Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club (#8141): 22.10.2019 Meeting #447- The Festival of Light- Diwali

Theme: The Festival of Lights - Diwali
Word of The Day: Prosperous

Malaysia is a unique country. We are a multi racial, multicultural and multilingual society. This provided many opportunities for all residents in Malaysia, to celebrate the festive seasons together.

On the 22nd Oct, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club adopted the theme “Festival of Lights - Diwali” as the theme of the meeting. Members attending the meeting, were encouraged to dress up to the theme. The venue was also lightly decorated with flower strings, flower petals and ‘deepam” (floor decoration).

We were privileged to have Kim Chow, DTM to be our General Evaluator on that evening. The meeting was also patronized by members of IJM, Ramesh and Selvan, and a non member Mr. Nanthakumar.

Our Toastmasters of the Evening, Manish Jha, IP1, in his handsome traditional Hindu costume, hosted the meeting smoothly. This was later confirmed by President’s closing speech when he praised the TME for his improved and interactive style in the role.

Our meeting had 3 unique sessions, which each session offering different learning opportunities. The first session is the Table Topics^™ Session and was led by Rajendra as the Table Topics™ Master. The participants of this session was given a random topic to speak on. We saw Ben Hoe, Selvan, Abdulrahman, Nanthakumar and Hai Liang took part in the session to attempt on the impromptu speeches. They were really brave to take up the challenges.

The second part was for the members to present their prepared speeches. We had Ken Chan, DTM, Julia Leong, ACS, ALB, and my self, Ron, ACS, CL, to take part in this session. This session would normally let the speakers and audience learn many things about public speaking. By presenting, the speakers learned about their style of presentation; audiences learn from the presentation and speech delivery method, and of course the content the speakers presented.

As we were celebrating Diwali, Chitirra, LD1 had brought some Diwali cookies to delight the refreshment menu even more, together with our signature nasi lemak, wadeh, and curry puffs.

In the third session, it was time for us to learn from the feedback of others. Kim Chow, DTM, coordinated the session with her sensational, and commanding stage presence to lead through the session. The speech evaluators comprised of Chitirra, LD1 (Table Topics™ Evaluator), CP Lau, DTM; Hj Hashim, DTM; and Abdulrahman PM2. Through their feedback, the audience got to look at the speaker’s presentation in a clearer manner. The evaluators were trained to be critical and sharp in providing feedback that can help and motivate the speaker to improve.

In this meeting, I learned from Ken Chan, DTM, that different mentor has different approach of mentoring, nonetheless we still can keep our mind open to get mentorship from others as “it is free”. I also learned that "Luo Han Guo" (monk fruit) has many nutritional and medical values that can improve our immune system. And from my presentation, I hope more people will realize how powerful the functions provided in Microsoft Excel that can ease our day-to-day works.

I also felt thankful that Kim Chow, DTM came to our club to be our General Evaluator. Her evaluation given me perspective on how a speaker can command the stage via hand gestures and body languages.

1. Table Topics^™Master: Rajendra 2. Table Topics^™Evaluator: Chitirra, LD1
3. Invocation Presenter: KL Loh, ATMG 4. General Evaluator: Kim Chow, DTM
5. Toastmaster of the Evening: Manish Jha, IP1

The Best Performers of the meeting came as below,