Level 1: Project 1 – Ice Breaker

Mike Chin shared with us his personal story. He is Johorean from a small town, Kulai enveloped in an oil palm plantation. He is Hakka. He completed his studies in KL and continued to work here. His hobbies included being a movie lover for action movies, science fiction except horror and thrillers while badminton is his favourite sport looking up to our national hero LCW.

5th speaker- KT Chok, PM2, Speech Title - “Habit of The Rich”. His speech evaluator was Ron Yeap, ACB, CL

He was giving his speech from Pathways: Presentation Mastery Level 3: Project 3 – Effective Projects, Inspire Your Audience

The key message as shared by KT Chok was that the rich always paid themselves first by starting with 10% and then progressively to 30% from your monthly income. He also clearly expressed that this habit decided on one’s future.

@8:31pm: Break for refreshment for 10 minutes, where are lot of chattering takes place and networking with new members.

@8:41pm: ASAA EK Yeo called the meeting to order and then he passed the control of the meeting to TME.

@8:42pm TME invited Vice President of Membership KT Chok, PM2 to induct new member Abdulrahman and his assigned mentor is Ron Yeap, ACB, CL

@8:47pm: TME Dato’ Dr. Mary, PM3 invited General Evaluator Ricky Soo, ACS, ALS, EC2 to chair the meeting. He led the session with his panel of evaluators.  He began by explaining the purpose of the evaluation and carried on to give his feedback.

Evaluation from the 5 evaluators.

1^st Speech Evaluator Hj. Hashim DTM for Competent Communication Manual speaker, Victor Ong DTM.

Hj. Hashim’s comments were based on the 3E’s used:  EXCEL by using simple and easy to understand English. Crafting the speech by using cockroaches was a cleverly used plot.  EXHIBIT speech through the use of visual aids and using a packet of potato chips of cockroaches, was interesting.  EXCELLENT performance with body language, hand gestures and using the stage widely was good. All evaluations need to encourage the speakers to do better.  Some suggestions were to use real cockroaches, staying behind the line during speech delivery, and sharing some insights about these mean and creepy cockroaches.

2^nd Speech Evaluator Samuel Selvaraju, DTM for Pathways – Presentation Mastery Speaker Ken Chan, DTM.

Samuel commented that Ken is an experienced speaker with a well-organised speech structure.  His voice is audible, loud and clear, keeping the subject matter straight to the point with the key words, “Ethos, Pathos and Logos”.  The Evaluator suggested that Ken show the audience one of the workshops where his crowd attended and he impressed the audience.

3^rd Speech Evaluator, Ken Chan DTM for Project: High Performance Leadership (HPL) – Speaker CP Lau, ACG, ALB.

Ken acknowledged that CP Lau had achieved his HPL by sharing with us his journey in Toastmasters since 2011. He agreed that leadership is a team effort and was pleased to be his mentor.

4^th Speech Evaluator Olivia Chen, PM1 for Pathways – Dynamic Leadership – Speaker Mike Chin.

Olivia commented that Mike shared his personal story with a clear and audible voice, and a pleasant facial expression, often smiling.  As an evaluator, she suggested to this first time speaker to have more eye contact in order to engage with the audience, to use the stage wisely, and to share more about his career and why he joined Toastmasters.

5^th Speech evaluator Ron yeap, ACB, CL for Pathways – Presentation Mastery – Speaker KT Chok, PM2.

Ron commented that KT had clearly shown the difference between habit and destiny and why it was important for everyone to pay themselves first. His aim of inspiring the audience was met! One suggestion was to engage the audience by asking them questions such as when they would adopt the habit of the rich.

The speech marathon Evaluation exercise was just completed!  Everyone was so objective in their feedback and the suggestions were from the heart.  As Toastmasters, we must aim to be better each time we present a speech.  Many thanks to the Speech Evaluators.

Role Players’ reports

Members who were busy throughout the meeting were:

·         Grammarian – Chew Yee, CC

·         Ah Counter – Serena Kong, ACB, CL

·         Timer – Wendy Sim, CC

General Evaluator Ricky Soo ACS, ALS, EC2 had summed up the meeting and then passed the control to the TME.

@9:34pm:  Club President Chitirra, LD1 was called on the stage by the TME to do the presidential closing address. She first thanked the TME Dato Dr Mary, who handled the meeting diligently.

The gratifying part of every meeting is to share the joy when the awards are presented to the best performance for the evening.

·         Best Speech Evaluator- Hj. Hashim, DTM

·         Best Project Speaker- Victor Ong, DTM

·         Best Spooky Soiree cosplay costume – Dato’ Dr. Mary de Silva, PM3

·         Token of appreciation to the GE- Ricky Soo, ACS, ALS, EC2

Before the end of the meeting, Mdm. President Chitirra, LD1 summarized the entire meeting and asked the guests and members to take a group photo.  All those in cosplay took centre stage to live up to the theme of Halloween.  Everyone received candies too.

The meeting was adjourned at 9:40pm.  Indeed it was the most exciting meeting with the speech marathons and speech evaluations.  We wait on for the next of such a meeting.

Thanks to blog writer EK Yeo, contributors, and reviewers.

Sincerely

Dato Dr Mary de Silva, PM3

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2018/2019)

30 October 2018