International Speech & Table Topics Contest 2018

Who were present at the event?

• Wendy Sim, CC, President of Money Mastery KL Toastmasters Club.
• Foo Fung Jiun, CC, Contest Chair
• Crystal Chen, ACB, ALB, International Speech Contest Toastmaster
• Joel Silas, Table Topics Contest Toastmaster
• Shain Anand, Sergeant-At-Arms
• Contestants, guests and toastmasters

The long awaited, highly anticipated International Speech Contest and Table Topics Contests 2017/2018 are finally here! “If you want to grow… if you want to be stretched… if you want to become a better speaker, come participating in our club level contest!” wrote the Contest Chair, Foo Fung Jiun. He said “The best way to rapidly improve your communication skills regardless of your experience level is through competition!”. And, here we are, the day of reckoning is here.

The competitions that begin from the club levels will eventually propel contests winners through the competition journeys of the area, the division, the district and eventually the international levels.

It takes serious courage and guts to compete in the contests, regardless of your experience levels. Not only that you have to work through the usual fear of public speaking and getting on stage, you need to have the necessary command of an audience that made up entirely of highly professional Toastmasters or new Toastmasters. 

Everything we learn in Toastmasters, every mistakes that have been pointed out would be put in test. Afterall, we are humans, we make errors but contests are known to be a little bit cruel. When the contestants are up there, the judges/audience do not afford them much forgiveness that would be expected during normal days of Toastmasters meeting. Hardly, any mistakes will go unmarked. 

While these are the excitement of contests that some people are so fearsome to do, a huge round of applause must be given to the contestants listed above. Let us cherish the courage of the contestants. May it be you at the next contest!

What happened in the event?

The highly organized, successfully executed contests would not have been possible without the hard work and contributions of the organizing committee which was chaired by the Contest Chair, Foo Fun Jiun. Backed by a team of highly dedicated members of Money Mastery KL Toastmasters club, the planning of the event has started weeks ahead. Every details from food preparation to photography to awards giving have been carefully crafted. 

As a result, it was a truly smooth sailing event. Kudos to the organizing committees as below.

• Foo Fung Jiun, CC, Contest Chair
• Crystal Chen, ACB, ALB, Contest Toastmaster International Speech
• Joel Silas, Contest Toastmaster Table Topics
• EK Yeo, CC, CL, Sergeant-At-Arms
• Shain Anand, Sergeant-At-Arms
• Olivia Chen, Sergeant-At-Arms
• Shelly Sim, Sergeant-At-Arms
• Daniel Tham, Photographer
• KT Chok, Blog Writer

Special thanks to:

• Henry Fu, ACB, ALB, Chief Judge
• Cheryl Ong, CC, ALB, Ballot Counter
• Ng Yee Chia, ACB, CL, Ballot Counter
• Joshua Chan, CC, CL, Ballot Counter
• Juliana Teh, CC, Time Keeper
• Malcolm Sze, ACB, ALB, Time Keeper

The event started right on time with the calling from the Sergeant-At-Arms Shain Anand. Contest Chair, Foo Fung Jiun CC started by giving his opening remarks to the audience and stated the importance of the contests as well as thanking everyone for making the event a reality. Crystal Chen ACB, ALB, Contest Toastmasters of International Speech stood tall to outline the contest rules for the benefits of all and introduced the Contestants and their order of speaking to the audience. Crystal Chen promised the audience that the contests would bring “lots of funs” to the audience and, indeed, the audience was truly exhilarated and thrilled by the contests.

International Speech Contest

Contestants

• Chitirra Amirthalingam
• CP Lau, ACB, ALB
• Ken Chan, DTM
• Manish Jha, CC
• KL Loh, ATMG

Table Topics Contest

Contestants

1. Ken Chan, DTM
2. Manish Jha, CC
3. Mary de Silva
4. Srikant Marakani
5. Xavier Gomez
6. Julia Leong, ACB, ALB
7. Hj Hasim, DTM

“Do you live to eat, or eat to live”? Never did I thought that eating can be a topic with such a huge impact, given how complacent Malaysians are when it comes to eating. After all, Malaysia is a food heaven!

Nevertheless, that was exactly the topic that was thrown at to the Table Topic Contestants. Table Topics session is one session that requires us to think on our feet and speak in a impromptu way, not to mention this is a Contest of Table Topic. There will be winners and vice versa. 

Our first contestant, Tuan Haji Hashim, through his life experience, described to the audience that the situation is indeed a Catch 22 situation where it seems like a dilemma from which Malaysians always struggle with given the mutually dependent conditions. Meanwhile, Jula Leong stated that it really does not matter as long as we “live life to the fullest”! On the other hand, Ken Chan pointed to the audience that he actually did enjoy doing both but under different conditions..

Srikant, the fourth contestant, likened eat to live to survivability where a person would need to ingest to sustain his or her life. Manish Jha, the man with a body that Ken Chan admired whether jokingly or not, announced to the audience that whether we eat to live or live to eat, we are the winner either way! However, it is the emotional hunger that we should be watching out for for it may overtake the real hunger that instigated us to eat n the first place. 

Xavier, our 6th contestant of Table Topic, advocated that eating to live is always a result of the environment which could arise from living pressure and state of life. He said that while foods are for  enjoy, Malaysians are really passionate about living to eat given the choice of foods we have in Malaysia. Eat to live or live to eat, Xavier is continuously wrestling with the idea.

The final contestant of Table Topic, Mary de Silva, meanwhile, indicated that “Do i eat to live or live to eat” is a popular question thrown at Malaysians as we know Malaysians’ life is all about the food, the food and the food. However, too much of food can create adversity and doctor’s advice according to her is always eat to live. She cited that patients with life threatening diseases might not have a choice but to eat to live. 

Therefore, enjoy your choices for now, whatever your choice is!

What are the results of the contests?

First thing first, no one get disqualified due to exceeding allotted time.

Second of all, no reports of protests to the results of winners were reported for both International Speech Contest and Table Topic Contest.


Thanks to the Judges for the head scratching session. Making a decision of who were actually winners were no easy tasks given the strong competence level of those speakers. Nevertheless, every contests are winners and without further adieu, we announced the winners for the contests as below.


International Speech Contests:

First place: KL Loh, ATMG

Second place: A. Chitirra

Third Place: Ken Chan, DTM



Table Topic Contests:

First place: Julia Leong, ACB, ALB

Second place: Hj. Hashim Adnan, DTM

Third Place: Mary de Silva

As our the President of Money Mastery KL Toastmasters club pointed out, we created history that night. We witnessed the making of the champions of our club. However, we can only have one winner in any contests and the winner for the contests tonight are the PARTICIPANTS! Thanks to everyone for making the event a meaningful reality.

Blog Writer: KT Chok

#398 Christmas, Deck the halls

26 December 2017 marks the last MMKL Toastmasters meeting in Year 2017. December is the ‘Season’s Greetings’ and holiday month. Due to that, many members were unable to attend the meeting and special thanks to Tn Haji Hashim, DTM and CP Lau, ACB, ALB both for taking up dual roles as a Toastmaster never refuses when called upon to serve. Besides that, we would also like to extend our gratitude to Noor Ain from Maxis Toastmasters Club for being our Grammarian. After the meeting, she had to travel all the way back to Dengkil. Also, a big thanks to all members who were willing to take up roles to make the meeting a success. 

When I stepped in at sharp 7.00pm, I was warmly greeted by our Madam President, Wendy Sim, CC. Our meeting room was set up properly and also filled with Christmas decorations to upbeat the Christmas spirit. As usual, Wendy came in with her best Christmas outfit with a stunning makeover. She passed me a pair of Christmas themed earrings. It was only then that I realized, our sweet President had prepared each of the lady members with a pair of Christmas themed earrings. 

KT Chok, our new member and first timer role player as Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms called the meeting to order at sharp 7.15pm. He was the first speaker who introduced our House Rules, led the recital of “A Toastmaster’s Promise” and invited Madam President to officiate the meeting. He led the session confidently. Well done, KT!

Madam President, Wendy Sim, CC took over the floor and invited Grammarian, Noor Ain to introduce the word of the day, “Mirthful”. As usual, we are encouraged to use theme of the day and word of the day in our introduction. Our “outsourced” Grammarian was impressed as all of us were using the word “mirthful” in our introduction. Throughout the meeting, some members even used the word “mirthful” three times and more. 

Humour Master, Ron Yeap ACB, CL played the role as an energy booster successfully. His speech on “What Kind of Life Those Programmers Are Living” had lightened up the session. He was telling that programmers would not be swayed from work duty even with the presence of a naked woman. How true is it, needs to be clarified with Manish Jha, CC and Shain, who are earning their living as programmers. 

Our charming Toastmaster of the Evening, Fung Jiun, CC started his session with a clear and loud voice singing “Deck the Halls”. “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la la la la! Tis’ the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la la la la!” Then he briefed us on the History of Toastmasters International and introduced the role players. 

Now the turn for the most exciting session of the meeting – Table TopicTM Session; this is all about impromptu specking. Our petite Table TopicsTM Master, Olivia Chen turned into a pretty Santarina; holding a big red Christmas stocking which was filled with the questions. Just like KT Chok, Olivia Chen is a newly joined member and was playing the role for the first time. She did it excellently. Well done, Olivia. Our long lost member Vijay, kick started the session followed by a guest who is turning into our member soon, Xavier, then the Ah-counter of the night – Kelvin Chong, ACB and lastly the 1st Speaker Speech Evaluator – Manish Jha, CC. Bravo to the 4 participants who volunteered themselves. 

Then it was time for the prepared speeches presentation. There were 4 speakers, which included Srikant, Joel Silas, CP Lau, ACB, ALB and myself (Mandy Chan). Srikant delivered his speech about his adventures in Cambodia. Through 2 trips to Cambodia, he had different experiences and made us realize how lucky we are as many kids in Cambodia are struggling in live. My speech was about obesity issues in Malaysia due to poor eating habits. So, control what you put in your mouth, as you are what you eat. Don’t dig your grave with your own fork and spoon. Joel Silas’ speech was about his “wanderlust” travel to Vienna, Cesky Krumlov and Prague. Not forget to mention he is repeating his speech as he felt like improving from his previous delivery. This round he did splendidly. Good job Joel! The last speaker was CP Lau, ACB, ALB who was promoting his new product, the Big House “Musang King” Coffee. Big House is the largest durian distributor in Bentong and they creatively came up with the idea to mix durian with coffee. At the end of his presentation, we were lucky to have a sip of the Musang King coffee. Thank you, CP. 

We would like express our gratitude to our General Evaluator, Chooi Kum Ying, ACB, ALB to take up the role although she was still wondering who passed her number to our VPE, Chitirra. She led the team of evaluators in monitoring the club’s meeting atmosphere and activities as well as gave constructive suggestions. She did affirm that our club is a performing club with strong seniors’ base to guide the new/junior along the way to become better thyself. All those seniors are our club’s strong pillars. 

It was the time to honour the best performers of the day for the Table TopicsTM, prepared speeches and evaluation. 

Table TopicsTM : Kelvin Chong, ACB

Assigned Speech : CP Lau, ACB, ALB

Evaluation : Tn Hj. Hashim, DTM

Last but not least, we will always be grateful to all the members who took up roles. Without you all, our meeting would not have run smoothly and successfully. And a special thanks to our guest, Xavier, who brought us delicious cookies and chocolates. 

I hope everyone enjoyed the meeting as much as I did; it was a mirthful meeting and we’re always looking forward to coming meetings. We’ll be kick starting 2018 with our club level’s International Speech and Table TopicsTM Contests on the 9th of January 2018. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! 

Blog Writer: Mandy Chan