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 29th August 2017, 2 days
before the National Day break was about to start, we had our 3rd meeting of the
month, which fell on the 5th 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 TopicsTM 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 2nd 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 TopicsTM 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 TopicsTM 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
Blog writer: Ron Yeap, ACB
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