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Meeting #263, 27th Nov 2012

27 Nov, 2012 was a very special and honorable day for Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. Despite the normal meeting as scheduled, we have some very special guests, our Toastmasters International President 2012/2013, DTM Dr. John Lau visited us! In addition, our club sponsor, DTM Geoff Andrew was our General Evaluator of the meeting. Our Division G Governor, ACS, ALB Thiagarajah Nesan also visited us!

It was a rainy day, heavy rain in fact. However, we had a great attendance for this meeting. We had our usual seasoned Toastmasters, our youngest Toastmaster and some guests participated in the meeting.

It was a little different for this meeting. We used up to 2 rooms for our meeting. As we are in the  progress of preparing for our first ever Open House Event, we were planning for some video shooting for some esteemed Toastmasters to share with our guests on why Toastmasters, CC, Serena Kong had also set up s second room for this purpose.

The team was here at the Bangunan MCA, in PJ Selatan quite early for our 263rd meeting on 27th November 2012. This was the last meeting we had in this meeting venue for year 2012. This is because our meetings in December all fall on public holidays. We are going to have another joint meeting with Puchong English Toastmasters Club on 17 December 2012 (Monday) at 8:00pm.

The theme of the meeting was "Counting Down... Preparing... Welcoming You!", proposed by the Toastmaster of the Evening, CC, CP Lau. We are marching into the final month of the year. Many of us despite busy counting down for the festive holidays, a lot of us are still busy preparing for budget allocation and sales target setting for year 2013.

Our club is also counting down, preparing and welcoming all to our first ever Open House Event to be conducted on 15 December 2012. To all members, please look out for further details from our blog, Facebook Group.

The word of the day was "Resplendent". This was proposed by CC, Serena Kong, our Grammarian of the day.

CC, CP Lau started off the meeting by explaining to our guests about the history of Toastmasters International as well as our club, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. He also mentioned some of the benefits as Toastmasters.

Table Topics session has always been the most interesting session of the meeting. Our Table Topics Master was CC, CL EK Yeo. The topics prepared was in conjunction with our theme of the day and they were simple that all our participants were able to spoke on their feet.  Thanks to EK for your great effort.

Our participants for the table topics were:-
1.    CC, Mathew Philippose
2.    ATMG, KL Loh
3.    CC, Kelvin Chong
4.    DTM, Dr. John Lau
5.    CC, Ron Yeap
They are emphasizing an important point 

Bravo to all of them for accepting the challenge and giving their impromptu speeches.

The meeting moved on to the very interesting session, the project speech session. We have 3 speeches lined up for the members.

TM Mahadevan has begun the session by delivering his 4th speech. His speech objective was - How to Say It, and his speech was "Prevention is Better than Cure". He shared his experience on how to be healthy. It is always important to prevent something from happening instead of having to cure it later on. Mahadevan's speech has got us to think of our health.

CC, Mathew Philippose (Yes! He is officially a Competent Communicator now!) was the second speaker of the day. He presented his final speech of the CC manual, where he was to Inspire His Audience! His speech title was "Life is a Journey".  He started his speech by lighting up 3 candles wit different lengths. This indicated different of him at different ages, different stage of life. He emphasized that life is a journey, not a destiny. We must all live to the fullest of our life. With his powerful message, he has truly inspired us. Well done Mathew! A standing ovation from all of us to your achievement in the Toastmasters journey!

Our 3rd speaker was none other than our President, Ken Chan, ACS, ALB. He presented his 2nd story from the Storytelling series from the Advanced Communication manual - Let's Get Personal. His title was "Scam City". He shared with us his experience that he scratched a "Toyota Altis". However, it was a scam as there were more than 5 of his neighbors also scratched the same "Grand Prize" for the same day.

After the break, the meeting proceeded to the Speech Evaluation session. ACB, ALB Julia Leong was the evaluator for all participants of the Table Topics session. She commented on the strengths of every speakers. Not only that, she also provided constructive suggestions to them on how to improve and bring their speaking skills to the next level. Thank you Julia.

DTM, Francis Ng evaluated on Mahadevan's speech. from his evaluation, it was advised that Mahadevan should present some very specific points instead of the general points. perhaps he could have zoomed into one particular point and described in more detail.

ATMG, KL Loh evaluated on Mathew's speech. he evaluated on his speech content that every small story from him actually described the journey of his life and it inspired the members.

DTM, Dr. John Lau, our Toastmasters International President 2012/2013 evaluated the last speaker, Ken Chan. It was a very interesting evaluation from him. He suggested to Ken to changed the tonality and excitement to make the story more interesting.

Our Mr. General Evaluator, DTM, Geoff Andrew also provided his comments and constructive advices to speakers for their improvements.

DTM, Dr. John Lau was awarded The Best Table Topics Speech award, Ken Chan, ACS, ALB was awarded The Best Project Speech award and DTM, Dr. John Lau was awarded The Best Project Speech Evaluation award.

Appreciation to our role players of the meeting:-
·         ASAA -  CC, CP Lau
·         TME - CC, CP Lau
·         Grammarian - CC, Serena Kong
·         Ah Counter - CC, Ron Yeap
·         Time Keeper - CC, Kelvin Chong

The Toastmasters International President, DTM, Dr. John Lau also shared with us his valuable experience on how he met with people, encouraged and helped them to embark on the Toastmasters journey. His great manner, humble approaches as well as the enthusiasm has walked the talk of "Why Toastmasters!".

As the token of appreciation for his visit, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club has presented a book titled "The Legacy Effect". We wish that DTM, Dr. John Lau, on his journey to visit Toastmasters around the world, will leave a legacy for all of us! (and carry our signatures to tour around the world!)

Meeting adjourned at 9:30pm.

Meeting #262, 19th Nov 2012


 Our 262nd Toastmasters meeting was a special one. Our original date for our meeting was on 13 Nov, which is a Deepavali holiday. We have our first joint meeting this term.

It was a joint meeting with University Malaya Toastmasters Club (UMTMC) on 19 Nov, 2012 (Monday).

"Holiday Mood" was the theme of the meeting and "Sojourn" was the word of the day. Sojourn means temporary stay.

DTM Francis Ng and I were there in University Malaya (UM) at around 6:00pm. Although the meeting would start at 7:00pm, we saw some of the Toastmasters had started to set up for the meeting room. We felt enthusiasm in these young Toastmasters.

The President of UMTMC, TM Cheok Wei Chin gave her opening speech. The university has just resumed after a one week of holiday break. She shared with us how "difficult" for her, whom was still very much in the holiday mood, to wake up for the lectures.

TM Fatima took over as the Table Topics Master of the meeting. She had prepared topics which were related to the theme of the day, holiday mood. The participants of the table topics session were as below:-

1.    Our club member, TM Mathew, spoke on the topic of "Festive Miracle".
2.    UMTMC member, ACB, CL Jing Yi, spoke about the festive that she looks forward.
3.    CC, CP Lau was given the topic "food delegacy on festive seasons". he highlighted moon cakes on Mid Autumn Festival, 'Yee Sang" during Chinese New Year.
4.    UMTMC member, TM Wei Chin shared with us her "dream holiday".

The meeting moved on to the project speech session. Our enthusiastic TM, Mahadevan presented his third speech of the CC manual, Get to the Point. His speech title was "How to have a Long, Healthy and Happy Life". Mahadevan told us that he is currently 65 years old and was diagnosed as a diabetic at the age of 50. However, he did not give up. Instead, he was so determined to take care of his health and looked forward to live up to 120 years. He shared with us how we should control our diet, exercise and with the help of supplements in order for him to achieve his goal - to live up to the age of 120 years.

The second speaker of the meeting was our young TM Kyle Kuah. Kyle has chosen a very serious topic, about "Capital Punishment" for his seventh speech in the CC manual - Research Your Topic. He has done very well in researching about this topic. He shared with us a lot of statistics on countries that support and object on capital punishment. There are pros and cons about abolishing the capital punishment. However, Kyle has managed to deliver such a serious topic in a very interesting manner. He ended his speech with a humor. Someone said, "We should forgive the prisoner, until they are hung". Well done, Kyle!

TM, Wei Chin from UMTMC presented her eighth speech - Get Comfortable with Visual Aids of the CC manual. Her speech title  was "Smoking Hot! Not? No!!!". Obviously, it was a topic to encourage people to stop smoking and do not start smoking. This reminded me of our CC Ron Yeap, delivered the similar topic during his eighth speech from the CC manual. Wei Chin used power point slides throughout her speech. She shared with us very informative slides on all statistics about smoking. We got to know from her presentation that the US president, Barrack Obama used to smoke.

Our last speaker of the meeting was CC, Ing Ting, presented her first speech from the Advanced Communication Series, Storytelling. Her first project speech on the Storytelling series was - The Folk Tale. The story title was "The Heroine". She told us a story of a young girl from China by the name of Mulan, represented her father to be the soldier.
After the break, the meeting proceeded to the Speech Evaluation session. DTM Francis Ng was the General Evaluator of the meeting. Our President, ACS, ALB Ken Chan was the Table Topics Evaluator. he described the speaking style of every table topics participants. Ken;s constructive suggestions for all speakers on how to improve and bring their speaking skills to the next level was very much appreciated. Thank you Ken.

Below are the evaluators for the respective speakers:-

1.    CC, Chen Long (member of UMTMC) evaluated TM, Mahadevan
2.    ACB, CL Jing Yi (member of UMTMC) evaluated TM, Kyle Kuah
3.    CC, CP Lau evaluated TM, Wei Chin
4.    TM, Mathew evaluated CC, Ing Ting

Our Mr. General Evaluator, DTM Francis Ng, also provided his comments and constructive suggestions to speakers for their improvements.

TM, Mathew was awarded The Best Table Topics Speech award, TM, Wei Chin was awarded The Best Project Speech award and CC, CP Lau was award The Best Project Speech Evaluation award.

Appreciation to our role players of the meeting:-
·         ASAA - TM, Sara (member of UMTMC)
·         TME - TM, Kelvin
·         Grammarian - TM, Agnes Tan (member of UMTMC)
·         Ah Counter - TM, Sara
·         Time Keeper - TM, Agnes Tan
 Meeting adjourned at 9:00pm.

Signing off,
CP Lau

Meeting #261, 30th October 2012

The clock was ticking. It was close to 7.00pm and the Klang Valley area was in a retarding traffic flow due to earlier downpour. It was the fifth Tuesday of the month, where Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club would have their meeting.

The meeting was forced to start 14 minutes late, but to everyone’s surprise, members and guests were not deterred by the traffic condition ahead of them in attending a Toastmasters meeting. A number of members and guests had shown up for the meeting.


Ken Chan delivering his opening speech
After Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms Mathew Philippose, TM called the meeting to order, he led us through the recital of 'A Toastmaster's Promise'. The chair was handed to President Ken Chan, ACS, ALB for his opening address. Ken invited the Grammarian to read out the Theme of the Day and Word of the Day, which was ‘Year End Vacation’ and ‘concerted’. Every Toastmaster and guest who stood up to make self-introduction had not short of using the Theme of the day as well as the Word of the Day. Ken thought that ‘Year End Vacation’ is still early.


Ron Yeap as Toastmaster of the Evening
President Ken Chan passed the control of the meeting to the Toastmaster Of the Evening, Ron Yeap, CC. Ron greeted everyone who made it to the meeting. Ron explained that Year End Vacation fever is approaching as the school holiday will start soon. It is also the right timing to plan ahead if anyone will go for a Year End Vacation. He also introduced to our guests the history of Toastmasters as well as Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club.




Francis Ng as Table Topics Master
After the formal opening of the meeting, we proceeded to the first exciting program of the meeting, the Table Topics Session. Ron handled the control to the Table Topics Master, Francis Ng, DTM. Francis used a different approach in conducting the session. He framed a scenario to the audience, with “The year end vacation has started, my wife and our two daughters and son went for an enjoyable vacation…” Participants will have to continue the story and keep it evolving. We had Mathew, Kelvin, Wendy, Anwar and Ken took part and gave their plots and views of the topic.



Our guests were actively taking part in Table Topics session


Moving on, we had our new and committed member, Mahadevan, TM to deliver his 2nd speech from Competent Communicator manual. His speech title was “The Power of Our Sub-conscious Mind”. He gave an interesting example using sub-conscious mind when he was searching for a parking lot. Whenever he reaches a destination, someone will pull out from the parking lot.

We have Kyle Kuah, TM as our 2nd speaker in delivering speech no. 6, Vocal Variety. Kyle presented a fairy tale story “The Princess and the Pea”. The story went alive from Kyle. He did not end his story in a normal manner, he commented the fairy tales contained many out-of-logical plots, like why a king has to open the castle door by his own, where are the servants!? How come the mighty fiery dragon can get killed easily by the hero of the story?


The final speech saw Mathew Philippose, TM delivering his 9th speech, Persuade with Power. His speech title was “Love Your Neighbour”. Mathew pointed out some people lack of caring towards others. Finally, he also offered the telephone number of Bukit Aman so that we can seek immediate aid should needed.

A special talk given by Sarah Abedi
In this meeting, we were fortunate to have invited Sarah Abedi, DTM, the Assistant Division C Governor for Education and Training to share with us on ‘How to Perform Your Role as a Good Grammarian’. Sarah offered tips on how we can be rich in choice of words by practising having words of different degree (positive, neutral and negative) in mind, so that we can be more expressive in our communications. It was a very educational and beneficial session to our members as well as guest.

The meeting went to 15 mins break at 8.50pm. Members and visitors took the opportunity to enjoy the refreshments.

Coming back fresh after the break, the meeting proceeded with Evaluation session. CP Lau, CC was our General Evaluator that led us through the Evaluation session. We have EK Yeo, CC, CL as our Table Topics Evaluator. He managed to pinpoint the strength and room of improvement to all the Table Topics Speakers. He also complimented Wendy, who was our guest, on her willingness to take part.

First Project Speech Evaluation started by Victor Wan, ACB, ALB on his evaluation to Mahadevan. Victor enjoyed in Mahadevan’s topic, but also stressed that the organization of the speech is important to help audience be focus on the topic that he presented.

The next Evaluation on Kyle Kuah was conducted by Francis Ng. Francis liked the way Kyle presented a well-known fairy tale in a lively way. He also complemented Kyle that he could leave the audience with some points to ponder.

The last Evaluation was from Ken Chan to Mathew Philippose. Ken agreed with Mathew’s topic that is to ‘Love Your suggested Mathew should give more emphasis on why we should take action and start ‘Love Your Neighbour’.

Many hands were raised and given more feedbacks by the audience to the speakers during the Open Evaluation session.

The Grammarian, Sarah shown us a good example of performing this role. She highlighted on the excellent use of phrases, corrected the misuse of words and grammer. Time Keeper’s report was delivered by Victor Wan; while Ah-Counters report was delivered by Kelvin Chong, CC. General Evaluator CP Lau then summing up his report about the meeting.

When the TME took over the chair, he was accompanied by the president to present the awards to the best performers of the meeting. The results are as below;

Best Table Topics Speech award: Ken Chan, ACS, ALB

Best Project Speech award: Mahadevan Arumugam, TM

Best Project Speech Evaluation award: Francis Ng, DTM

Finally, the President took over the control to deliver his closing speech and made announcement of some up-coming activities. The president had also presented the token of appreciation to the 1st-time General Evaluator, CP Lau for his effort. Not forgetting the token of appreciation to Sarah Abedi for accepting our invitation. We also welcome 2 new members joining the MMKLTMC family, En. Anwar and Ms. Angel.
The meeting ended fruitfully at 10.00pm. We took this opportunity to take a group photo for submission to Brands contest of Toastmasters International.
Toastmasters International!! We want to be heard!!


Signing off,

Ron Yeap




















Meeting #260, 23rd October 2012



23rd October 2012 is a very special day for Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. It is very special for a number of reasons. Firstly it is a day after Toastmasters Day. Oh! Yes, Toastmasters International completed 88 years. As for Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club we are going to witness two special speeches, the Ice Breaker speech by our newest member Mahadevan Arumugam, TM and also Ron Yeap, TM is giving his final speech from the Competent Communication manual.

On this day the weather was fine and the coolness of the day was a good setting for this special day. What can one say of the excitement that filled the faces of all who walked in?  It was not only the members who were trailing in to the special meeting room in 3rd floor MCA PJ Selatan building; it was our four guests who were coming for the first time.

Oh! Yes, we begun our meeting with lots of food and fellowship. Greetings were exchanged and there was much laughter and fun as members and guests were talking to each other creating much life to the environment. So who were our guests? They were Meyyappa Manickam, DTM from Exact ADC Toastmasters Club, Delliotte Malaysia Toastmasters Club and also the Division B Governor; and our first time guests, Mr. Anwar Ahmad, Ms. Agnes Wong and Ms. Tracy Li.

The Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms Serena Kong, CC calls the meeting to order. She reminded all present on the house rules, and led the members to recite “A Toastmaster’s Promise”.  She then handed the meeting over to President Ken Chan, ACS, ALB announced the theme of the day as “Voice is Breaking”. Later at the President requested the Grammarian CP Lau, CC to introduce the “Word of the Day” as “Melodious”. It is an adjective pronounced muh-loh-dee-uhs.  He said the meaning: 1) having a pleasant sound or pleasing tune having a melody. 2) Agreeable to hear. Examples: 1) Their melodious singing and impressive dancing makes them great candidates for the leads in the upcoming musical. 2) He relaxed under the tree, listening to the melodious sounds of nature.

The President then invited members and guests to introduce themselves, many of them used both the word of the day and the theme of the day as they introduced themselves and their respective roles for the evening. He next invited the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME) Mathew Philippose, TM to take over the meeting. The Toastmaster reemphasized on the theme of the day and called the Table Topics Master Serena Kong, CC to lead the session in table topics. 

There were five volunteers gave an impromptu speech that was interesting as they were all given topics based on the word of the day. Truly one can say the voice is breaking as the speeches rolled off. Two of them were our first time guests, Mr. Anwar and Ms. Agnes.

As the TME took control again He introduced the first speaker Toastmaster Mahadevan Arumugam, as soon as the Evaluator and General Evaluator spelled out the objectives and roles respectively. First timer, Mahadevan took the floor with much eloquence and confidence with the title ‘The Melodious Life of Mahadevan’. Truly we came to know more of him and his achievements.  One thing we know he is a happy man and although he has passed 60, believes he can live to the age of 120 years. In his gesture of love was willing to share his secret to anyone keen to know about longevity.

Next speaker was Toastmaster Ron Yeap with the title “My Fruitful Journey as a Toastmaster’. Ron Yeap was giving his 10th speech from the Competent Communication manual. It was a speech full of emotion, bringing forth his aspirations in the journey of Toastmasters; he did share some disappointments and his hopes that keep him going to this final speech. He was so expressive and entertaining with his humor and witty remarks. Some of his remarkable phrases were: “the soul is placed in the body like diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear”, “I know that I will achieve a very small milestone in the long Toastmaster’s journey”. As he concluded one can say it is not the Ron Yeap we saw few months back his voice has broken to a loud confident speaker.

The final speaker for the day was from Ken Chan, ACS, ALB and he was speaking from the Advance Communication Manual, Specialty Speeches. He made the audience the Human Resource of a company and he was selling the idea of setting up of a Toastmasters club in the company. The unique title of his speech was, “Now Everybody Can Sell”. Towards the end he called upon the audience for questions, he took on the questions like an expert. It was an inspiring moment to see him lift the meeting to a climax in the project speeches and in a voice that is breaking to greater height.


           It was by this time due for the most wanted break and once again guest and members adjourned to refreshment corner as the TME announced the break time. It was a good break of almost 15 minutes and all were gathered back for Evaluation Session.

 The Evaluation session was led by the General Evaluator Meyyappa Manickam, DTM. At his invitation EK Yeo, CC, CL praised the participants who bravely came to speak. He noted well some points such as repeating the title was good for an evaluator to understand the topic, he congratulated for eye contacts and body languages. He said it was remarkable to hear good speeches by both the new guests Mr. Anwar and Ms. Agnes.

He was followed by Francis Ng, DTM evaluator for our Ice Breaker speech by TM Mahadevan. He congratulated Mahadevan for his first speech and said it was well organized in a chronological order of events. He said “This has helped us to know you better.” 

We had EK Yeo coming up again with a broad smile and congratulating Ron Yeap who will now move to Competent Communicator (CC). He said Ron Yeap’s final CC speech was captivating the audience added with body gesture, facial expression and it was topped up with lots of humor and vocal variety
Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL evaluated Ken's speech and highlighted the 6 steps of selling.
During the open evaluation, there were many feed-backs from the floor on the speeches delivered.

Than came the reports from the Grammarian on misused words and words and phrases that was commendable. The Ah counter said there were not much of ahs or umps or repeats and mentioned the few. The Time Keeper gave the timing report from the beginning and it was noted that all went on time.


And finally we had the General Evaluator who summed up the evaluation with praises, admiration and areas where improvement can be made. He handed the meeting back to the TME. The TME than called on the President Ken Chan to give away the awards. The ‘Best Table Topic Speech’ award went to Mathew Philippose, the ‘Best Project Speech’ went to none other than Ron Yeap and the ‘Best Sppech Evaluator’ went to Francis Ng, DTM. The 
President called the guests to give their opinion of the meeting. The guests showed much enthusiasm has they gave their remarks. 

It is the tradition of Toastmasters for recognition of the significant achievements by the members. Tonight, we gave away 2 standing ovations to our two members of the club that had achieved different milestones in Toastmasters.  
 
Our first standing ovation went to TM Mahadevan, who made his debut speech tonight; and the second standing ovation went to TM Ron Yeap, who had completed the 10 speeches in the Competent Communication manual. Congratulations to both of them.

The President then with concluding remarks and said the day met the theme objective and our voice is breaking and there is melody in our speeches. Before he ended, he invited the General Evaluator, Meyyappa Manickam, DTM to receive a token of appreciation for making time to play an important role in our meeting tonight. He adjourned the meeting at 9.35pm.

Signing off,
Mathew Philippose