#397 Blast to the past

Time passes very fast and what is your reminiscence of the month of December? Yes, Jingle Bells and Santa Clause! Christmas day is coming soon.

As usual for every club meeting, the venue before the start of the meeting was arranged by whoever comes early. Ron Yeap, Mandy Chan, Olivia, Crystal, EK Yeo, and our member Vijay arrived early to the venue. Our birthday girl today, Shelly Sim, who was a first time role player as an ASAA called the meeting to order at 7.15 pm. The meeting begun with “A Toasmaster’s Promise” recited by all Toastmasters’ members for their commitment to Toastmasters.

The theme of the meeting was “Blast to the Past” and the word of the day was“reminiscent”.

Our Club President, Wendy Sim, took over the control of the meeting with her welcome address. She greeted the distinguished guest Maria Mutahi, CC, who came from Kenya Toastmasters Club as General Evaluator and the other guests. Then she invited the Grammarian, Shain, to introduce the word of the day “Reminiscent”. She invited members and guests to introduce themselves and encouraged all to use word of the day and speak in line with the theme of the day, “Blast to the Past”. All the members and guests did well during the self- introduction.Today’s club meeting was a lively one because we had guests from Japan and Russia as well.

After the introduction session, the floor was passed on to Ron Yeap, ACB, CL who played the role as the Invocation Speaker

Today’s Toastmaster of the Evening is our sweet Mandy Chan who briefed on the history of Toastmasters International and our club.  She introduced the role players for this meeting in the sequence of Grammarian-Shain, “Ah” Counter- Olivia Chen and Timer-Shelly who played 2 roles in this meeting. All the role players introduced their roles and objectives for this evening.

The exciting session of Table Topics­_­­^TM took place and our President played the role of Table Topics^TM Master. She prepared the topics related to theme of the day. Members and guests were encouraged to participate. She explained the objective of Table Topics ^TM andthe time limitation for each speaker. The purpose of the Table Topics^TM session is to develop the impromptu speaking skills which includes opening, body and conclusion in their speech.

The order of the Table Topics^TM speakers were as follows:

1. Vijay
2. K L Loh, ATMG
3. Guest - Jasmine
4. Guest - Jia Ming
5. Guest - Xavier
6.         Guest - Alex from Russia

Let’s give a big applause to all the 6 speakers. Here, we were asked to cast a vote for the best Table Topics ^TM speaker.

After the Table Topics^TM, the TME took over and proceeded with the assigned speeches from Pathways and the Competent Communication Manual.

1^st Speaker – Daniel Tham

Speech Title – I Have A Dream

Speech Evaluator – CP Lau  , ACB, ALB

This is his Pathway of Dynamic Leadership Level 1 – Project 1 Ice Breaker

He shared with us his childhood life, where he was educated, about his career and his dream.

2^nd  Speaker – Crystal Chen

Speech Title – My Dream

Speech Evaluator – Manish Jha, CC

This is her Pathway of Effective Coaching Level 1 – Project 1 Ice Breaker

Cyrstal has a big dream since childhood. She told us her story about how active she was in school club and organized a drama during her schooling days.

3^rd Speaker – Chitirra

Speech Title – Think, Think, Think

Speech evaluator – Ron Yeap, ACB, CL  

This is her Project 6 which required vocal variety.

Chitirra spoke about ways in which we can enhance our thinking skills for the better.

4^th Speaker – Yap Ooi Yee

Speech Title – Do You Love Your Loved Ones?

Speech Evaluator – HjHashim , DTM

This is her Project 10 which required  her to inspire the audience.

Ooi Yee inspired us with the struggles faced by families when they lack proper insurance coverage.

All the four speakers qualified to be voted for and congratulations to Ooi Yee who completed her CC which took her a 2-year journey to complete.

After the assigned speech session, we took a 10-minute break for refreshment.

ASAA Shelly Sim called meeting to order after the break. Then, she passed the control of the meeting to the TME Mandy Chan.

It was time for the induction of our newest member. Yap Ooi Yee invited our new member KT Chok to come on the stage and recite the rules as a member of the club. Welcome KT Chok and we are waiting for your speech soon.

General Evaluator,Maria Mutahi, CC was invited to chair the evaluation session. She led the session with her panel of evaluators and role players. She began by explaining the purpose of the evaluation followed by the evaluation from the Table Topics ^TM evaluator, 4 speech evaluators, role players’ reports and her personal general evaluation. Evaluation is the breakfast for champions because a constructive and specific evaluation helps to improve speakers and make them better. Finally, we were asked to cast a vote for the best speech evaluator.

The time came for the Awards Presentation and the best Table Topic^TM, assigned speech and evaluation speaker for the night were:

1.       Table Topics ^TM– Vijay Kumar, CC

2.       Assigned speech – Yap Ooi Yee

3.       Evaluator –Hj.Hashim, DTM

The President Wendy Sim, CC was called onto the stage for the presidential closing address. She first thanked the TME who handled the meeting diligently. Then she presented the award for the best performers.

The meeting was adjourned at 9.45pm followed by a group photo and cake cutting ceremony for Shelly Sim and Xavier, the two December babies.

Indeed it was a fun filled meeting and someday when we take a blast to the past to reminisce this meeting it will surely be a sweet memory.

 Blog writer: Olivia Chen

                

Meeting #396 If I were, I’d be

“Every bush can burn if you fire it with your imagination” – Stanishlaw Jerzy Lec

“If I were, I’d be” was the meeting theme for meeting #396. It was not only interesting; in fact the theme had fired our imagination, gave us the chance to make our imagination sparkle with possibility. Our club meeting began with the quintessential flow, that is to start the meeting by reciting the “A Toastmaster’s Promise”. The session was led by our newly joined member, Daniel Tham. Even though, this was his first time in playing this role, he did it with poise. Well done, Daniel!

The President, Wendy Sim, CC took over the floor and invited Grammarian, Chitirra to introduce the word of the day, “Quintessential”. All of us went with the flow by using the word “quintessential” in our introduction. I particularly loved Ken’s introduction. He made humor about how to become a quintessential Toastmaster. He told, “First, you need to show up in the meeting. Second, you need to stand up and speak. Once you have spoken, remember to shut up.” His speech has lightened up the introduction session. After the short introduction session, the President briskly handed the floor to Humor master, Kelvin Chong, ACB.

Humor master, Kelvin Chong, ACB, on the other hand, upbeat the audience by telling why Men and Women could never understand each other. It was a quintessential joke when a man was being accused when he went too closed to a woman. Or he would be accused being disrespectful when he kept a distance to the woman.  Indeed, we had a good laugh, a splendid moment.

The meeting transited smoothly into the Table Topics™ session. If you were one of the guests, you would be very keen to know how the speakers were going to answer the given questions. We had 5 speakers and they had given their thoughts to the audience. Some of the speeches are very inspiring because they shared their own stories and some spoke with sincerity that touched the heart of others.

Table Topics participants:

A) CP Lau –“What will you do to make this society a better place?”

B) Sugawaran Takuya – “Will you change your citizenship?”

C) KT Chok– “Who has inspired you to become who you’re today?”

D) Wendy Sim–“Are you living the life that you want or you need?”

E) Daniel Tham – “Things that you like to do for your parents.”

F) Hj Hashim-“If you could invent something, what would it be?”

At 8pm, it was the time when the assigned speakers were ready to feed the appetite of the audience. Ken Chan, DTM taught us how to narrate a speech by using story telling method. He used FROG as the example and demonstrated in his speech. Second speaker, Mandy, reminded us to treat our closest family better than our friends. This was because they deserved the best from us. Lastly, Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB talked himself by using butterfly as a metaphor. He went through a metamorphosis and each phases, he received protection, love, encouragement that helped him to escape from the cocoon and transformed to become a beautiful butterfly. 

Whilst our brains were well fed with the performance from the speakers, our stomachs were also looking out for food to digest. It was time to call for a refreshment break. After the break, our General Evaluator Dinesh Jayabalan, ACG, ALB took over the control and invited EK Yeo, CC, CL to give his evaluation to all the speakers participated in Table Topics™ session. In general, he encouraged the speakers to focus on their vocal variety, eye contact, hand gestures and the structure of the speeches.

For the assigned speeches evaluation, we have 3 speech evaluators:

A) Ron Yeap, CC- He suggested Ken Chan, DTM to change his speech title to add credit to his speech.

B) Kelvin Chong, ACB- He encouraged Mandy to fill the pause with the examples to support her point.

C)Hj Hashim, DTM- He suggested Mathew to reduce the speed of his speech delivery.

The meeting was about to come to the end, when all the functional role players and General Evaluator had given their reports. President Wendy, CC presented certificates to the best performers as well as a token of appreciation to our General Evaluator, Dinesh Jayabalan, ACG, ALB.

Finally, the night was completed and while it was sad to see such a great meeting coming to an end. We had so much fun and “good night!”

Blog Writer: Serena Kong ACB