My 2016

It was an exhilarating evening as we attended the last Toastmasters meeting of the year organized by our club even though it was at 13 Dec, 2016. The Toastmaster of the Day had come out with a very reflective theme for the meeting, “My 2016”, which kept every one of us thinking and reflecting our goals set at the beginning of the year and the result as at that moment.

As usual, our Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms, a new member of our club, Toastmaster Chiao (Chee Chiao Hui) had called the meeting to order and led us to recite the Toastmasters Promise, a standard proceeding of our club meeting, reminding us, as Toastmasters.

Our President, Ron Yeap, CC, acknowledged our guest of honour, the General Evaluator of the meeting, Rohijas Md Sharif, DTM. He began his presidential opening speech with the theme, “My 2016”. He appreciated the supports given by the members when he stepped up & took the role as the Club President. As a report card of the first 6 month’s performance, he was pleased to announce that Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club had achieved Select Distinguished status as the club achieved 6 upon 10 DCP (Distinguished Club Program) goals. A big round of applause for our beloved club!

Ron had also encouraged everyone to have a well-planned 2017 and a great year ahead!

Another brave new member of our club, Toastmaster Joel, took up the most important role of the meeting, the Toastmaster of the Day. Salute and bravo Joel! Keep up the good work, and continue to take up opportunities when offered. We will never be the best, but we will continue to be better.

Joel brought us through briefly the agenda of our meeting and invited the role players to brief their responsibilities in the meeting. We have the following role players for the day:-

1.  Grammarian – Ron Yeap, CC 2. Carim – Ah Counter and 3. Wendy Sim – Timer

We had many “first” in our meeting that evening. Our one month old member, Carim, bravely took up the role as our Ah Counter of the meeting. A big hand to you, Carim!

As the first timer being the Toastmaster of the Day, Joel had done a great job. We certainly hope that this gave him a boost in his confidence in taking up other responsibility for the club in time to come. Well done Joel!

Meeting moved on to the most exciting session that was our Table Topics™ session, which was led by Toastmaster Yap Ooi Yee. Her topics selection was in accordance to the theme of the meeting. Ooi Yee had provided the “what-if” questions to our table topics speakers to share with us their well doings in the year of 2016 and plans of the year of 2017. Table Topics™ Speakers are as followed. We witnessed more than  50% senior Toastmasters in Table Topics™ .

Our visiting guest, Victor Ong, DTM, had won the Best Table Topics Speaker award! In his speech, he had also mentioned that he had completed and delivered his 500^th speech in his Toastmaster journey. It was truly inspiring and encouraging! You are definitely a role model for all Toastmasters!

The excitement of our meeting continued when we moved on to the assigned speech session.

Our seasoned speaker of our club, Ken Chan, DTM, started this very exciting session. He delivered his 9^th ice breaker speech in front of us. A remarkable record of our club as he has completed his Competent Communication manual for 8 times! This marvelous record has inspired our members, especially our new members wanting to try on delivering project speeches.

Ken had demonstrated a well organised speech, introducing himself to us, with injection of humour in his speech. His evaluator, KL Loh, ATMG had pointed out these good points of the speech for us to learn.

Toastmaster Chitirra has delivered her 3^rd speech from the Competent Communication manual. In her speech, she taught us how to bake a cake, a Christmas cake. It was a brilliantly designed speech. Chitirra has made it in such a way that, each of the baking step was accompanied by an inspirational quote. Each of the baking step is a life learning step for the audience to take home. She concluded her speech by inviting us to try the cake that she baked for us! Thank you so much, Chitirra! You deserved to win the Best Assigned Speech award! Keep up the good job, keep up the good quality!

Our next speaker was our good looking member, Toastmaster Cheng Seng San. Oops! I must address him as Competent Communicator by now. He delivered his final, inspiring speech from the Competent Communication manual.

Seng San talked about love and gratitude. It was truly a touching story. We could see that Seng San was emotional at a stage of his speech. We felt you, Seng San. We were glad that you and your lovely family have managed to pass that very difficult moment and moved on with loving life. It was love and gratitude that kept you going. We wish you (and every one) continue to practice these 2 important elements of living life, LOVE and GRATITUDE. And, continue to inspire us in your coming advanced speeches! Thank you Cheng Seng San!

Our final speaker of the meeting, our final speaker of the year, was none other than our Immediate Past President, Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB. He delivered his advanced speech from the Specialty Speeches manual. It was an impromptu speech where his evaluator, Victor Ong, DTM, selected a topic for him.

Mathew’s given topic was to deliver a speech in a eulogize of his friend. He had high respect for this friend of his. He told us about the greatness of his friend. It is definitely a lost for his friend’s family as well as for Mathew.

A 10 minutes break was well spent over delicious food and laughter amongst members and guests. The “talking” did not stop after the meeting, it continued over the break session.

Induction Session by our VPM, Wendy Sim.

When we came back from the break,Vice President Membership, Wendy Sim took over the floor immediately. It was the new members induction ceremony for our newly joined members - Chee Chiao Hui and Carim. Mentors were assigned to assist them in their toastmasters' journey.

A) Mentor Kelvin Chong, ACB - Mentee Chee Chiao Hui

B) Mentor Mathew P. CC, ALB- Mentee Carim

 After that, we came to other highlight of the night. Our General Evaluator, Rohijas Md Sharif, DTM, led us in the last session of the meeting, i.e. the Evaluation Session.

The panel of evaluators were as follows:-

1. Table Topics Evaluation – Manish Jha, CC.

2.   Evaluation for Ken – KL Loh, ATMG.

3. Evaluation for Chitirra – CP Lau, ACB, ALB.
4. Evaluation for Cheng Seng San – Serena Kong, ACB.

All our evaluators had carried out their roles diligently.  They had provided their in-depth view on each and every speech, highlighted how well the speech was delivered, the areas for us to pay attention. Not only that, they had also provided their constructive suggestions in terms of the areas of improvement, hoping to help the speakers to deliver better speeches in the near future. Thanks to all speech evaluators, for demonstrating high listening skills, for rending sincere opinions. All of you deserve a big round of applause from the audience.

The meeting was called to adjourn by our Club President, Ron Yeap’s closing address, followed by the happy group photo and the singing of birthday song for our December birthday baby, Victor Wan, ACS, ALB even though he was absent! Happy Birthday to You, Victor!

Last but not least, our next meeting on 10 Jan, 2017, is our Club’s International Speech and Table Topics Contests. See you there!

Sincerely, 

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

Vice President Public Relations 2016/2017

P/S:
Thank you so much "CP Lau, ACB ALB" to write this wonderful blog. I also thank the whole team including editor, reviewer and critics to provide your sincere support and feedback to keep up the good work.

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