Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club (#8141): November 2016

Light it Up

Who doesn’t’ like light? Who doesn’t like winning? Who doesn’t like the truth? I guess I am thinking too much. Do you know that Diwali is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (Avali) of clay lamps (Deepa) that Indian lights outside their houses to symbolize the inner light that protects us from spiritual darkness.

This festival is as important to Hindus as the Christmas Holiday to Christians. Some interesting information about Diwali in Northern India is that they celebrate the story of King Rama’s return to Ayodhya (Kingdom) after he defeated Ravana by lighting rows of clay lamps. South India celebrates it as the day lord Krishna defeated the demon Narkasura. As for western India, the festival marks the day that Lord Vishnu , the preserver (One of the main gods of hindu trinity) sent the demon king Bali to rule neither world. In all interpretation, one common thread rings true- The festival marks the victory of good over evil. This was one of the most exciting Toastmasters meetings in MM-KL.

We were celebrating the spirit of Deepavali. Everyone’s smile on this evening proved that we stand together and we are committed to help each other to achieve more.We were encouraged to wear Indian ethnic dresses as Deepavali celebrated mostly in India and by Indians (Hindu’s) outside the country.

Once the ASAA (Assistant sergeant at Arms) Yap, Ooi Yee ensured that the meeting can be started. She led the recitation of Toastmasters promises and without further delay she called our club president Competent Communicator Ron Yeap.

Ron, as our club president enraptured the atmosphere and sets the floor with his eye-opening researches about Deepavali. Although he doesn’t celebrate Diwali at home but his words left the entire audience felt touched as we respect and embrace every culture in Toastmasters. He knows that despite most of our members in Toastmaster do not really celebrate Diwali but he still enlighten us the essence of this festival. He lighted up the floor with his wonderful words and opened the floor to the member of MM-KL to introduce themselves. Next, he warmly handed over the floor to the Toastmaster of the evening, DTM, Dr. Thilla.

Dr. Thilla is the one and the only female Distinguished Toastmaster in our club, she took over the stage and begins the meeting with excitement. She introduced all the role players. She called the first table topic master to conduct the Table Topic Session.

This round, I have prepared 9 interesting topics about Diwali based on the theme of the day. However, there were only 4 Speakers that participated due to time constraint.

1. FoongSook Hwa(guest) – Diwali is all about noise and air pollution. I hate it. What about you?

2. Cindy Foon(guest)- What do you like the most in Diwali?

3. Calvin (Guest)- If you were to use one word to describe diwali, what it would be? And why?

4. Kevin khoo(our VPE) –Diwali in India is better than Malaysia, do you agree?

All of them expressed their thoughts very well. Audiences were laughing,feeling touched by some of the impromptu speeches whereby speakers learn to deliver their speech spontaneously without any preparation. Isn’t it interesting?

Next everyone is waiting for project speeches. As for this week, we are excited to have four speakers including an ice breaking speech!

Let me begin with my personal view on the ice breaking. Our new member, Joel presented his first ever speech with the title of “The prodigal son”. In this speech speaker has to say something about himself because it is his first speech. He confidently walked down the stage, took a deep breath and……………………………………………….

Begun with his personal real story, he was not interested in study. He said he used to spend money recklessly with friends and just like to enjoy his life without any purpose. Therefore, his father wanted him to start working in an insurance company to gain exposure about the true meaning of “Life”.

Are you a parent? Do you have any kid? No matter whether you have kids or you are a parent, you need to listen to our upcoming speaker, Foo Fung jiun’s speech with the title of ‘A parent’s night mare’. His speech created Goosebumps while listening through. A real story about how a parent get so worried when his child became unconscious and not responding for few minutes. For your information, Fung Jiun is a father of two kids and he went through this experience and He came out more stronger in his life later after this night mare experience. It was indeed an excellent speech as he utilized a lot of vocal varieties in his speech. Well done !!

Then it was our next speaker, Wendy Sim. The most charming and always-smiling friend. She was ready with her Speech number 7 from CC manual. As per the speech objectives, she managed to demonstrate an excellent research on her topic “Home schooling- A vibrant Explosion”. She collected various information from numerous resources and educated us with her real life story about her own children who are studying in home school and How home schooling could be a better option for some of the parents out there.

Our last speaker DTM, Ken Chan presented his speech number 9 from CC manual Persuade with power with the speech title "Managing your Time". He is one of the senior who always encourage the juniors to speak well. We are delighted once again today as he taught us about the importance of time management with proper practical technique. He drawn a diagram on the paper and explained to us on how to set the priority to manage our time more effectively basing them on urgency and priority. Thanks Ken for your educational speech.

Next, our General evaluator Teoh Chun Ming took over the control of the stage and called each elvaluator to present their report. Finally he also added his recommendations and he said that it was a great evening listening to exciting speech and he was glad to be part of this enrapturing meeting.

Next, our General evaluator Teoh Chun Ming took over the control of the stage and called each and every evaluator to present their report. Finally he added his recommendations and he said that it was a great evening listening to exciting speech and he was glad to be part of this enrapturing meeting.

Finally our President Ron Yeap took over the control to appreciate the best performers.

Concluded the whole session. He wished everyone a Happy Deepawali and Happy Holiday to everyone. Eventually, he announced the meeting to adjourn. Last but not least, I hope all the guests have enjoyed the our meeting as much as I did. See you guys in our next meeting!

Sincerely,

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

VPPR (Vice President of Public Relation 2016/2017)

Meeting #366: Wisdom Of The Ages

1. ASAA- Joel 2. Grammarian- Fung Jiun 3. Introduction from EK Yeo,CC, CL
4. President- Ron Yeap, CC

The meeting #366 was led by a very newly joined member, Joel. It was his maiden moment, stood in front and called the meeting to order. He was the assistant Sergeant-At-Arm and was the first person to spoken in the meeting. He led us in the recital of the Toastmasters’ promises. Well done, Joel!

Then, the President Ron Yeap, Competent Communicator (CC) took over the floor. He extended his welcome to our Area Director, Advance Communicator Bronze, Advance Leader Bronze (ACB,ALB) Charmine Lee, who came and played the role as our meeting General Evaluator. It was such a privilege to have her in our club meeting.

Ron Yeap, CC, kicked off the meeting by inviting present to introduce themselves briefly. It was our club culture to get all members and guests to introduce themselves and at the same time to encourage all to use the word of the day “Ambivalent” in their introduction. The theme of the night was “Wisdom of The Ages”, a very engaging theme. Many uplifted the meeting by sharing meaningful and wonderful quotes.

After the stirring introduction from the members, Ron Yeap, CC handed over the meeting to the Toastmasters of the evening, Serena Kong, ACB. She informed that in the month of October, Toastmasters International was celebrating its 92th Anniversary. Every toastmaster’s journey starts with a single speech. We learn to tell our stories, we listen and answer. We plan and we lead. We give and accept feedbacks. We are grateful as we are at the right place where we empower the members to become more effective communicators and leaders.

The table topics™ session was led by Competent Communicator, Competent Leader (CC,CL) EK Yeo . As usual, topics were given, where speakers would speak off the cuff. In this meeting we had 4 speakers and they were:

A) Kelvin Chong, ACB- “Self-suggestion makes you master of yourself.”

B) CP Lau, ACB, ALB- “Giving opens the way of receiving.”

C) Guest Chiao- “A mistake is simply another way of doing things.”

D) Manish Jha, CC- “Quick decision is unsafe decision."

Everyone was paying the attention to speakers and witnessed how the speakers aced the impromptu speech. Some spoke with confident, some shared their experiences, stories or ideas. The session was indeed very interesting.

During the prepared speech presentation, toastmaster Chitirra told us an engrossing story. She told us that she had thanatophobia, fear of death. She shared her experience on how this phobia had tortured her mental and how she had dealt with it. The story was completely enthralling together with her facial expression, we listened from the beginning to end.

Toastmaster Ooi Yee, on the other hand, shared her story, “10 Years” to us. She broke the silence by telling us the she quit her job. It was a surprise as she was a long service staff in her company as a project team leader. She was always worked like the cat on the hot tin roof. “10 YEARS!” She ended her speech by asking us “how many 10 YEARS do we have?” It was really a good closing that gave us a wakeup call, reminded us to prioritize what matters more.

The last speaker for the session was done by the President, Ron Yeap, CC. He was persuading the members to keep speaking, keep making mistakes, keep strive for being a confident speaker, from Good to Great! He told how he had transformed from a low self-esteem speaker to become a more confident speaker. He encouraged the members to explore their potentials. “Just Do It!” In his speech, he tried to build the confidence among the members by asking them to keep telling themselves, “I can do it!”. Practice makes perfection!

After hearing three riveting presentations, we had a short break of ten minutes. The first agenda after resuming from the break was to induct a new member. It was a very important session as the new member was officially being introduced to the club. The Vice President Membership (VPM), Wendy Sim inducted Joel and introduced his mentor, Ken Chan, DTM to him.

1. Toastmaster of The Evening: Serena, ACB 2. Table Topics Master: EK. Yeo, CC, CL
3. VPM Wendy Sim inducted Joel

Next, we had a special session. Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) Ken Chan, gave his area winning speech “I’m a sucker” in the club. It was so happy to see that the members contributed their thoughts over his speech. Their constructive and sincere feedback was the sign of supports to highlight the blind side of his presentation.

After that, General Evaluator, Charmine Lee, ACB, ALB took stage control and started leading the report and evaluation session. Table Topics™ Evaluator, Kevin Khoo, CC highlighted the strength and the areas of improvement of each table topics speakers. Here was the summary of his suggestions or commands to the speakers:

Kelvin Chong, ACB-	Used vivid words to paint the picture in the eyes of the audience
Cp Lau, ACB, ALB-	Had good language and had enough thought over the topic
Guest Chiao-	Took out the hands from the pants would help him to feel more relax while speaking
Manish Jha, CC-	Very enthusiastic speaker, engagement with the audience was important also

For the prepared speech evaluation, Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL, suggested toastmaster Chitirra to ask question in the beginning of the speech to get the attention of her speech. Advance Communicator Gold, Advance Leader Bronze (ACG, ALB) Dr. Thilla, on the other hand, highlighted Ooi Yee’s potential and encouraged her to utilize her body language to carry her speech message in her future presentation. Followed by, Mathew P., CC, ALB, started with his evaluation with humor. He mentioned that, “boss always forget the time as they speak and walk out of the boundaries…” He reminded speaker Ron Yeap, CC always spoke within the allocated time and permitted area.

The honorable General Evaluator, Charmaine Lee, ACB, ALB gave her report after her team of technical evaluators had given their reports. She advised that our members should practice to introduce the next role player or speakers during the program transition. This will help to edify and adding the credibility of the role player like Toastmaster of the Evening, Table Topic Master. Charmaine’s observant and detailed report has left us with valuable take-home-points for improvement.

The night reached its peak during the award presentation. The best performers of the meeting were announced.

The Best Table Topic Speaker goes to: CP Lau, ACB, ALB

The Best Speech Evaluator goes to: Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB

The meeting adjourned after the closing address by the President, Ron Yeap, CC. Then, we quickly moved to cake cutting for Dr. Thilla C., ACG, ALB, born in October. Cesare Pavese says, “We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Indeed, we had a great evening.