Meeting #362: The Sound of Music

It was a pleasant evening when the Toastmasters fraternity came from their respective work to have an exciting meeting in our Toastmasters club. This was the meeting number 362. So far in last 14 years we have done three hundred and sixty one meetings successfully in our club. It’s an achievement for a club has we move 362.


The most handsome man, in the eyes of writer, is our Vice President of Education (VPE) Competent Communicator(CC), Kevin Khoo  who that day came up with exciting theme of the day “The sound of Music”. Sounds interesting, right? yes, The theme itself scintillated us at first (The sound of music), and later you can’t even imagine how all the speakers also mesmerized the audience with their scintillating speeches. You may be thinking why I’m using this word scintillating too many times. If you had been to our meeting you would have understood. In every Toastmasters meeting we learn a new word and add it to, our vocabulary. So this said evening we learnt a new word scintillates which means, “to emit sparks”. Now you too learnt it right. he he he.

Great is the power of the spoken word, when it is spoken in truth, by one whose life supports what he says.-Dr. Ralph C. Smedley, 1878-1965, Toastmasters Founder.

You too can develop a scintillating personality when you join a Toastmasters club. One of the way is just to practice, practice and practice your speaking skills. It will turn your speaking ability to an awesome piece as you display your scintillating skills.

Order, order!! Good evening the lovely ladies and ordinary gentlemen, welcome to meeting number 362.   Could you imagine who could say this? At this point of time when it was exactly 7:15pm. Any guess?

It was none other than our Sergeant at Arms (SAA) of this meeting; Our SAA was our VPE Kevin Khoo who has brought the meeting to order.  As usual after introducing the house rules, the SAA led the ritual of reciting Toastmaster’s promises. He then passed the control of the meeting to the President competent communicator (CC) Ron Yeap.

He came up with 100,000 ringgits smile and energy to set the stage on fire and make the atmosphere more comfortable for everyone to participate and speak in best of their ability. He called Grammarian who some call as a Language Evaluator to introduce the word of the day , which is “scintillate” which I introduced to you at the very beginning of my writing. Hahaha. Mr. President is not late to introduce this word but this is the way to conduct during the meeting. The grammarian as he introduces the word he also give some examples how to use this word correctly.  The President encouraged everyone to use this word as many times as possible throughout the meeting.  He also encouraged, speaking about the theme of the day which is “The sound of Music”. My friends, the sound is really important in the music as we all know, similarly sound is also important in our speaking as well as in our life, make sure you are producing right sound at right time, at right place, and source of the sound is correct. Otherwise, it may embarrass or make you smile when you fart without reason to anyone or with no one

In Toastmasters meeting we have three sections. First is the impromptu speeches also called table topic, 2^nd prepared speeches and 3^rd Evaluation of the all the speeches.  Why you need to know this because every section has its own purpose and benefits and followed by a lot of fun. You know, this day we had brand new member who came straight from the showroom of Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters club and took the courage to run the meeting from the beginning to the end. I hope some of you have already understood who I’m talking about, Yes Toastmaster of the Evening; she is none other than Toastmaster, Chitirra. She was not only brilliant but she was fabulous hosting the meeting. Well done!!

What I was doing??? Hehehe. I was table topic master offering table topic speakers to speak on the topic prepared by me. I did a lot of research to prepare these topics; I know you are excited to know what those topics could be? I would not tell you all but yes something like “How is music related to your life?” You can try to speak on it, make sure speak only for 2 mins and 30 seconds. Otherwise you will be disqualified. Hahaha. And I can proudly tell you the speakers spoke very well, which really gave us different perspective to think and see our life plays music in every moments through different emotions.

Toastmaster of the evening Toastmaster Chitirra moved the meeting to the next section and called first speaker of the day Toastmaster, Foo Fung Jiun to present his speech from competent communication manual speech number five  your body speaks, with speech title –“A heart stopping event.“

My friend, Foo Fung Jiun a health care professional by his profession. He came with very relevant speech to educate us, in short how to save a life when someone getting attack in front of you. He shared an experience how he was able to save a life but being a health care professional he has helped many people.  He came up with a Teddy bear to demonstrate how to act on the spot and show us exactly how we should act on the spur of the moment. He is a kind of speaker who spoke from the bottom of the heart. This evening we learnt really a new skill how to save life in a moment when going through heart attack. His speech scintillated us to take action when called upon to do so. Well done!!

Now, was the turn of 2^nd speaker of the evening Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) Ken Chan. He was doing his speech number six from competent communication manual on Vocal variety- With his speech title “You can’t please everybody”: -

How many of you think that you can? If you can, you are only a lucky person. It looks like a proverb but its real experience. You can’t please everyone in life. You can’t even please yourself many times. DTM, Ken Chan, shared his personal story you can’t please everybody. However, you can choose to be pleased while looking only good things in everyone and good things in every situation. Well done.

Our 3^rd speaker of the day was anxious before he comes to the stage. 

Toastmaster of the Evening Toastmaster, Chitirra called our last speaker Chong Ji Sheng. He was doing his 8^th speech from the competent communication manual which is,“get comfortable with the visual aids”. His speech title- “It’s about time”. Now I remember I was also one of the speech evaluators this evening. I was playing a double role this evening. We learn sometime how to work extra when it is required in Toastmasters.

ChongJi Sheng came up with a very recent story happened in his life. He has recently completed his pre university and going to join his college. He shared how he had a party in his house to celebrate with his friends.  He said everyone that he really enjoyed the evening also they had a lot of fun. Time flew so fast that he did not realize that the event came to an end.  Often happens especially when we are having a good time, isn’t it right? J It was very hard to leave the old friends and say goodbye to them. Usually it happens with everyone.  He was sad but he was also excited for his new life in college. We all have to move on for the better as times moves on.

 After all the scintillating speeches ourGeneral Evaluator(GE) Advance Communicator Bronze (ACB), Advance leader Bronze(ALB) Lee Tong Fong  who was quietly observing and enjoying the whole meeting took control of the stage and started with evaluation process.  He explained the evaluation is the breakfast for the champion because if you eat King Size notorious breakfast you can reach anywhere and at any level in the process of learning. He called all the evaluators in the order. The first to share was our Table Topic evaluator ACB, Serena Kong- Oh My God , she was brilliant evaluating all the four  table topic speakers. She highlighted the strength and weakness and followed by the points to improve. Well done. 

Your evaluation was most valuable to us. Thank you. Panel of evaluators also did their presentation very well, EK Yeo, CC, CL;Hj Hashim DTM, and of course myself , ha,ha, ha ha. I should say we all the evaluators did a good job. As an evaluator you have to highlight the strength and weakness and give the points of improvements. This enables one to be better in the next speech.  There are many methods to do it, one popular method is the sandwich method in which one encourages share the point of improvement and encourage or exhort the speaker.  Hahaha. Finally our GE presented his report in detail on the overall conduct of the meeting which really helps a club do much better. This is how we learn things from each other.  

It was time to embrace the reality and appreciate the best performers. 

After appreciation President Ron Yeap took the control and acknowledged everyone’s effort including TME Chitirra to run the meeting smoothly on time. With this He made his closing remarks and called meeting to adjourn, wished everyone good night and waved his hand saying “Thank you and drive home safe”. It was indeed a scintillating evening with lovely and awesome people. Hope to see you in our next Toastmasters meeting.  

Sincerely,

Manish Jha, CC
Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2016/17)