Music player

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)

No comments: