28.07.2020 Meeting # 466- Compassion and Faith

 

Compassion and Faith, are the 2 essential pillars of humanity. Without any of it, we would turn into a ruthless, uncivilized, and unworthy person. In this meeting, we are going to discuss deeper around this topic.

The meeting started with President’s opening speech. Our president, Julia Leong, DTM, led the theme discussion by telling us a story that happened to her son-in-law’s dental clinic where the value of compassion was shed to a less-fortunate patient. It ignited the motivation to the members and attendees to share their personal stories of the moment they contribute without asking for any return.

The Toastmasters meeting program usually comes in 3 sessions, which the 1^st session is called the Table Topics® Session; 2^nd part is the Prepared Speech session where the members came prepared with their speeches according to the Toastmasters education requirements; while the 3^rd session is called the Evaluation session where all the speakers that had spoken earlier were given a thorough feedback for their further improvement.

The first session kicked started by Abulrahman, PM2 who was the Table Topics® Master for the day. His topics related the impromptu speakers to the core of compassion and faith. We were fortunate to have seasoned speakers volunteer themselves to take up the impromptu speaking challenges. Among them are CS Ong, PM1, Datuk John Lau, DTM, Manish Jha, IP1, and Vijaykumar, CC.

The 2^nd session of the meeting started with Hai Liang, our newly-minted VPE, took the lead to deliver the 1^st project speech. He was delivering on Effective Coaching pathway Level 2 Project 2, Understanding Your Communication Style with the speech title “The Evolution of my Communication Style”. He shared with us his different experience and encounters while working abroad in many region and continents, and the communication style varied from place to place.

The second project speaker was Rey Thean, PM1 who was presenting a Level 2, Project 3 program from the Presentation Mastery path. Her title was, “My Blind Spot: The Button”. Through a personal incident that happened to her, she was able to learn a valuable lesson from her mentor. As she said,”A mentor is able to see through your blind spot immediately”

The third speaker was Mathew Philippose, EC2, whom would be delivering  a Social Speech from the Effective Coaching Pathway. He delivered an eulogy to commemorate the memorial day of Late Francis Ng, DTM, who was our passionate founding member and Past President. Although it was a short speech, we could feel the courtesy and sympathy it brought.

The meeting adjourned for a short break and resumed to the 3^rd session, the Evaluation session. We need a freash pair of eyes to observev the conduct of the meeting for our improvement. The honor of this role fall on the shoulder of the General Evaluator (GE), who is Past District 51 Governor, Ramdas Nayer, DTM.

He invited his team of speech evaluators for their feedback to the speakers. KL Loh, ATMG provided his laser sharp observation towards the Table Topics® speakers. Next, Mr. GE also called for the project speech evaluators which included Manish Jha, IP1, Julia Leong, DTM, and Datuk John Lau, DTM to give their views and feedback to the project speakers

After the Technical Role Players had also delivered their report, Mr. GE took over the control to give his evaluation speech on the conduct of this meeting. By his observation, our club had done many things right. He like the way our evaluators gave their evaluation speech which was not meant to ‘white-wash’ the speakers. They provided a lot of constructive feedback and encouragement to motivate the speaker to perform better.

The meeting came to a closing when finally President Julia Leong, DTM took over the control again. SHe announced the best performers of the evening.

Best Table Topics ® - Datuk John Lau, DTM

Best project Speech - Mathew Philippose, EC2

Best Evaluation Speech - Datuk John Lau, DTM

In her closing speech, Julia reminded our members that this is the club that has the safe environment for members to learn and grow as our motto will always be “Friends Helping Friends to Succeed”. She spoke her closing message with strong compassion and faith like a caring mother, just like what the theme of the meeting had called for.

The final highlight of the meeting was to have everyone turn on their camera to pose for a group photo. The meeting adjourned at 9.45pm.

Blog Writer: Ron Yeap, ACG, ALB

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2020/2021

14.07.2020 Meeting # 465- The Beginning Of New Normal

Meeting #465 (14.07.2020) marked as the beginning of the term. It was our club first meeting and many were excited. Members joined the zoom meeting earlier and started to chat to each other.

The first highlight of the meeting was the President’s Speech. President Julia Leong, DTM urged us to uphold the achievement of President distinguished club and our mission of friends helping firends to succeed. In essence, she encouraged us to take up the challenge to be a better speaker, as she said, “if I can do it, you can do it, we all can do it.”

After that, we have a short self-introduction and talked about the theme, “The beginning of a new normal”. Many shared how they had adapted to the changes, for example, learn to attend new meeting, wash hands more frequently, practice physical distancing, wearing mask, “grab” food, buy groceries online and follow the Government SOP guideline in the workplace. In general, the “New” normal has impacted our life. 

Followed by, an interesting Table Topics^® session. Here are the topics:

Speakers	Topics
Victor Wan, DTM	Will you plan to have a new normal trip?
Guest Aizat, MS2	How does the new normal affect your life?
Rey Thean, PM1	What is the hardest thing to comply in the new normal?
Manish, IP1	What is your “new normal” dining out experience?
Chloe Lau	Will the “new normal” ever go back to the old one?

The second highlight of the meeting was the ice-breaker speech, presented by Chloe Lau. She looked composed, spoke out loud and clear in her presentation. Listening to her speech, I started to know her a bit more. She loves English and she turned her interest to career. Two years ago, she opened her English Centre and students learned the Grammar at different paces. She is proud to become an educator. She found that Toastmasters is a platform where she can learn the soft skill like speech presentation, giving feedback that helps to make her a better person and can impact more life. She hopes she can learn and grow in Toastmasters while improving her English and fulfilling her dream.

Rey Thean, PM1, on the other hand, gave a very engaging speech and many had responded to her questions in her speech. She spoke well, paced well and her research presentation was very interesting. Well done, Rey!

Our third speaker, Mathew Philippose, EC2, gave his hats off to the previous EXCO team on their contributions to the club. He brought us back and recognise their efforts. His speech was so motivating. Thank you, Mathew!

The third highlight of the meeting was having a good General Evaluator and with her strong panel evaluators in the meeting. It was so happy to see the progress of Chitirra, LD1 in her evaluation. Her evaluation was very lively, and highlighted the strength of the speaker. The evaluation was so encouraging and it is so important to the speaker, especially it was the first speech presented by Chloe in the club. Keep it up, Chitirra, LD1. 

The fourth highlight of the meeting was the moment of encouragement. We voted the best performers of the night. The results were shown as below:

Best Table Topics^® Speech: Chloe Lau

Best Assigned Speech: Rey Thean, PM1

Best Assigned Speech Evaluation: Hj Hashim, DTM

We had a splendid night. This meeting adjourned with good speeches, positive vibes and constructive evaluations.

Blog Writer: Ron Yeap, ACG, ALB

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2020/2021

30.06.2020 Meeting # 464- What Toastmasters Means To Me

17 years of glory, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club closes its final meeting of the term with a bang together with their installation ceremony of the incoming EXCOs. What went on that night at the club, on the last day of the 2^nd half of the epic pandemic year of 2020?

We’ve been having an array of online meetings due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Today being the last meeting of the term, we decided to go with something different than the usual. The meeting kick started at 7.15pm online with our ASAA Serena Kong, ACB, CL introducing the house rules, leading the Toastmasters’ promise in which we take pride and to call upon the great KL Loh, ATMG for his final introductory address as club President.

With his zest, power and burning desire that has fuelled the torch that he will be passing on to the incoming President, he began his address with a boom and called upon all the members to share their wonderful experience in Toastmasters.

Today’s word of the day was ‘serve’ and each member gave a 3 minute rendition of how Toastmasters served them and how they served society in Toastmasters. It was truly an walk down memory lane for each of us.

Later on the Toastmaster of the Evening, Rey Thean, PM1 gave a brief history of Toastmasters International and the heritage and strength of Money Mastery-KL TMC. The respective role players Abdulrahman, PM2, as the As-Counter, Hai Liang as the Grammarian, EK Yeo, CC, CL as the Timer and our Division Director Kishan Doshi, DL5 as the General Evaluator explained their roles and we moved on to the highlight of the night which was our very first virtual Installation Ceremony.

Our Division Director, Kishan Doshi, DL5, gave his address and discharged the existing EXCO team.

We kick started the swearing in ceremony of each EXCO as follows: 

President-Elect: Julia Leong, ACG, ALB 

VP Education-Elect: Oo Hai Liang

VP Membership-Elect: Serena Kong, ACB, CL

Treasurer-Elect: Yeo Eng Keng, CC, CL

Secretary-Elect: Abdulrahman, PM2

SAA-Elect: Rey Thean, PM1

Congratulations to our amazing new EXCO 2020/2021 and we hope you serve the club in line with our Toastmasters Values of Integrity, Respect, Service and Excellence.

To the previous EXCO of Term 2019/2020, well done on being a President’s Distinguished Club and serving the club with your heart and soul.

Later on, we had our fun Quiz Master, Manish Jha, IP1 bring the whole Zoom meeting alive with a little general knowledge quiz by having us answer in teams. Nothing stops us from having fun at MMKL, not even a lockdown.

The respective role players gave us their best feedbacks and finally our President KL Loh, ATMG gave his epic closing for the last time. With his heart of gold and gratitude he thanked each and everyone in MMKL for their amazing support to serve when called upon to do so.

It was a heart to heart, soul to soul meeting that filled us with joy and hope for the upcoming term ahead. Nothing will stop MMKL from achieving its goals and may the force be with us.

Stay Safe Folks!

Blog Writer: Chitirra, LD1

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2019/2020

23.06.2020 Meeting # 463- Begin With The End In Mind

A glimpse of thought from Cetani Chen, DTM

Thank you for the opportunity for blogging.

As I aspire to learn better English, I joined an English Toastmasters Club. This could be a good beginning, I thought, I might be able to expedite the learning process like a student. But after joining for some time, I found that my progress was really slow, disappointedly slow.

However, I had built a strong foundation from my Mandarin Toastmasters Club, and I will not give up no matter what.

I wanted to present myself and my thought naturally and freely, but words went disappeared when I came to the stage. That’s is horrible. I made the effort to read English magazine, like the Toastmasters monthly magazine. When I saw those well written articles, it motivates me to learn the language better. I understand the language, I can read the language, but how come it is so difficult to speak it out? I would stutter like an old chunky truck.

I made an effort to write a better script, use a better vocabulary, but I did not manage to memorize it. I tried a few times and I still failed to perform. I had to accept the fact that I have left English speaking for more than 10 years. I have to re-learn the language, like a primary school child. I have to simplify my presentation, take it one step at a time, most importantly, I want to keep myself looked natural.

The topic that I have selected is called “ The Gift of Love”. This presentation allowed me to express myself in a way I am comfortable with. Although my speech may not be grammatically perfect, I was glad that I manage to overcome my fear. After the presentation, I felt a sense of comfort level and confidence building up in me.

I really want to thank the supportive members in Money Mastery-KL, for allowing me to walk on this path with you. I will put in more effort to prepare more speeches, and complete my path in this term. I believe that my effort will pay off eventually.

Blog Writer: Cetani, DTM

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2019/2020

09.06.2020 Meeting # 462- If It Is To Be, It Is Up To Me.

Word of the day: Clarity

Message from Club President, KL Loh, ATMG

“Are you taking total responsibility for your own success? Everyone who truly succeeds develops the attitude of a winner and becomes a leader. A positive attitude prepares you to success. How positive is yours? Are you excited about what you’re doing and where you’re going? What’s your attitude toward your career or business? How does stress affect your attitude? Total success includes maintaining a healthy lifestyle—a sound mind and body are key. Do you exercise and eat a balanced diet? Decision, commitment, dedication, conviction, and persistence are essential traits of a winner and leader. Are you focused on you dream and doing whatever it takes to achieve it? Do you make maximum use of your time? Some say luck has an impact on your ability to lead and succeed. Can that be true? Many say enthusiasm is key. But how enthusiastic are you? If It Is To Be, It’s Up To Me (Revised) shows you how to lead by setting goals and following your dream. You’ll learn the art of leading others for positive accomplishment and the essentials of HIGH PERFORMANCE LEADERSHIP. Tom Smith took his insurance agency from the bottom to number two in the nation. Along the way he suffered a stress-induced heart attack that almost killed him, but grew through it, regained his health, balanced his life, and ended up as a top leader in a highly competitive industry. He and his wife live in New Jersey. Read this book and you’ll know that…If it is to be, it’s up to me!”

At 7:16 pm, the Assistant Sergeant-At Arms Manish Jha, IP1 was called the meeting to order. He reminded members and guests of the house rules of the club before invited members of the Toastmasters to recite Toastmasters’ promise.

ASAA Manish Jha, IP1 passed his control to Club Acting President Rey Thean, PM1 for her president’s address.  She welcomed our members, guests and General Evaluator Gladys Choo, MS3. She gave a motivated and inspiring speech revolving “If it is to be, it is Up to Me”. Grammarian Vijaykumar, CC was invited to share with us word of the day “Clarity”. Then, she invited members and guests to have self-introduction and encouraged them to use the theme of the day and word of the day within the time limitation of 45 seconds for each one of us.

Wendy Sim, CC, the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME) took over the control from the Acting President with her welcome note. She displayed her ebullient and enthusiasm by sharing with us the history of Toastmasters as well as our club history. She introduced the role players (technical team) and invited them to share with us their roles for the meeting in the following sequence:

Ah-Counter – Abdulrahman, PM2

Grammarian – Vijaykumar, CC

Timer – EK Yeo, CC, CL

General Evaluator (GE) – Gladys Choo, MS3

After that, it was our club Table Topics® session. Hai Liang was the Table Topics® Master for the first time to carry out this session. Table Topics is an impromptu speech, you can speak within the topic or out of the topic as long as your speech with opening, body and conclusion.

The participants of table topics were:-

1)  Aizat – "Talent is the gift, but character is a choice"

2)  Hasbul – "The quality of life is more important than life itself."

3)  Vinayak – "Control your emotions or be consumed by them."

4)  Manish – "If your dreams don’t scare you, they are too small."

5)  Wendy Sim – "Strength comes from an indomitable will."

All the Table Topics® speakers came to the stage with confidence and delivered their speeches fluently without any hesitation, most importantly within the time limit allocated.

The next session were prepared speech session. We had 3 speakers who were from different background and their topics were informative, motivated and interesting.

Speaker	Evaluator	Summary
Julia Leong,  ACG, ALB	CP Lau, DTM	A change in time save lives She shared with us the message that if you stay in comfort zone lead it to down fall. Fear live in danger will take action to mitigate changes.
Mathew Philippose, EC1	Manish Jha, IP1	Dreaming to dream He shared with us the difference between mentor & coach whereas the former is for the long term and the later is for the short term guidance.
Salem Saleh, IP3	Hj. Hashim, DTM	Building A Social Media Presence He quoted if your business is not online, you will be out of business soon.

Abdulrahman, PM2 has conducted a 5 minutes induction of new members – Chloe and Salem Saleh, IP3. It was well applauded by the members for their Toastmasters journey.

The meeting had a 5-minute break before starting the speech evaluation session. The session was led by GE Gladys Choo, MS3. Without further delay, she invited her panel of role players to have their report.

Table Topics® Evaluator, Mathew Philippose, EC1, suggested some areas of improvement for the speakers:

A) Speech structure- A good speech must contain an opening, body and conclusion
B) Volume control- be aware of the note and pitch when speaking

Then followed by Speech Evaluation by Evaluator CP Lau, DTM, Manish Jha, IP1 and Hj. Hashim, DTM for their constructive feedback and recommendation to each of the speaker.

The technical reports were presented by Ah Counter Abdulrahman, PM2, Grammarian Vijaykumar, CC and Timer EK Yeo, CC, CL

Finally General Evaluator Gladys Choo, ABL, MS3 sum up the conduct of the meeting and her recommendation for our consideration.

Acting Club President Rey Thean, PM1, gave her closing speech and presented online certificate to winner of the Table Topics - Manish Jha, IP1. She also acknowledged the newly joined member Hai Liang who was first time took up the role as Table Topics Master in the meeting. She appreciated GE Gladys Choo, MS3 who spent her valuable time to help the club by giving her feedback and constructive recommendation. 

The meeting adjourn at 9:45 pm with Group photo via Zoom.

Blog Writer: EK Yeo, CC, CL

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2019/2020

26.05.2020 Meeting #461- Festival of Breaking the Fast

Word of the Day: Charity 

"Children are wearing new clothes bright colours fill the streets,

Their faces full laughter their pockets full of sweets,

 Let us rejoice indeed, This is the day of Eid" 

(Song By: Sami Yusuf)

The feeling of first breakfast

Being able to enjoy food again during the day! It felt amazing. This feeling is coming after a month long of day-time fasting. I have requested my family in Yemen to donate zakat al-fitr on behalf of me.

For Muslims, this charity is associated with the festival of eid al-fitr (Arabic).

Zakat al-fitr (charity of breaking the fast) is practiced by Muslims around the globe where, they usually donate a meal worth to the needy on the last day of fasting or just before performing the prayer of the first day of breaking the fast. The goal of this charity is to share joy with the needy people on that day. New clothes and lots of sweet.

Here in Malaysia where I stay, I was able to see some of my neighbors all wearing new colorful clothes. Some of them were with their kids preparing to go out on a day trip, to visit their relatives.

I still can see how joyful these kids cheerfully running down the staircase with their new clothes and probably after enjoying lots of sweet and receiving tons of money. It reminds me with my family back home and how we used to celebrate this festival. Despite the restriction and social distancing, it did not stop people to express their joy for this festival.

Physical distancing but never been a social distancing

Same for us in Money Mastery- KL Toastmasters club, social distancing did not stop MMKL-ers from having their social connection despite the enforced physical distancing.

We were able to enjoy our zoom meeting for the 3^rd time on the 3^rd day of the festival.

Having our assistant Sergeant-at-arms Rey Thean, PM1 to kick start the meeting at 7.25 pm, briefing us and our honorable guest about the meeting rules and the Toastmasters’ promise.

Selamat Hari Raya

With these words our charming President, KL Loh, ATMG, started welcoming everyone to the meeting. Seeing him with his sincere smile on my laptop screen It gave me almost the same warm feeling that I am craving for in a toastmaster meeting. 

To make sure that everyone feels warm in the meeting he led an ice breaking session for all participants. All the other thirteen members and three guests gave a self-introduction and said few words about the theme of the meeting and word of the day.

Think on your feet

At around 7:40pm, our Toastmaster of the evening (TME), Manish Jha, IP1 took control and started warming up the meeting with his smart dress and enthusiastic voice. He started by highlighting the success of the pathway program quoting some statistics data from the Toastmasters International.

He then passed control to our Table Topics^® Master, Nantha Kumar who led the first session of the meeting. In this impromptu speech session and what we call in toastmaster Table Topics^®, where it challenges new guests and members to speak and think on their feet.

Five brave souls took up the challenge and it went like this:

• Hai Liang spoke on what he appreciates the most in people, followed by
• Mathew, EC1, shared about his proudest moment, The third speaker was
• Elysia Teh, DTM, described her happiest moment, followed by
• Rey Thean, PM1, shared on what she loves to do, and finally the session ended up by
• CP Lau, DTM, humorously shared about his nicest thing he has ever done to someone.

 Prepared speeches

The next session was the prepared speeches session. The TME Manish Jha, IP1, introduced the three speakers and gave a short synopsis from their speeches.

The first speaker was Julia Leong, ACG, ALB who was attempting her Presentation Mastery Pathway for the first time. She had given us a six-minute Ice Breaker. She introduced herself to the club from the moment she was born to the moment where she is now, she titled her speech with “Legacy From My Matriarch”.

  

She was then followed by me, where I was attempting my Innovative Planning Pathway. It was my first prepared speech in the club and I had to give an Ice Breaker about myself. I spoke for 8 minutes, shared my story how I first thought of Malaysia and how I ended up in Toastmasters.

The third speaker was VijayKumar, CC, attempting Effective Coaching Pathway for his third project in level 1, where he needed to Research and Present a well-researched speech on Design Thinking.

At 9:10 pm we had a break for 5 minutes marking the end of our 2^nd session and preparing for the next one.

Evaluation session

This is the last session of the meeting where both speakers in impromptu and prepared speeches session were given an evaluation as a feedback to help them improve on their speeches.

Our General Evaluator (GE), Geoff Andrew, DTM led the session. With his kind words and sincere heart, Geoff Andrew, DTM, explained the purpose of the evaluation session which serves to motivate members and giving them a feedback on how to improve on next speeches.

He started by passing control to the table topic evaluator, Chitirra, LD1, which she gave a 5-minute evaluation feedback to the five speakers who attempted the Table Topics^® at the beginning of the meeting. Another three evaluators, Hai Liang, CP Lau, DTM and Elysia Teh, DTM, took turns to give a 3-minute evaluation feedback for the three project speakers including me.

CP Lau, DTM was evaluating my speech and he started by praising me for the things that I did well in my speech. It gave me a nice feeling to open my heart and listen more to him before he pointed out the things that I need to work on and finally he ended his two-minute speech by telling me the things that I need to challenge myself in the future. Receiving that feedback, I felt like he was really listening attentively to my speech.

Receiving feedback is uncomfortable sometimes but with CP Lau’s sincere heart and caring words, I was able to listen and accept. This is what Toastmasters all about “positive learning environment”.

Speech crutches, grammar, and time management

We then had Ah-counter, Maheindran to tell each speaker how many speech crutches we unconsciously did while speaking. There was also a 5-minute Grammarian report by EK Yeo, CC, CL, to give us some feedback on the correct pronunciation and misspelled words and nice phrase that we used during our speeches.

And there was a timing report by Timer, Abdulrahman, PM2, where he let each speaker knows about their speech time. For me I was speaking for 8 minutes where I should not exceed 6 minutes.Exceeding time had left me, and Vijay disqualified from entering the voting for best speaker award.

A good lesson to learn!

Conclusion

The General Evaluator gave his overall feedback on the meeting before presenting the digital certificates to Best Table Topics^® speaker and Best Speech Evaluator. We were able to take some screen photos before we left the meeting with many thoughts in mind.

I was so excited to attend the meeting after being lonely at home for a long time. This meeting gave me a chance to be connected with my club members. Despite the physical distance, we never felt the social distance.

Thanks to Toastmasters and to Zoom meeting made it possible for us to learn and connect.

I am still wondering what should we call it, a social distancing, or a physical distancing? 

(let me know in the comments)

Blog Writer: Salem Saleh, IP3

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2019/2020