#414 - Who Am I?

I can never seem to find out. Confused and complex this quest of life is to me as I type this out. Did this meeting give me an epiphany to that? You’ll find out at the end of this post.

The epiphany that we all discovered before this meeting however was that Money Mastery KL TMC (MMKL) and Shah Alam TMC (SATMC) both have their meetings on the same day at the same time so decided to synergize and come up with a double powered joint meeting!

The date was set at 31^st July 2018 through the initiative of MMKL’s Immediate Past President, Wendy Sim, CC through the request of two epic members of the respective clubs, Hj. Hashim, DTM and Robert Ram, DTM.

The day arrived, the two club members drew in slowly and at sharp 7.15pm MMKL’s EK Yeo, CC, CL called the meeting to order, recited the Toastmaster’s Promise and invited MMKL’s President, Chitirra to give her opening address. Embracing the power of synergy she acknowledged the sweat that both club members broke to make this a reality.

Following, Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB of MMKL came out to give his invocation speech in which he left no one out whilst enlightening us to discover ourselves as Toastmasters. He took us to church indeed for his speech was such an epiphany. Without having to say, the theme of the day was “Who Am I?” and the word of the day “Epiphany” and he lived up to it.

Our ever ready and steady CP Lau, ACS, ALB of MMKL took on the role as Toastmaster of the Evening and briefly went through the history of Toastmasters International, called upon the role players to introduce their roles and handled the meeting through and through with care and charisma.

The role players for the night were, Wendy Sim, CC of MMKL as the Ah-Counter, Ron Yeap, ACB, CL of MMKL as Grammarian, Serena Kong, ACB, CL of MMKL as Timer and the ever enthusiastic Robert Ram, DTM of SATMC as the General Evaluator overseeing the meeting held at MMKL itself.

Then came the exciting session of Table Topics ™ by MMKL’s toastmaster, Shain Anand and with him he had an array of challenging topics for all to try.

We then eventually moved on to the Assigned Speech Session with 4 speeches for the night, 2 representatives from each club.

The first was a Competent Communication Manual speech from Sarah Abedi Abdullah, DTM of SATMC doing her CC#10 entitled ‘To Be More Than You Can Be’ and indeed she pushed us beyond our horizons, to go the extra mile and surely inspired us to more than what we can be. There was epiphany in the air and we were breathing it from her speech that was oxygenated with it.

Next up was KT Chok, PM1 from MMKL with his final project under Level 2 of his Pathway Presentation Mastery. With his speech ‘Mentor Mentee Love Hate Relationship’, the epiphany he passed down to us was that “If the student is ready, the teacher will be”. Likewise for a mentee to be ready in order for his mentor to guide him in his Toastmasters’ journey. Truly the words of Master Yoda himself as he coached Luke Skywalker to be one of the greatest Jedi Masters of all times.

Next was Dato’ Dr. Mary de Silva PM2 from MMKL as well, in her final project under Level 2 of her Pathway Presentation Mastery. With her title “Write To Sell” she caught our attention in her grand opening with a dazzling string of pearls. As she was trying to promote that fine piece of jewellery, she moved on to tell us that actually one of the best ways to sell anything is to write a book about it. Master your field and write away right away in order to boom your business.

Finally, the epiphany we all needed as Toastmasters was someone to show us the light or rather in this context the “path” to the Pathways programme in Toastmasters. For that, we had our final speaker from SATMC, Safura Atan, ACB, CL. Also a Pathways Guide she used this to her advantage whilst educating us in her Advanced Communication speech from the Speech by Management manual themed ‘Communication Change’. Her title was ‘Navigating Through A New Path’ and she navigated us through the Pathways programme and encouraged us to kick start it as soon as possible.

After a bang of speeches, a short break was given and the members of both clubs mingled over MMKL’s classic Nasi Lemak.

EK Yeo, CC, CL, timely called us in for a round two of digesting and that was for the Evaluations sessions. Robert Ram, DTM emceed this session and called back for EK Yeo, CC, CL to give his table Topics ™ evaluation of each member. 

Following in order of the project speakers:

Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB of MMKL 
Mohd. Lofti of SATMC
Zarina Abu Bakar, ACB, ALB of SATMC and 
Hj. Hashim, DTM of MMKL each gave their unique evaluations for the speakers

A round of open evaluation was in order before each role player gave their reports and both club Presidents were called out to give the awards to the best role players of the night, all of which were bagged by the members of SATMC to take home to their club with pride.

Best Table Topics ™ Speaker: Mohd. Lofti

Best Evaluator: Zarina Abu Bakar, ACB, ALB

Best Assigned Speech: Sarah Abedi Abdullah, DTM

Alas the night of fun was coming to its end and to wrap it up with a bang we invited the President of SATMC, Safura Atan, ACB, CL to give the closing address. It was inspiring and encouraging indeed as she spoke of how the camaraderie between both clubs gave tonight’s meeting a meaning.

With that, looking forward to a next joint meeting, the meeting was adjourned and we all posed for a fabulous group photo.

Back to my question in the beginning of this post as to whether this meeting gave me an epiphany as to who I was? Well, the discovery never stops. That’s for sure! For tonight however, I am a Toastmaster and damn proud I am to be one! Now go discover yourself, your epiphany is sure to come. Good night, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.

Thanks to Shain Anand contributors, writers and reviewers.

Sincerely

Dato Dr Mary de Silva, PM2

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2018/2019)