Meeting #390- Going Places !!

Meeting Number 390 was held on 12^th Sept 2017.   The club meeting is called to order by Competent Toastmaster, Competent leader (CTM CL) Tan Ben Hoe.  As usual after introducing the House Rules, he led the club members to recite the Toastmasters’ promise.  The promises are printed on the club agenda. He then handed the meeting over to the President Wendy Sim. She welcomed the members and guests to the meeting.  In her opening address she signified the Theme of the Day which is “Going Places”. She then calls upon the Grammarian for the Day, Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) Serena Kong to introduce the Word of the Day. The word we learnt on this day is “Wanderlust”.  President Wendy then turns to the audience seated in a U-shaped format to start introducing themselves. I should say everyone, including the guests, attempted to say something on the theme of the day and word of the day. The President gave a strong opening to the theme and invited the Toastmaster of the Evening Evening (TME) Competent Communicator Foo Fung Jiun to take control of the meeting.

The TME introduced the role-players of the meeting to introduce the purpose of their roles. So we had the Grammarian Serena Kong, Ah-Counter E.K Yeo and Timer Wendy Sim and the GE Jerry Wong to introduce their roles for the meeting that evening.  These roles will add much meaning at the end of the day adding to the progress of the club.  The TME now invites again our senior member Advanced Toastmaster Gold KL Loh who presents an innovation speech and uplifts the spirit of all seated.  One of the key functions of the TME is helping to run through the agenda of the day. He called upon the Table Topics™ Master EK Yeo, CC, CL for a fun filled session.

 

In this session we had both members and guests giving a try to do impromptu speeches within the time allocated. We had a good group of eager participants for this session.  The first speaker Ron Yeap, CC spoke on the topic “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door”. He was followed by Manish Jha,CCwho spoke on the topic, “Life is short, lets enjoy it”.Our 3^rd speaker Jia Ming, also a guest, spoke on the topic “Future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”.The 4^th speaker Olivia, also a guest, spoke on the topic “There are no short cuts to any place worth going”. And the final speaker Mathew spoke on the topic“If you have a dream what you want to be?”  As the impromptu speeches ended a vote was taken for the Best Table Topics™ Speaker.

As the TME took control again of the meeting again. He led the club to witness the Assigned Speech Sessions.   We have 2 groups of speeches, one was from the pathway guide and the second was from the Competent Communication Manual.  The speaker from the prepared speeches was Srikant who gave an Ice Breaker speech with the speech title, A lifelong learner.  He spoke very fluently, although it is his first speech and the eloquence of the English language helped us to understand how his life was a lifelong learning experience. Our 2^nd speaker was Chitirra who also gave an ice breaker speech with speech title Passion is Purpose. She actually burned with much passion throughout her speech. This was followed by our 3^rd speaker, Joel Silas, from the CC manual on the topic Vocal Variety with the speech title Travelling with Excitement. In this speech , Joel spoke very different from his previous speeches. He spoke confidently, with humor and excitement. Our final speaker was Yap Ooi Yee who gave her 8^th speech from the CC manual.  The title of the speech was “Roller Coaster Interviews”.  All the speeches was very inspiring and rewarding listening to them. TME took a vote for the best speaker and adjourned the meeting for a break.

During the break, there was much food like the favourite “Nasi Lemak”, fried eggs, fried chicken, curry puffs, cakes and bananas. As the break ended the SAA called the meeting to order and passed it over to the TME. The TME invited the GE Jerry to preside over the meeting.  Yes, Jerry with a cheerful face invited the evaluators to give their evaluations. The first evaluator was Tan Ben Hoe CC, CL who gave evaluation on the table topics session. He gave a vivid finding on each speaker and with encouraging notes for improvement.  This was followed by speech evaluators KL Loh ATMG, Manish Jha, CC Ron Yeap ACB and Mathew Philippose , CC, ALB.  Each evaluator gave clear evaluations that not only helped speakers but the listeners to improve.  As the evaluation ended there was vote for the Best Evaluator.  

The next session is what we are also keen to know how we performed on the day.  The Ah Counter, Grammarian and Timer gave their reports.  This was followed by the GE’s report who summed up the meeting with a good analysis of the meeting and encouraging us in the direction of the club.  

GE Jerry wong passed the control back to the TME who then invited President Wendy to give away the prizes for the best performers for the day. The best table topics speaker went to Manish Jha.He was overjoyed to receive this award. Our best evaluator went to KL Loh ATMG.He took the award beaming with smile. The Best speaker was almost everybody’s guess, it was Chitirra. 

After the giving away the awards President Wendy gave a token of appreciation to the General Evaluator.  She then closed the meeting with her closing address. The club then took a group photo and had a cake cutting for those whose birthdays fell in September.  It was a great and satisfying meeting.

See you all again on 26th. September.

Blog writer: Mathew Philippose.

Meeting #389 Merdeka: United We Stand

Month of August means very differently to Malaysians. 60 years ago, this country, which was then called Malaya, gained her independence from the British’s colonialism.

Time lapsed to 60 years later, zoomed in to a small club called Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club, taking the opportunity to celebrate the National Day, by calling the meeting with the theme: Merdeka: United We Stand. Members were asked to dress in colourful outfits that showed the multi-cultural environment of our country.

It was 29^th August 2017, 2 days before the National Day break was about to start, we had our 3^rd meeting of the month, which fell on the 5^th week of the Month.

The weather did not show any sign of cooperation, as it turned cloudy and dark at 6.30pm. That didn’t stop dedicated members like Joel, Chitirra to arrive early at the meeting venue at for early preparation.

As time got closer, more and more members and guests turned and finally by 7.15pm, the meeting was ready to start. Our Assistant SAA, Srikant, called the meeting to order. He greeted everyone, and stated the rule of the meeting clearly to the attendees. Next, he led the members to recite the Toastmasters promises.

As soon as the solemn drill was over, President Wendy Sim, CC was invited to the stage for her President’s Address. She recalled her childhood memory of watching National Day fireworks and enjoyed shopping spree with her family.

Members and guests were asked to introduced themselves to the meeting. They also recited what the theme meant to them and used the word of the day, “liberated”.

When the self-introduction session was over, the meeting was handed over to the first-time Toastmaster of the Evening, Shain Anand. Shain, although was first time in his role, he came prepared and handed the situations swiftly. To the benefits of the first-time guest, he introduced Toastmasters history and club history with pride.

Another interesting session was due to begin when Shain called upon the Table Topics^TM Master, Mary de Silva to lead the session. Mary challenged the members and guests on the topics she prepared that were related to the theme of the meeting. 4 courageous participants attempted the topics. Started by Srikant, the flow continued with 3 other guests Olivia, Stanley and Crystal.

The meeting entered another session for the prepared speeches. The first speaker of the day was Chong Ji Sheng, advancing to Competent Communicator speech no. 8, that was “Get Comfortable with Visual Aids”. Ji Sheng shared his story with title “My Basketball Life”. He told us his rise and fall in the involvement of basketball, with photos of the past and demo-ed a little skill with a basketball.

Ken Chan, DTM, the 2^nd speaker, was also delivering from the Competent Communication manual. Ken was delivering Project Speech no. 10 - Inspire Your Audience. Ken’s title was “Now Everyone Can…Humour!”. Ken shared with us how he turned himself from homor-proof to a humorist. The trophies that he won from numerous Humorous Speech contests were the solid proof that he had made it.

Moving on to the Advanced Communication Speech, Victor Wan, ACS, ALB kick-started with the speech from Public Relations manual, which he was attempting the Project Speech No. 1 - The Good Will Speech. Victor brought to us his speech titled “The Club of your Life”. His speech was motivating. He complemented the members and guests who were attending the Toastmasters meeting over other priorities were those who are eager and persistent for their personal development.

CP Lau, ACB, ALB was the last speaker of the day, speaking from speech Manual – Speaking to Inform. He delivered the speech titled “E.R.P.” from Project No. 3 “The Demonstration Talk”. Through this software demonstration, we felt the relevance to upgrade our legacy system to improve “efficiency, resource, and productivity” of our workplace.

A 10 mins break were all we had to rejuvenate ourselves for the next session. Coming back from the break, Toastmaster of the Evening invited Mr. General Evaluator, Lim Thian Seng, DTM to take over the Evaluation Session.

The first evaluation speech came from Ron Yeap, ACB who were evaluating the Table Topics^TM session. The 4 participants, albeit their relatively new experience with Table Topics ^TM session, attempted the topics well. Ron suggested them to be more natural with their body language and assure them that they would benefit more if they come again to the club meeting.

The assigned speech evaluation, started off by Kang Fong Luan, CC, the president of My Puchong TMC, to Ji Sheng. Kang suggested Ji Sheng to get familiarized with his visual aids prior to presentation. Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB reviewed Ken Chan’s performance with more stringent criteria for his improvement, as Ken is a senior speaker in Toastmasters. Serena Kong, ACB who evaluated Victor Wan, complemented him for selecting the right venue (Toastmaster’s Meeting) for his speech. As of Ken, this time as an evaluator to CP Lau, offered different perspective that CP could consider in his presentation.

Thian Seng, our General Evaluator, felt good with our club’s setup, including the banner at the downstairs which he found very important and useful to locate our venue. He encouraged us to uphold the standard of our club for future to come.

The meeting had seen the speakers and role players put in their best effort, and announcement of the best performers of the meeting was a breath-holding moment for us.

• Best Table Topics^TM Speaker: Stanley (Guest)
• Best Project Speech: Ken Chan, DTM
• Best Speech Evaluator: Kang Fong Luan, CC

After Madam President took over the stage, she thanked everyone who attended the meeting and enhanced the meeting with colourful outfits, and wished us a peaceful and prosperous weekend ahead of us.

Meeting ended closer to 10pm, but everyone went back with a smile on their face, waiting to enjoy their long weekend.

Blog writer: Ron Yeap, ACB