It is about 145 days since President Ron
Yeap took office,to be exact the date 22nd November 2016 is the
club’s 369th meeting since inception of the club. As up to this day every
meeting as being going on as scheduled. It has been much fun and enthusiasm at
every meeting. I should say every meeting had a different facet of the
diamond. If you missed a meeting it was
as good as you missed a part of the life of the club. The new man at helm with
his team made the club take a new dimension.
On this special day, I was approached by
the President and he said “Mathew, can you be the General Evaluator of the day”.
I, without a second thought replied “Yes Sir, I will do it”. This position is normally given to person who
is well learned in Toastmasters activity and from another club. In toastmasters
we take a promise, “To serve my club when called upon to do so”. This promise is one of the promises we take
as an oath before each of our club meetings.
What is my role as a General Evaluator is
to assess the club for the entire meeting right from the start. In my heart, I felt very emotional, as I was
the Past president of this club and today my task to evaluate a single meeting
and give feedback. As a General
Evaluator, I have to highlight what is good or what went right and areas that
need improvement to suggest something that will encourage and motivate the
club. A general Evaluator is helped by
key role players who check the timing, the words we use and if there are any
speech crutches also there are speech evaluators who help to evaluate a speech.
My role is appreciate these evaluators how well they have done their roles and
suggest if there are ways we can further help for the club to learn and grow.
As our Timer Wendy Sim reported our meeting
started on time and all speakers and speeches went on time. The timer has 3 lights she used to guide the
meeting green, yellow and red. Yes it looks like traffic light color. Some of
us may get caught up with our speeches or our sharing so timer’s role, keeps us
back on track so that our meetings as much as possible starts and finishes on
time.
Actually, is easy to speak, however it is
difficult not have speech crutches like “ah”, “eh” “hmmm” or repeat words like
“ also”, also”, “I see” I see”, “ you
know”, “you know” . The specialist to
check this is called the Ah Counter.
This time the Ah counter was competent Communicator Vijay kumar. He
carefully noted our speech crutches, can one imagine he even manged to detect
a person with 39 speech crutches. Well, many of us start of like that. I
remember hearing one of speech champion Distinguished Toastmaster Justin Ong he shared that when he started he
had more than 50 speech crutches.
Our Grammarian for the Day Chitirra, her role is another tedious one, she makes sure that we use the correct grammar, pronunciations and did we manage to use the Word of the Day in our speeches or in our sharing. During the President address, she was asked to introduce the Word of Day and the meaning of the Word. She said the Word of the Day was “Laconic” sometimes a word like this is difficult to pronounce so in the meeting we get “a hands on” practice. So our Grammarian will highlight the one who successfully used the most number. I should say Chitirra was quick to observe the good phrases, misused phrases, good sentences structures and the how a wrong sentence can be corrected. A Grammarian is not necessary an expert in the language. This role helps us in the skill of hearing which is similar like the Ah counter. A Grammarian as she hears the English language is able to learn and appreciate the language better.
We had four speech evaluators on this day,
Advance Toastmaster Gold (ATMG)KL Loh is a very senior member of the club he
evaluated Mandy Chan a new comer to the club. She was only doing her second
speech. I say she need a lot of encouragement to continue the journey in
toastmasters in giving speeches. KL Loh,
ATMG, pointed out the strength this shy looking lass had. It was her second
speech she manged to speak for the time allotted with our looking at notes,
“Bravo’.
When she was introduced with her speech
title, all was thinking what was “YOLO”, she gave a personal story and
explained "YOLO", You Only Live On Earth Once. It’s amazing, how she made the
speech interesting. Our seasoned evaluator KL Loh ATMG gave tips to improve her
speech who maybe a prospective speech Champion.
Our next evaluator Competent Toastmaster,
Competent Leader (CTM, CL) Tan Ben Hoe
is another senior yet dedicated Toastmasters. He evaluated Cheng San San for his 9th
speech in the Competent Communication Series.
His speech title looked strange “Bursa PETS channel”. Kept most of us
wondering is it all about pets. Cheng
San is an expert in stock exchange and he pointed out through graph and charts
how if have knowledge we can gain much through stock exchange. He had a power
point presentation to bring his point clearer. As Ben Hoe CTM CL applauded him
on his topic he was quick to give him tips how he can use all what he learned
in his earlier speech topics to make his speech look much more rewarding. Surely,
Cheng can use this tip and give a great finale for this 10th
Speech. As the saying goes “Rome is not
build in a day”. As Cheng San keep
speaking he not only attain his Competent Communicator status but he will be admirable
speaker.
Our President Ron Yeap was the next
evaluator and we imagine who he as evaluating, it was May Ong CC, ALB. She is
one of the area directors(AD). She had a unique speech title HOLD. She was
inspiring us to continue our Toastmasters journey by repeating what we taught
we are good in so we can be better. In his evaluation, Ron Yeap CC, admired her
courage and the same time he added that such a persuasive speech like hers may
have added more value with a more persuasive speech title. His other examples for a good speech, I am
sure added value to the AD May Ong and to the rest of the audience.
Our Final evaluator is Advanced Competent
Communicator Bronze, Advance Leader Bronze (ACB, ALB) CP Lau. This evaluator
that has smile that can influence anyone to smile is one of our Past Presidents
of our club. He has participated in
number of speech and evaluation contest. He had the privilege of evaluating our
long standing member Advance Competent Bronze Kelvin Chong. Kelvin was giving his speeches based on the
Advance Communication Manual. All of us know Kelvin Chong as a very humorous
man. He has usual made us laugh as we
enjoyed his speech. The evaluator CP Lau ACB, ALB in appreciating the speech
gave finer points of how his speech, “Resources for living”, could be more
meaningful if it can fulfil more of the speech objective in his speech topic “Speaking
to inform”. The nuggets that CP Lau
shared was rewarding not only to the speaker but to all. I should say as all the evaluations summed up
may have made the club gain a new height in excellence.
As General Evaluator, I take all the points
given by my support group to acknowledge the strength of the club and areas of
improvement. There are two important
people who made the meeting successful, it was Sergeant At Arms (SAA), Wenny Loh and the Toastmaster of the Evening
(TME) Kevin Khoo. SAA Wenny put the
meeting in order by highlighting the house rules when the meeting began and she
led all in reciting the in toastmasters promise, It may look like a small task.
She is instrumental for meeting to be on time even after a refreshment break in
between. Our TME Kevin, actually helped
to run the meeting according to the agenda. He had good gestures and high
motivation spirit that kept the meeting lively.
Actually, he being the Vice President of Education, had been working on
the success of this meeting more than a week of the meeting. As he rolls out the meeting he was prompt in
all his introduction.
TME Kevin Khoo CC, took special care of our guest
Carim, as he introduced the history of Toastmasters and what one can benefit
from joining it. In any toastmasters
meeting a session that gives inspiration to all is table topics. He introduces the table Topic
Master EK Yeo, CC, CL. He hand over the command of the meeting to him which is
normally done by a handshake. As Table Topic Master took over he explains the
session and encourages the audience to participate in the impromptu speaking.
We had four speakers, the first speaker KL
Loh had a topic “In order to succeed you must first believe”, and without
wasting anytime, very fluently this seasoned speaker spoke of memorable event
of fulfilling his dream at the age of 50years by climbing Mount Kinabalu. He used
the word of the Day “Laconic" as he captivated the audience. He was
followed by Wenny Loh, this pint size girl , with a slow and steady space
answered to the topic given to her “ It does not matter how slowly you go as
long as you do”. She repeated the title to all to hear clearly and she said how
she overcome the fear of the future. She
quoted the theme of the day “Never Give Up” which was introduced by the
President Ron in the beginning of the meeting.
Wenny said, “Even when she need to let go she will never give up”. Can you imagine how bold this girl is
although small in size?
The first two speeches inspired our guest “ Carim” and he decided to take part. He came up and repeated his title, ‘The best preparation for tomorrow is doing the best today’. When the Toastmaster gave the title and he repeated, it was in the mind of all that he is prospective toastmaster who has the style of speaking like a toastmaster. Well, for sure he signed up as a member at the end of the meeting. I say for first timer He spoke well. Our final speaker was Manish, He is a bubbly man, when given the title “it always seem impossible until it’s done. It hit his adrenalin gland, Manish cannot sit still, and he is an achiever. As usual he attract response by asking the audience question, using this gesture as a pivot he sums up his speech. Yes, he uses the theme as he says “you can do it, never give up”
The first two speeches inspired our guest “ Carim” and he decided to take part. He came up and repeated his title, ‘The best preparation for tomorrow is doing the best today’. When the Toastmaster gave the title and he repeated, it was in the mind of all that he is prospective toastmaster who has the style of speaking like a toastmaster. Well, for sure he signed up as a member at the end of the meeting. I say for first timer He spoke well. Our final speaker was Manish, He is a bubbly man, when given the title “it always seem impossible until it’s done. It hit his adrenalin gland, Manish cannot sit still, and he is an achiever. As usual he attract response by asking the audience question, using this gesture as a pivot he sums up his speech. Yes, he uses the theme as he says “you can do it, never give up”
Table topics sets the pulse of any meeting.
It creates so much of excitement. However as I said in the beginning, I am
impressed by the president himself. President Ron in setting the meeting
rolling, He gave an inspiring introduction speech. He welcomed the guests and
he quoted people who succeeded without giving up. He inspired the seniors to
continue in toastmaster's journey in not giving up with the speeches. I was admiring this man for the past few club
meetings. Something within him has changed as he took over the new role. I truly believe I see this transformation
not only in the President but in every EXCO.As a general evaluator I made
comments of some changes to make the club environment of the club to look
better.
Finally I like to say Money Mastery-KL
Toastmasters has fulfilled the Mission of Toastmasters International in
providing a supportive and positive learning experience in which members are
empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence
and personal growth.
Reported by Past President, Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB.
Sincerely,
Thanks to the Team,
Manish Jha, CC
Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club
VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2016/2017)
