Who were present at the event?
- Wendy Sim, CC, President of Money Mastery KL Toastmasters Club.
- Foo Fung Jiun, CC, Contest Chair
- Crystal Chen, ACB, ALB, International Speech Contest Toastmaster
- Joel Silas, Table Topics Contest Toastmaster
- Shain Anand, Sergeant-At-Arms
- Contestants, guests and toastmasters
The long awaited, highly anticipated International Speech Contest and Table Topics Contests 2017/2018 are finally here! “If you want to grow… if you want to be stretched… if you want to become a better speaker, come participating in our club level contest!” wrote the Contest Chair, Foo Fung Jiun. He said “The best way to rapidly improve your communication skills regardless of your experience level is through competition!”. And, here we are, the day of reckoning is here.
The competitions that begin from the club levels will eventually propel contests winners through the competition journeys of the area, the division, the district and eventually the international levels.
It takes serious courage and guts to compete in the contests, regardless of your experience levels. Not only that you have to work through the usual fear of public speaking and getting on stage, you need to have the necessary command of an audience that made up entirely of highly professional Toastmasters or new Toastmasters.
Everything we learn in Toastmasters, every mistakes that have been pointed out would be put in test. Afterall, we are humans, we make errors but contests are known to be a little bit cruel. When the contestants are up there, the judges/audience do not afford them much forgiveness that would be expected during normal days of Toastmasters meeting. Hardly, any mistakes will go unmarked.
While these are the excitement of contests that some people are so fearsome to do, a huge round of applause must be given to the contestants listed above. Let us cherish the courage of the contestants. May it be you at the next contest!
What happened in the event?
The highly organized, successfully executed contests would not have been possible without the hard work and contributions of the organizing committee which was chaired by the Contest Chair, Foo Fun Jiun. Backed by a team of highly dedicated members of Money Mastery KL Toastmasters club, the planning of the event has started weeks ahead. Every details from food preparation to photography to awards giving have been carefully crafted.
- Foo Fung Jiun, CC, Contest Chair
- Crystal Chen, ACB, ALB, Contest Toastmaster International Speech
- Joel Silas, Contest Toastmaster Table Topics
- EK Yeo, CC, CL, Sergeant-At-Arms
- Shain Anand, Sergeant-At-Arms
- Olivia Chen, Sergeant-At-Arms
- Shelly Sim, Sergeant-At-Arms
- Daniel Tham, Photographer
- KT Chok, Blog Writer
Special thanks to:
- Henry Fu, ACB, ALB, Chief Judge
- Cheryl Ong, CC, ALB, Ballot Counter
- Ng Yee Chia, ACB, CL, Ballot Counter
- Joshua Chan, CC, CL, Ballot Counter
- Juliana Teh, CC, Time Keeper
- Malcolm Sze, ACB, ALB, Time Keeper
The event started right on time with the calling from the Sergeant-At-Arms Shain Anand. Contest Chair, Foo Fung Jiun CC started by giving his opening remarks to the audience and stated the importance of the contests as well as thanking everyone for making the event a reality. Crystal Chen ACB, ALB, Contest Toastmasters of International Speech stood tall to outline the contest rules for the benefits of all and introduced the Contestants and their order of speaking to the audience. Crystal Chen promised the audience that the contests would bring “lots of funs” to the audience and, indeed, the audience was truly exhilarated and thrilled by the contests.
International Speech Contest
Contestants
- Chitirra Amirthalingam
- CP Lau, ACB, ALB
- Ken Chan, DTM
- Manish Jha, CC
- KL Loh, ATMG
Table Topics Contest
Contestants
- Ken Chan, DTM
- Manish Jha, CC
- Mary de Silva
- Srikant Marakani
- Xavier Gomez
- Julia Leong, ACB, ALB
- Hj Hasim, DTM
“Do you live to eat, or eat to live”? Never did I thought that eating can be a topic with such a huge impact, given how complacent Malaysians are when it comes to eating. After all, Malaysia is a food heaven!
Nevertheless, that was exactly the topic that was thrown at to the Table Topic Contestants. Table Topics session is one session that requires us to think on our feet and speak in a impromptu way, not to mention this is a Contest of Table Topic. There will be winners and vice versa.
Our first contestant, Tuan Haji Hashim, through his life experience, described to the audience that the situation is indeed a Catch 22 situation where it seems like a dilemma from which Malaysians always struggle with given the mutually dependent conditions. Meanwhile, Jula Leong stated that it really does not matter as long as we “live life to the fullest”! On the other hand, Ken Chan pointed to the audience that he actually did enjoy doing both but under different conditions..
Srikant, the fourth contestant, likened eat to live to survivability where a person would need to ingest to sustain his or her life. Manish Jha, the man with a body that Ken Chan admired whether jokingly or not, announced to the audience that whether we eat to live or live to eat, we are the winner either way! However, it is the emotional hunger that we should be watching out for for it may overtake the real hunger that instigated us to eat n the first place.
Xavier, our 6th contestant of Table Topic, advocated that eating to live is always a result of the environment which could arise from living pressure and state of life. He said that while foods are for enjoy, Malaysians are really passionate about living to eat given the choice of foods we have in Malaysia. Eat to live or live to eat, Xavier is continuously wrestling with the idea.
The final contestant of Table Topic, Mary de Silva, meanwhile, indicated that “Do i eat to live or live to eat” is a popular question thrown at Malaysians as we know Malaysians’ life is all about the food, the food and the food. However, too much of food can create adversity and doctor’s advice according to her is always eat to live. She cited that patients with life threatening diseases might not have a choice but to eat to live.
Therefore, enjoy your choices for now, whatever your choice is!
What are the results of the contests?
First thing first, no one get disqualified due to exceeding allotted time.
Second of all, no reports of protests to the results of winners were reported for both International Speech Contest and Table Topic Contest.
Thanks to the Judges for the head scratching session. Making a decision of who were actually winners were no easy tasks given the strong competence level of those speakers. Nevertheless, every contests are winners and without further adieu, we announced the winners for the contests as below.
International Speech Contests:
First place: KL Loh, ATMG
Second place: A. Chitirra
Third Place: Ken Chan, DTM
Table Topic Contests:
First place: Julia Leong, ACB, ALB
Second place: Hj. Hashim Adnan, DTM
Third Place: Mary de Silva
As our the President of Money Mastery KL Toastmasters club pointed out, we created history that night. We witnessed the making of the champions of our club. However, we can only have one winner in any contests and the winner for the contests tonight are the PARTICIPANTS! Thanks to everyone for making the event a meaningful reality.
Blog Writer: KT Chok
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