Do the Cha-cha, do a ballet, do a break dance but just do it anyway. For when you have the chance, just dance but always with flamboyance. The crowd was slowly drawing in for a fabulous performance we were having in store for the day and at 7:15 PM, our new member, Mary de Silva, promptly hit the gavel on the podium and called our 388th meeting to order. She was presentable and poised with her duty to introduce the house rules, lead the Toastmasters Promise and finally called the President to officiate the meeting.
Wendy Sim, CC then came on to the stage to deliver her Presidential Address and shared her passion for dancing and how it is great for the body and soul. Dancing you say? The theme of the day was in fact “Dance When You Have The Chance”. Following that, the word of the day “Flamboyant” was introduced by the Grammarian and everyone who attended took turns to introduce themselves, spoke of their thoughts about the theme and used the word of the day as they spoke.
After a year of being the President for the last term, Ron Yeap, ACB finally took stage as the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME) and brought us through the meeting proper, revisiting the history of Toastmasters International and introducing the respective role players.
Yap Ooi Yee played the significant timer, Serena Kong, ACB played the Grammarian after a long time and Srikant our newest member took up the attentive role as the Ah-Counter. We had with us for the night a bubbly and flamboyant Toastmaster, Joshua Chan, CC as our General Evaluator. After everyone took the time to explain their roles, the TME invited one of our veteran and champion speaker Ken Chan, DTM to kick start the meeting with an Invocation speech. Ken Chan, DTM known for his famous abbreviations and attention catching openers, shared with us about the famous Ls of Life which is to simply Learn, Laugh and Love.
Once the ambiance got a little pumped up, the Table Topics™ Master Chitirra, took control of the stage to conduct the Table Topics™ session, where impromptu speaking is known to be the best training for a Toastmaster. She had a simple yet metaphorical list of questions lined up for the volunteers to try on based on the theme of the day. Manish CC, Mary, Paul who was our former member and finally Srikant all rose to the mini challenge and spoke on their feet, some, even with their dancing shoes on.
Alas, it was time for the main performance of the day, which was of course the Assigned Speech Session. Our first speaker was the beautiful Mandy Chan who did her 4th speech in the Competent Communication Manual (How to Say It). She brought us through a remarkable speech entitled A Remarkable Trip about her last holiday trip. Next, we had a member who was back in action after missing in action for a while. It was none other than Chong Ji Sheng with his 7th speech from the Competent Communication Manual (Research Your Topic) entitled Introverts vs Extroverts. He enlightened us on the difference between the two types of personalities.
We then had with us our very humble Toastmaster, Foo Fung Jiun, who was finally ready to inspire us and earn a ‘CC’ behind his name with his final speech in the Competent Communication Manual (Inspire Your Audience). Living Life With A Purpose and as the title may suggest, Fung Jiun shared with us that a mere day to day life may not leave us fulfilled but one with good values and a strong purpose would most definitely leave us content and complete.
The finale of the Assigned Speech Session was by Mathew Phillippose, CC, ALB with his attempt at the Speciality Speeches from the Advanced Communiation Manual. He was indeed high in spirits to uplift the spirits of the audience as he did Project #2 which was themed Uplift the Spirit. With the title, The Final Lap, he empowered us with many inspiring motivational videos and his power filled commentary alongside the silent videos. I had goosebumps for a while there and indeed it lifted my spirits.
Time ticked away as we immersed into everyone’s speech and so we had to have a quick break before we moved on to the next item on the agenda. After the break, we had a short, solemn yet significant session for our 2 new members Mary & Srikant. It was their Induction Session and all the members on the floor welcomed them officially into the club with Hi-5s after they were assigned their mentors. Mary’s mentor is Serena Kong, ACB and Srikant’s is Manish Jha, CC. Congratulations to both mentors and mentees and MMKL wishes both the new members a pleasant journey with MMKL and Toastmasters as a whole.
The TME then transitioned to the long waited evaluation session by inviting the GE, Joshua Chan, CC to take control of the session. After briefly giving an overview of the session, Joshua invited EK Yeo, CC, CL who played the Table Topics™ Master on stage to give his evaluation on the 4 volunteers for the night. EK Yeo was observant and provided his honest feedback to the speakers.
Next the Individual Speech Evaluations took place. Wendy, CC did her first evaluation for Mandy with much humility. Manish, CC reviewed Ji Sheng’s performance, while Hj. Hashim, DTM evaluated Fung Jiun and Ken Chan, DTM evaluated Mathew, CC, ALB. All of them gave their best feedback to educate and improve the speakers. A brief open evaluation was allowed for the members on the floor to suggest improvements for the speakers and then the session continued with the reports from the respective role players.
Joshua Chan, CC then closed the Evaluations session with his General Evaluation about the meeting. He shared what he thought were the pros and cons of the meeting for us to maintain and work on and was most excited to be part of the meeting. With that, the TME took stage to invite the President, Wendy Sim, CC to present the awards.
Unfortunately due to a couple of time disqualifications, no voting took place for the project speeches but Mary de Silva stole the limelight as the Best Table Topics™ speaker despite only being her 2nd attempt at it. Ken Chan, DTM bagged the title as the Best evaluator for night and that was it for the awards. A token of appreciation was gifted to the GE, Joshua Chan, CC and she reminded everyone of the upcoming Area C1 Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contests to be held on the 23rd of September 2017 at Unipac, Shah Alam. Finally, Wendy, CC gave her closing speech encouraging the members to come forth and choreograph their best speeches for the upcoming meetings. She slipped out of her dancing shoes for the night and the curtains drew close for that’s all there was for tonight’s MMKL Toastmasters show. We danced in our hearts, as we pranced to snap a group photo, and the meeting was adjourned with the thoughts twirling in our heads, to always seize the opportunity and dance when we have the chance.
Blog writer: Chitirra
No comments:
Post a Comment