It was 11th September 2012, many
people remember this date in memory of terrorist attack on twin tower attack on
world trade center attack in New York USA.
As people gathered in ground zero in memory of incident of those who
lost their lives, there is a group of people gathering together at Bangunan
MCA PJ Selatan, Lorong 8/1D Petaling Jaya. These people are the members of Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters club.
You can see the acceleration of excitement
of this group of people by the fact some of them were there as early 6pm. Oh! Yes,
they have come to set up the room. Anyone walking into the hall can immediately
sense that this is the hall of fame that is turning men and women to better
speakers and leaders of tomorrow.
Its almost 6.30pm and the food is laid out
with our local food, as usual there was “nasi lemak”, and other local
delicacies, well this time we got from a different stall to taste another
variety. As members enjoyed the food in the welcome room the sound of greetings
and laughter could be heard.
The sound of the hammer was heard at 7pm,
it was over Sergeant At Arms, TM Kyle Kuah, calling for the meeting to order and
there were seated all the members in a U-shaped pattern of sitting arrangement
in the meeting hall. He introduces the house rules and led the group in the
recital of “A Toastmaster’s Promise”. The President ACS, ACB Ken Chan walks up
with his face beaming with smile as the sergeant at arms invited him.
The President welcomed our distinguished
guest ACB, CL Alex Lu the general evaluator and welcomed all in a few words quoting
the theme of the day “Merge to Create”. He looked at the Grammarian CC Kelvin
Chong and invited him to introduce the word of the day. Kelvin shot in the word
'Synergy' as the word of the day, with its meaning interaction of elements
combined to produce a total effect greater than the sum of the individual
element. He quoted the example that we can develop synergy for the club when
members cooperate and work together as a team.
At the presidents invitation each member began to introduce themselves
as everyone acknowledged each other with applause on hearing the other speak.
Soon we hear the voice in the meeting hall
as changed, it is Toastmaster of the Evening, TM Mathew Philippose who has taken
control of the meeting at the invitation of the President. He stressed on the
theme “Merge to Create" and added that the phrase was first quoted in the
Merging Plan for the formation of Malaysia. He said when we merge we add our
resources and strength together, so in MM-KL TMC its growth is totally
dependent on senior and the newer members coming together to form a synergy to
create leaders of tomarrow. With that note he introduced the role-players with
each reading out the function in the meeting.
The Toastmaster of the Evening invited
Table Topics Master CC,CL Hj Hashim Adnan. The Table Topics Master did something
different he started a story of meeting US President Obama in the lift and
standing next to him Ken Chan, his unique conversation with Obama was to
continue with a story. Interestingly enough the platform taken by TM Mathew,
ACB Alex Lu; CC Kelvin Chong; ACS, ALB Ken Chan and finally TM Ron Yeap all
made the story spin from politics to rationalization what a synergy.
The meeting saw a combination of speeches
from both the competent communication and advanced communication manual. The
first speaker was TM Kyle Kuah on speech topic “Your Body Speaks” with his
title ABORTION. His speech portrayed the audience as a judge between the right
and wrong, morality, religion common sense and necessity of negativity to the
topic. As the audience was moved he concluded with the statement "When comes to
human is abortion when it comes to chicken it is omelet".
The next speaker TM Ron Yeap spotting with
a suite and a smiling face came with his research topic “Smoking Kills”. His
power point slides attracted the audience and he further captivated them by
taking a cigarette and demonstrating smoking. He hammered the point that what
is found as ingredient in the stick of cigarette are harmful. He quoted as
examples of items found in nail polish and rat poison. 
The scene changed with CC Serena Kong
taking the platform with a touching story titled story “Going Home”. She
illustrated the complexity of a woman as a mother and grandmother and how aging
has left the grandma lost in a city trying to find her way home as she is lost.
She took the story to a climax and ended it with the question if such is the
love of a grandma searching to fulfill the desire of her children, do we think
of going home to see our parents to show our love to them in return.
As Serena ended the speech the place was
rocked hearing the sound from podium. It was the voice of the toastmaster of
the evening reading the introduction to a public speech. He shifted the
audience to the steps of Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for
Jobs and Freedom, which was a defining moment of the American Civil rights
Movement. As the Toastmaster of the Evening invited ACS, ALB Ken Chan, suddenly
a voice thundered as the voice from Lincoln Memorial it was Martin Luther King
Jr public speech read by ACS, ALB Ken Chan who gave the glamour to the audience
to experience this great event in reality.
The prepared speeches were followed with a
break of food and fellowship together to little over ten minutes. The Sergeant
At Arms, TM Kyle Kuah sounded the hammer as all eyes were seated watching the hand
over of the meeting to the Toastmaster of the Eveningm TM Mathew Philippose. The Toastmaster pointed out its time to have
breakfast for champions, as everyone acknowledged it was the evaluation time he
invited the General Evaluator, ACB, CL Alex Lu to take over the evaluation session. The
audience was fed well with feedback from CC EK Yeo who played two roles both
evaluations for table topics session and TM Kyle Kuah's speech. As he gave his interesting evaluations, there were
smiles of eagerness to see how the dissections of the speeches were done. As he
was applauded the next evaluator CC Kelvin Chong was called to take the platform.
As usual with his beaming face with smile and with a clear voice he graded TM
Ron Yeap, helping the audience to learn even further.
One cannot miss the next evaluator CC, CL
Haji Hashim Adnan who when he was called to the platform came with a look of
authority and confidence as he peeled the speech by CC Serena Kong to be a good
learning experience as he congratulated her for her emotion in her speech
delivery. Standing up next to give the evaluation was DTM Francis Ng for ACS
ALB Ken Chan's speech, his clear evaluation was undoubtedly very rewarding.
With the drums rolling the best evaluator
went to CC Kelvin Chong, and it rolled again for the best speaker ACB, ALB Ken
Chan and with a thunderous drum roll again the Best Table Topics speaker was
crowned as ACS, ALB Ken Chan.
What an interesting evening to remember, however
we must not forget we had a very young student who walked in between our
meeting to observe, Chong See Soon. He gave a good observation remark as he saw
it, as he was called upon to say a few words. As the meeting ended, we adjourned to celebrate the birthdays of the month which is celeberated at the first meeting of each month. The members sang and clapped their hands has both DTM Francis Ng and TM Mathew cuts their birthday cakes. All enjoyed the lovely cheese cake with a lots of chit chat. As each person left the place there was satisfaction written over their face with expectation to come again for next meeting on September 25th 2012.Signing off,
Mathew Philippose
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