Toastmasters Meeting #343

At 6.00PM it started to drizzle and when it rained, it poured. Through some divine intervention, at 6.30pm, the rain disappeared as strangely as it appeared.

By then, our dedicated Toastmasters (aka DTM [Distinguished Toastmaster] ), Pres Mathew, IPP Serena and EK Yeo were already at the venue, finalizing the U-shaped layout and with F&B in place. Applause aloud to them, thanks.

Members who were early birds, treated to themselves the best of worms and devoured the F&B with delight. No worries, a lot to go around as usual.

Most members present, dutifully pay up their quarterly dues to our trusty Treasurer, EK Yeo. Will the rest of you, please pay up!

Our club was honored by many TM guests present and who played the following roles”

General Evaluator - May Ong

Evaluator – Eugene Kok

Grammmarian - Tan Yong Jue

As Radio talk show host – Shafinas

Victor Ong, DTM

Guest – Aris 

At 7.15 PM sharp, our new member and first time ASAA, Foo Fung Jiun called the meeting to order

Our Pres, Mathew kicked off the meeting with a warm welcome to all present and set the pace going for the theme of the day (TOD) – Live laugh love.  Mathew encouraged us to live up to the theme and laugh at everyone’s attempt on humor. In jest, Mathew laughed “Ha ha ha!” (By the way, what happened to laughter yoga mantra, hi hi hi, ha ha ha, ho ho ho?)

 

The Grammarian, Tan Yong Jue give us the meaning of the word of the day (WOD) “Repose”.

Thereafter, members and guests took turn to introduce themselves while putting the WOD into action.

The President passed the control to toastmaster of the evening (TME), yours truly Ken Chan, I briefed the meeting on the history of TM. 

Since many knew of toastmasters, I willfully asked the audience for answers on the history for example: “When was TM founded and in how many countries and number of clubs?” This is one sly way of soliciting the best answers from the audience to recall one’s memoryJ.  In Toastmasters, we called this tactic as engaging and involving the audience.

Eagerly, I as the invocator of the day, jumped into invocation mode, riding on the Theme of the day (TOD) – Live, laugh, love. As to invoke was to uplift the spirits, I solicited from the audience, the buzz words relating to the TOD, hoping to stir up the spirits of the audience and evoke the emotions of live laugh & love. At one point, I exalted, “laughter is the best medicine”. I asked the audience to laugh for the sake of laughing. Thus I closed off with the punch line, “if you laugh for no good reason, then you need medicineJ”.

On the point of love, I implored the audience to say with sentimental vocal variety to a loved one, something like this: “You are the love of my life, you complete me, without you, I’m nothing.” These words sent goose bumps to some females in the audience, particularly Shafinas, who has to cover her face. Was she bedazzled, bemused or bewildered? To tickle everyone, I mentioned, I had said that line already in the morning and will do again tonight. But not necessarily to the same womanJ.

Moving on to  Table Topics (TT), helmed by Table Topics Master (TTM), Chee Heng King . As first timer TTM, Heng King was already with topics relating to the TOD. As time was aplenty, we managed to slot in 6 Table Topics Speakers, namely: Dr Thilla, Haji Hashim, Fung Jiun, Kevin and guests Eugene & Aris.  Our unorthodox TTM, attempted to decide on who & what topic speak on for one or two speakers. Undoubtedly, everyone gave his or her best shot to speak spontaneously but the one who scored was…drum roll please. 

With time on track, we swiftly swing into the assigned speech session with slots for four.

Speaker no.1 Yap Ooi Yee was a first time speaker, speaking on the Competent Communication manual on The Ice Breaker, Titled: The First To Be Born. She strutted that the first born in the family is smarter, stronger and swifter. Obviously, I’m not amused but as many in the audience are first born and surprisingly, she secured the sentiments to support her speech and sealed it with success.

The remaining three speakers spoke on the Advanced Communication manuals.

Speaker no. 2, Kevin Khoo spoke on the Persuasive Speaking manual in The Effective Salesperson, titled: 6 Steps to an Effective Sales Strategy. Kevin was confident enough that he could sell anything, including selling ice to Eskimos and sand to the desert Bedouin. Before we know it, he will be coaxing the bird from the tree to land on his handJ

Speaker no.3, Dr Thilla Chelliah spoke on the Public Relations manual – The Radio Talk Show, titled: Vocational Training Opportunity Centre VTOC. In the scenario  Dr Thilla played the role as the guest speaker advocating that disadvantaged women can take advantage of VTOC. The Radio talk show was hosted by Shafinas representing the radio station in this project speech.  Dr Thilla, your efforts in advocacy was admirable. You rocked.

Speaker no.4, Tuan Hj Hashim Adnan, spoke on the Entertaining Speaker – A Dramatic Talk, titled: Expect the Unexpected. This young at heart speaker was full of energy and rather dramatic as he related to his recent life threatening attack of dengue fever recently. Until now, little did we know that our beloved Haji was in such a perilous position? Expecting for the worst at one point, unexpectedly things turn dramatically for the better. Thank goodness, gracious God. If that’s not dramatic enough, the golfer in him wanted to tee off as soon as possible.  But the doctor insisted on repose and with no expose to the elements or risk danger of dispose. This led to the next saga on seeking refund from AirAsia.  As Hashim put it, it was like pinching pennies from the poor. Hashim then attempted to cancel and seek refund of his AirAsia flight ticket to Indonesia. After much ado about meeting the refund requirements like, the refund was a mere Rm20 after the doctor’s report fee, ex cetera. Talk about drama and expect the unexpected.

Break was a full 10 minutes as we were on schedule.

The General Evaluator, May Ong took over the Evaluation session and put her team of evaluators into action.

EK Yeo was our TT evaluator and as usual was very positive in his feedback to all the TT speakers as well as supportive in sharing their areas of improvement. One can’t help but always feel good after EK’s constructive comments.

The speech evaluators were Mathew, Eugene, Serena and Johnny. The sandwich style was the order of the day for evaluation. By that, we meant the evaluators started with commending the speakers on what they like about the speech, followed up with few recommendations for improvement and closed off with commending the speaker’s overall efforts as well as to strive on speaking. Overall, there were more bouquets than brickbats, more kisses than kicks J

Not forgetting that in our club, we practice open evaluation. This is where members from the floor can add further value by commenting on the project speeches. Notably, most comments were on Kevin’s sales pitch where the prospective buyer’s inputs ought to be sought and listened thoroughly and thought through.  Keep on selling, Kevin and you will be on your winning ways.

Following this, the role players delivered their reports. The Grammarian, Tan Yong Jue, highlighted a number of good phrases such as: Learn by doing. Leave your mark. If you live life, laugh lots, ladies will find you, lovable. Be repose, not expose, lest be disposed. Expect the unexpected. Three types of people: the smart, the steady and the silly ones.

Wendy Sim, as the Ah Counter was rather benign and there was hardly any collection of penalty on speech crutches. No ka-ching! Manish Kumar, a first timer was obviously stepping in the right direction towards the Rolex official timekeeper.

Our immaculately dressed General Evaluator, May Ong took back the control. Her feedback to us was perhaps we could dress up a notch higher, e.g. jackets for guys. May wished that our applause could be more aplomb and aplenty. It’s time that we volunteer a member to be our clap master!

Finally, our Pres Mathew took over the control for the award presentations, announcements and closing address.

The winners are…drum roll please!

-          Tuan Haji Hashim as the best TT speaker.

-          Best project speaker was…our first time speaker, Yap Ooi Yee. A star is born! We look forward to more shining speeches from this rising star.

-          The best speech evaluator was Johnny Yong.

Mathew also recognized the efforts of Hj Hashim and Dr Thilla for their efforts as sponsor and mentor respectively of a newly chartered club, MASHSA Toastmasters Club, where our club was awarded the Founders award as the sponsoring club. Kudos to you all for keeping our club flag flying. We admired your true Toastmasters spirit in sharing the benefits of Toastmaster to others.

Mathew also presented the President’s Distinguished Club (PDC) award to the immediate past president, Serena Kong for leading the club with full points 10/10 in the Distinguished Club Program. This is our 13^th straight year running as PDC. Three cheers to Money Mastery-KLToastmasters Club!

Members are reminded of Div C Christmas celebration this Friday and to prepare for the club International Speech & TT contests on Tue 12, January 2016.

We left our legacy with one for the album. Now, group photo and everyone, say cheese!

We topped off the end of the meeting with a cherry on Victor Wan’s birthday celebration.  He was one of our past presidents , Happy birthday, Viva Victor!

A memorable meeting and living up to the theme, Live Laugh Love. Exceeding expectations where we also learn by doing and left our mark of fun filled fellowship!

Now it’s time to repose, relax and rest.

Cheers, 
Ken Chan