MEETING #363 - National Day

A fifth Tuesday meeting is hard to come by, and it is falling on the eve of a nationwide holiday, the Independence Day on 31 August.

That’s right, our Fifth Tuesday meeting was on 30th Aug. To celebrate and indulge the meaning of Independence Day, we set out meeting theme as the “National Day”, with the word of the day “Equanimity”, which carries the meaning of having a calm mental state after a shock or disappointment.

Our Honorable General Evaluator is NJ Singam, DTM, who is currently serving as District 102’s District Editor and District Tamil Coordinator.

The meeting started with our energetic Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms, Manish Jha, CC, took over the stage and called the meeting to order. He led us through the recital of Toastmasters promise.

At this point, the President, Ron Yeap, CC was invited to deliver his President’s Address. He was delighted with the theme of the day, and also reminded all the audience not to forget the struggle of the nation’s forefathers in fighting for the nation’s independence, while enjoying the freedom under this sovereignty today.

The crowd was then invited to introduce themselves to the audience. Not only they resounded together with the theme of the day, they also used the word of the day “Equanimity” profusely.

Among the visiting Toastmasters joining us, were CC, Tan Jiao Han from Universiti Malaya TMC; CC, ALB Eddie Lai, from Air Products TMC; CC, Foong Sook Hwa from IJM TMC; and also CC, Sivadas from Friendship TMC. We also have Sima, a Doctoral student from Universiti Malaya joining us as the first-timer in Toastmasters meeting.

The Table Topic Session was taken over by Table Topics^TM Master, Manish Jha. We saw pro-active members and guests races to take part in the Table Topics^TM session from different Toastmasters club.

Coming to the Prepared Speeches Session, we got 3 speakers came prepared to present to us. Our first speaker is DTM Ken Chan, delivering from the Competent Communication manual, Project #6, with speech title Negotiate with Power. He assured everyone that everyone can negotiate with power with the principle which I can still remember and understood.

• Put yourself in their shoes — it’s crucial to understand what’s important to the other side
• Remember your own value — you are at the table for a reason
• Ask questions — you’ll get valuable insight into their motivations and interest 

The next speaker is CC, Ron Yeap, attempting the Advanced Communication manual, with the project of Delivering Bad News. His speech title was “Changing of Meeting Venue”. He was informing the audience the Toastmasters meeting venue of our club will be relocated, and left the audience with shocking faces, only to find out that this is just a mock-speech and not real news.

 

The third speaker is Kevin Khoo, CC, also attempting from Advanced Communication manual, with the project of Motivational Speech. He left us with a simple and memorable acronym called U.B.E.R., which stands for Unlocking, Breaking, Empowering followed by Realization. Kevin creatively curated a few small stories that lead the audience to understand the key points.

Then it came to the feast time to fill up our hungry stomach with PJ’s best nasi lemak, among other refreshments. The short break has served as a good networking session for members and guests to catch up with each other. As you know us the Toastmasters, are synonymous to enthusiastic people.

After the break, the meeting session started with the Evaluation Session. The session was led by the respectable senior Toastmaster, DTM NJ Singam. He first explained nicely the purpose and benefits of evaluation. I would say he was excellent.

 The first evaluator was the Table Topics^TM Evaluator, ACG, ALB Julia Leong. Her detailed and encouraging remarks on the performance of the Table Topics^TM speakers were noteworthy.

Next comes to ACG K.L. Loh evaluating DTM Ken Chan on his CC#6 speech. It was so co-incidentally that K.L Loh also evaluated Ken’s CC#6 speech long time ago. This gave Loh a good opportunity to make comparison of Ken’s progress along the year. However, in the perspective of CC#6, he hoped to see more vocal variety being input into his speech.

For Hj. Hashim who were evaluating CC, Ron Yeap. Hashim commented that

Although this is a bad news delivery, but Ron did not show much of empathy, or sympathy, on his facial expression, he thought that would make the speech more impactful.

Evaluating CC, Kevin Khoo’s speech was ACB, ALB CP Lau. According to CP, Kevin’s speech was well crafted and had successfully uplifted the spirit of the audience.

At the end of the evaluation, the technical evaluators presented their reports diligently. They are, ACG, ALB Dr. Thilla for the grammar mistakes we made, as well as excellence use of the English language; speech crutches was picked up by ACB, Serena Kong as ‘Ah’ Counter; and capturing the time taken by every speaker and role players, CC, Sivadas.

DTM, Singam acknowledged that Money Mastery-KL has come a long way with excellence record. The meeting also met his satisfaction level in general. He urged MM-KL TMC to add in the Speaker’s Introduction before the speaker took the stage. This could help to edify the speaker as well as preparing the audience for the speaker’s topic.

The meeting came to the highlight when the best performers of the meeting were to be announced and appreciated.

A special was waiting for our long standing member past president Victor wan for being in Money Mastery -KL Toastmasters club for incredibly more than 8 years.

As a Toastmasters tradition we also asked our guest to say something about the meeting. How did you find this meeting.

The meeting ended nearly 10pm, which the members and guests were leaving with a smile on their face, for a fulfilling meeting they had had, and a relax holiday for the next day.

Sincerely, 

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club
VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2016/17)