The time
had come to celebrate the quotes “Laughter is the best medicine” and
“Evaluation is the breakfast of champions”. Yes! The annual Club Level
Humourous Speech & Evaluation Contests of Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters
Club had dawned on the dusk of 24th July 2018.
Up and
about were the team for the big event which had been planned ahead by our
enthusiastic Organizing Chair, Manish Jha, CC, CL, IP1. Phones buzzing, humans
buzzing, the ambiance on a buzz on the 3rd floor of MCA PJ Selatan as
all arrive early to set the last minute touches for the contests.
Honored
with the presence of our Chief Judge, Sharon Wong, ACB, ALB, between 6.45pm to
7.15pm multiple briefings were done simultaneously. Chief Judge to role
players, Contest Toastmasters to contestants, Organizing Chair to the SAAs.
With everybody in check, at 7.15pm when the clock struck, the gavel was struck
and the contest was called to order.
The SAA,
May Ong, CC, ALB was fantastic in gathering everyone in on time and welcoming
them and the floor was then passed to our very smart and steady Organizing
Chair, Manish Jha, CC, ALB, IP1 to give his opening address and the floor was
passed to our diligent Toastmaster of the Evening, E K Yeo, CC, CL who then
passed the floor to our Humourous Speech Contest Toastmaster, the graceful Lim
Gim Kim (ACS, ALB) who outlines the contest rules and introduced the
contestants and their order of speaking.
Oh boy,
here at MCA we only have 3 floors but after 4 passing of the floors from May to
Manish to EK to Gim Kim… Phewwww… Alas the Humourous Speech Contest begin. Yes,
that was a lame joke but boy didn’t our contestants coming up throw the crowd
off their seats with their humongous humour.
Our first
contestant, Mary de Silva comically laid out all the taboos that were stopping
us from progressing in our lives in her speech “Good Luck, Bad Luck, It’s Your
Choice”. Funny how a black cat that crosses your path simply because it just
wants to get to the other side of the road can block your path and stop you
from getting to the other side of your life.
Mathew
Philippose, the second contestant shared with us how a friend became his
forever in his romantic comedy performance entitled “Best Friend”.
The third
contestant was the ever humourous Ken Chan because yes he “can” do humour like
a natural and so he wowed the crowd with his speech entitled “W.O.W”.
Last but
not least was our only one, Victor Wan with his speech “Three Stubborn Old Men”.
He shared with us the life lessons he gained from 3 different stubborn old men
in his life. Who were these men? You’d be surprised. Not his son, father and
grandfather but Tun Dr. Mahathir, Robert Kuok and Stan Lee. What a combo?!?!?
With
laughter and happy hearts we all adjourned for a short 10 min break before the
next contest begin.
Once again,
May Ong, CC, ALB called us in and our TME invited the Evaluation Contest
Toastmaster, Serena Kong, ACB, CL to begin the contest. The Test Speaker,
surprise, surprise, angelic Agnes Chan was called to the stage to share with us
“Ten Little Things” for the evaluation contestants to evaluate.
She was vibrant
and energetic and shared a worthy content reminding us all to appreciate 10
little happy things that we come across every day to be happy. But that is not
for me to say! I’ll leave that to our Evaluation Contestants.
The
contestants were brought to the holding room and the first contestant yet again
Mary de Silva remained to give her calm and composed evaluation. Following was
Victor Wan with his loud and large evaluation. The third was Mathew Philippose
with his passive and passionate evaluation. Next was Ken Chan with his cheeky
and cheery evaluation and finally Hj. Hashim with his prim and proper
evaluation. So many varieties of input for Agnes Chan that night from MMKL’s
unique set of evaluators.
The
contests ended with a bang and as the Chief Judge went on to tabulate the
results, Serena Kong, ACB, CL took on the stage to interview every contestant
with an interesting array of questions. The feedback was fabulous of course.
Following, the tokens of participation to contestants and tokens of
appreciation to role players were given.
Having done that alas the epic moment
of the night arrived. Curiosity was killing us all and so the Chief Judge was
called on twice for the announcements of each contest winners. Drum rolls were
filling the air through out and the results resulted as below.
Humourous
Speech Contest:
With that
nerve wrecking moment done, we had our home grown Area C1 Director (AD) our
beloved Ron, Yeap, ACB, CL put on his AD shoes to give his AD speech. It’s was
quite weird watching our own member address us like an independent external
Toastmaster nevertheless it was more of a proud moment to watch him speak as an
AD grown from MMKL.
**Wipes off
proud tears of joy as I type this hahaha**
Finally,
the President, Chitirra was called on to the stage to give her closing address
and call it a night. She gave some words of encouragement to the fellow members
and called for all to stay for a group photoshoot by our official photographer
Dr. Srikant, PM1 to cherish this momentous contest night.
We stand
together as one whether we are role players, participants or audiences of a
contest because at any level we can learn and be inspired through contests like
this. Seize the opportunity always and victory is always our whether your
number one as a participant or sitting in the last row as an audience. There’s
always something you can take home at a Toastmasters’ contest or meeting
because there’s always something you can contribute to if you become a
Toastmaster. Until the next contest period peeps, don’t get too critical and just
keep laughing because life itself is a Humourous Speech and Evaluation Contest
where you’re the participant and the judge yourself.
Thanks to contributors, writers and reviewers.
Sincerely
Dato Dr Mary de Silva, PM3
Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club
VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2018/2019)
