#401 My Spirit is a Roaring Sea

Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club just finished their 400^th meeting in our Toastmasters’ history of 15 years. This was our 401^st meeting to show our roaring sea spirit in every conduct of this meeting. ASAA of the evening, Yap Ooi Yee, CC, took the control at 7:16pm with only a one minute delay from the scheduled time. She assured everything was in order to kick start the meeting. “Raise your hand if you have not received the voting slip? The voting slip is to vote for the best speakers. Another very important point, toilet is not working temporarily on our floor and downstairs is already being occupied today hahaha.” This was not humour but a reality. Believe it or not the whole evening went on very smoothly. She recited the Toastmaster’s promises with us and handed the floor to our acting-president, Chitirra.

Our acting-president intrepidly addressed the meeting and asked, kindly introduce yourself and use the word of the day ‘Intrepid’ and the theme of the day ‘My Spirit is A Roaring Sea’. It is our club culture to let everyone speak at least once throughout the meeting. She then passed the floor to the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), Shain Anand who then introduced the Humour Master, Distinguish Toastmaster (DTM), Ken Chan.

Ken chan is a professional speaker and mentor. Sometimes he comes with his inspiring speech but today he decided to begin this evening with some humour. We laughed like wild emojis. We got excited to move on. 

Our TME then took the stage again. For your kind information, Shain is also our VPPR of this term 2017/18 and a wonderful Toastmaster and friend. He came up with his attitude like a roaring sea. He briefed all on the history of Toastmasters International and our club, especially for the guests. Yes, most of the time we have some guests in our meeting. One of the guest today also accepted to sign up in the same evening. Shain then proceeded to introduce the role players, the Grammarian, Ah’ counter, Time keeper and General Evaluator for the night, Distinguished Toastmaster Dr. Devi Menon who comes from Sai Toastmasters Club. 

Now as the excitement was soaring high, our Table Topics ™ Master Dato Dr. Mary De Silva was called on to the stage. Table Topics ™ session is a frightening yet fun filling session. We actually have no idea what topic is about to be received and what we will speak. She came up prepared with very inspiring and beautiful topics. We found 4 intrepid speakers. Shin (Guest), Joel, myself (Manish) and Victor Ong , DTM (From Liquid Gold TMC). Everyone spoke well. Do you know why? Because the topics were amazing? 

Drop by on any 2^nd, 4^th and 5^th Tuesday of the month in the evenings at 7.15pm if you want to participate in our fun filling session. This evening our time keeper Yap Ooi Yee,CC displayed the green signal to the TME to proceed with the prepared project speeches as the time was up for Table Topics ™. Now the 1^st speaker of the day Ken Chan, DTM came up with his speech entitled ‘Negotiate to Win’. This speech was as per the Competent Communication manual speech #8, Get Comfortable with Visual Aids. Negotiation is very important in our life no matter what you do, but in business it creates great impact if you can negotiate well. I hope you know what I mean. It was completely worth it watching his negotiation techniques as he is the subject matter expert.

The 2^nd Speaker of the day was Joel Silas with his speech entitled, ‘Power, Influence & Politics’. He is a very good learner. He proved it too. He proved that practice can make anyone perfect. Keep up the hunger of learning Joel! I was privileged to be his speech evaluator. It means I was more observant. Hahaha. He was doing his speech from the Competent Communication Manual, speech #9 which was “Persuade With Power”. He did very well and persuaded the whole audience to earn the power, use it wisely and serve yourself and the community. That will make not only you proud but also the whole nation and the whole world.

The 3^rd speaker is none other than CP Lau, ACB, ALB. He is an entrepreneur by his profession in IT and in other Industries as well. He is a very good communicator and speaker.  He was a speaking from the Advanced Manual called “Speaking to Inform” which required him to give a speech on an abstract concept. His speech title was ‘Are you happy? ’ Interesting right? He tried to get to know the audience and see how happy they were. He also talked about what real happiness is. H mesmerised and captivated us throughout his speech. Thanks CP for the lovely piece.

The 4^th and final speaker of the day was our brand new member “Xavier Gomez”. He was doing his Ice Breaker speech from the “Leadership Development” path, Level-1. He came with his speech title “The Owner of The New house”. We were very curious about what he was going to talk about. This was suspense until he made it clear that his name Xavier has a meaning called “The Owner of The New House”. As there is a saying, everyone has a story to share, Xavier found the perfect story to share about his life. He talked about his initial life, love life and career. It was amazing to know Xavier. Keep it up!

Do you want a break? Let’s break for 10 mins.

Despite knowing that our Toilet was not operational that night, everyone served their tummies non-stop with the wonderful dinner. We were still eating then our time keeper rang the bell, “Guys, times up. Please get back. You can even eat after the meeting”. 

The ball was now in the General Evaluator, Dr. Devi Menon’s, DTM court. She is a wonderful Toastmaster, a friend and an amazing evaluator. She bravely followed the agenda. She called out Table Topic’s Evaluator, Kevin Khoo,CC. Kevin was brilliant, another fantastic speaker and evaluator. He was attentively listening to all the 4 speakers and highlighted in his evaluation, the speakers’ strengths and area of improvements. He encouraged and gave an utmost valuable feedback. We felt accomplished.

Now it was the project speech evaluators’ turn. Firstly, Dato’ Dr. Mary De Silva called to evaluate speaker Ken Chan’s, DTM speech “Negotiate to Win” as she was doing her evaluation project from pathways (“Presentation Mastery”). There was another evaluator to evaluate Dr. Mary’s evaluation who was Victor Ong, DTM from Liquid Gold Toastmasters Club. Both of them gave wonderful insights to Ken to improve further in his speech and praised his strengths. Dato Dr, Mary De Silva also got some pointers to do a better evaluation next time from Victor Ong,DTM.

Next, I was doing my best evaluation to evaluate Joel’s speech ‘Power, Influence & Politics’. I did my best and I was doing my project on evaluation from my path ‘Innovative Planning’. Therefore, I also got an evaluator to evaluate my evaluation. I particularly liked this part of the meeting on the evaluation of the evaluators. We tried our best to learn from each other.

Following after us Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB appeared on stage and the way he soared with the spirit in his evaluation, he won the best evaluation of the evening. He is also a professional speaker and mentor.

We called out our final speech evaluator Ron Yeap, ACB, CL. He is our Immediate Past President. He was attentive in listening to Xavier’s speech. An evaluator’s job is to comment on how the speaker has done well. An evaluator should acknowledge and provide a constructive feedback so that the speaker will be able to perform much better in their next speech. He did exactly that. Along with the speaker Xavier, we all felt once again accomplished.

Finally General Evaluator Dr. Devi Menon, DTM, was most observant and completely in charge when she told us as a whole club on what we are good at and what needs to be improved. An amazing evening it was with this bunch of enthusiastic, friendly and supportive people. This kind of environment can most definitely bring out the best in you.

Here, our Toastmaster of the Evening was enjoying the entire show and then took charge of the show again and called our club president Wendy Sim, CC to acknowledge the best performers of the evening. Yes, we do it in every meeting.

The Best Table Topics ™ Speaker goes toooooo , Joel Silas,

The Best Project Speech goes toooo ,Joel’s mentor Ken Chan, DTM.

The Best Project Speech Evaluation goes tooooo: Mathew Phillippose, CC, ALB.

What are you thinking now? That’s it!  The club president gave her closing address, summarised the whole meeting and adjourned the meeting. See you all again on 13^th Feb 2018.

Blog Writer: Manish Jha, CC

 Note:  

ASAA- Assistant Sergent At Arms.
CC- Competent Communication speaking manual.
ACB ALB- Advanced Communicator Bronze, Advanced Leader Bronze.
DTM- Distinguished Toastmaster.
TME- Toastmaster of the Evening.

For more details do contact us           

A Flourished 400th

The first chapter of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich says it all. Thoughts are things. An ideology, a concept or a simple hope could spark at any given moment and it takes a great visionary, a hopeful dreamer, a transformational leader to take that of which merely exists in the mind and materialize it.

And who would have known that what started in a small basement in Santa Ana, California on the 22^nd of October 1924 would end up flourishing on the 3^rd floor of MCA PJ Selatan on the 23^rd of January 2018.

As a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, so did the journey to Money-Mastery KL Toastmasters’ (MMKL) 400^th meeting. An ordinary meeting with an extraordinary history behind it.

Themed “A Flourished 400^th”, the meeting was set to go despite the heavy rain. Even the sky was crying with joy for our 400^th. Our respectable Immediate Past President, Ron Yeap, Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB), Competent Leader (CL) called the meeting to order and we got into mode. Something about reading the 2^nd half of our Toastmasters’ promise that night that made us recollect why we were all here as Toastmasters.

The beautiful President, Wendy Sim, Competent Communicator (CC) who sponsored golden 400 shaped balloons for the occasion came on stage to give her admirable address of our 400^th meeting. She welcomed the guests, speaking of which, it was nothing but a pure privilege to have with us for the special night a VIP as our General Evaluator (GE). We were blessed with the presence of District 102 Director, Azizah Abu Hassan, Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) as our GE for our 400^th meeting. Alongside we were visited by Division C Director, Danny Bong, ACS, CL.

The first time Grammarian and our newest member, Xavier Gomez introduced the word of the day “Vigour” with much vigour indeed and following on all the members and guests spoke on their feet during the introduction about the theme whilst applying the word of the day.

Oh, we had past presidents still full of vigour take us on a nostalgic ride as they spoke of their first memories at MMKL. It was surreal today’s introduction as even I recollected the moment I first set foot into the door of MMKL as a guest. It’s not just the doors that are open here but the arms of the members that extend straight to their hearts as well. You wouldn’t find camaraderie and friendship elsewhere like how you find it in MMKL. Which is why I vividly remember my sentence as a guest 1.5 years ago before I even signed up as a member “I think… I’ve fallen in love with this club”.

We then had one of our pioneer members, Hj. Hashim Adnan, DTM, the jolly golfer who’s always having a cheery smile on his face to deliver us an impactful invocation speech. It was melancholy but uplifting, it was simple but thought provoking, it was full of variety but with a steady purpose as well. Friendship. Revolving around the motto of our club “Friends Helping Friends Succeed”, Hj. Hashim delivered like a true Toastmaster and left us with some food for thought.

The impromptu, fun-filled Table Topics ™ session thus followed, with our Table Topics ™ Master of the evening, Crystal Chen, ACB, Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB). Crystal played this role in the club for the first time but managed to string an array of topics that were absolutely apt to the occasion. Members from the floor Nini, KL Loh, Advanced Toastmaster Gold (ATMG), Hj. Hashim, DTM and Danny attempted at them and tested their abilities.

Alas, we moved on to the Project Speech Session with our first speaker, myself, Chitirra, who carried out my CC7: Research Your Topic with a speech entitled “Insomnia”. Something I tend to struggle with as I type this blog out at 4.15am when clearly I could be sleeping. I spoke of its symptoms, causes and some simple self-help remedies that could suppress the condition.

Next we had 3 Pathway Project speeches, all of which were from the Path “Presentation Mastery”.

The second speaker was K T Chok, with his Ice Breaker, “The Rising Sun”. He spoke of his origins from Tawau, Sabah and his passion for compounding figures as an investment banker. From Borneo Boy to Banker Boy, indeed KT himself is a rising sun.

Next we had, Dato Dr. Mary de Silva deliver her Project 2: Evaluation & Feedback speech entitled “Yes”. Dato Dr. Mary may be a new member but she speaks like a true professional and “Yes” her speeches contain so much valuable lessons all the time. This time she summarised Jim Carrey’s movie ‘Yes Man’ and shared with us on how a ‘Yes’ to take up a simple task, can take us a long way in life.

Last but not least, we had Olivia Chen also do her Project 2: Evaluation & Feedback speech. Whilst Mary’s was full of vigour, Olivia’s was full of peace. It was serene but captivating as she brought us into Zen mode to understand the art and science behind the eastern culture of flower arrangement. With her speech entitled “Ikebana” she even demonstrated with real flowers the Japanese flower arranging concept and what it actually symbolises. It was truly a treat for the eyes.

Today, we also made time to induct our newest member, Xavier Gomez and led him to his guiding light in Toastmasters, his mentor, Manish Jha, CC. Our VPM, Yap Ooi Yee carried out the protocol and with a round of Hi-5s flying in the air to welcome our newest guest, we set his spirit high with vigour and wished him all the growth and happiness in his Toastmasters journey as he set his first step in his thousand mile journey.

A short 10 minute break was in order as our MMKL members truly indulge in our tantalizing favourite, Nasi Lemak and can really go bananas with the bananas we serve.

Having filled our tummies, it was time again for another round of breakfast. The breakfast for champions as we call it here in Toastmasters, we continued with the very vital evaluation session. To conduct the session, our GE, District 102 Director, Azizah Abu Hassan, DTM took control of the stage.

The Table Topics ™ Evaluator, Manish Jha, CC gave a very detailed and distinctive evaluation on each of the speakers. Then the panel evaluators each came on stage to deliver their project speech evaluations, each with a style of their own. K L Loh, ATMG evaluated Chitirra in his unfastened but honest manner. Foo Fung Jiun, CC gave his first ever evaluation to KT. He truly observed the speech and displayed a smooth evaluation even remembering to encourage the speaker to return for more speeches. He understood and applied the sandwich method despite being a first time evaluator. Hj. Hashim, DTM, danced and pranced in his movement and toned down and toned up in his volume and gave an intricate evaluation on Dato’ Dr. Mary’s speech, which is why he never fails to bag a prize at any given Evaluation Contest. Finally, we had Ken Chan, DTM evaluate Olivia in his technical manner of evaluation. Known for his abbreviations and mastery techniques, this time Ken Chan, DTM was on a roll with his evaluation.

Honest and genuine open evaluations were given at random to all the project speakers and we finally moved on to the technical reports. We had a precise Grammarian report from Xavier Gomez, a well observed Ah-Counter report from EK Yeo, CC, CL and a timely report from the Timekeeper, Yap Ooi Yee, CC. Following, we had the general summary of what was pleasant and what could have been more pleasant about the meeting from our poised and professional GE, Azizah Abu Hassan, DTM.

On this special occasion of our 400^th meeting, having had also the fortune of the District Director’s presence, we set aside some air time for her special address and it was nothing but pure words of wisdom. Azizah Abu Hassan, DTM drilled into our minds that we can be more than what we already are and that the possibilities are endless. Having been a President’s Distinguished Club since 2003, she reminded MMKL that more can be done if we choose to raise the bar, that even a fine club can always be fine-tuned, that a little difference can make a big difference, that a “Yes” as mentioned by Mary in her speech can go a long way. I was pumped, I was boosted, I was driven by her encouragement and truly it was a gain to have heard her express her views and ideologies.

It was time again for our President Wendy Sim, CC to take the floor with the awards and announcements for the evening. Upon presenting a token of appreciation to our GE, we once again called upon Azizah Abu Hassan, DTM, to give away the Smedley Award Ribbon we gained to our President. We then invited Division C Director, Danny Bong, ACS, CL, to give away some education award ribbons that we gained for the term. It is important that members are recognized for their achievements and efforts, for a little motivation can do wonders in retaining the spirit and drive in a club.

Finally, the long awaited moment to award the best speakers arrived. Drumrolls drummed in our ear drums as the Best Table Topics award went to Hj. Hashim, DTM, the Best Speech Evaluator was bagged by Ken Chan, DTM and last but not least the Best Project Speech was rewarded to Olivia Chen. Truly deserving were they.

With joy in the air and inspiration in our hearts, the meeting was adjourned and we got together to snap a fantabulous 400^th meeting picture. We had props and the balloons to complement the occasion and add a burst of fun into the picture that will go down in history henceforth.

Come to think of it though, it’s not about celebrating how long we’ve been around. 100^th, 200^th­­, 300^th or 400^th, they are but numbers. Tonight, what we really celebrated was the vision of a great man who saw this day coming and the spirit of millions who made it happen. Nevertheless, it’ll be cool if I’d stick around to celebrate our 500^th wouldn’t it? Goodbye… just for now!

Blog Writer: Chitirra