We had our
403rd meeting on 27 February 2018, the very first meeting after the
Chinese New Year holidays. The theme of the meeting was still surrounding the
atmosphere of new year, “Chinese New Year: Peace & Prosperity”.
At 7.15pm,
our Assistant Sergeant At Arms, Joel Silas called the meeting to order by
reciting the second 5 Toastmaster’s Promise. Soon after that, our Madam
President, Wendy Sim, Competent Communicator took on the stage and began her
opening address.
She wished
everyone a Happy Chinese Year and shared with us what was her thought by the
theme of peace and prosperity. She had also invited the members and audiences
to do a quick self-introduction.
The Word of
the Day was introduced by our Grammarian of the meeting, KT Chok, as
“Felicity”. Felicity is a noun, which means intense happiness and the ability
to find appropriate expression for one’s thought.
As it was
still Chinese New Year, majority of our members and guests were dressed in red,
because we believe the color brings “ong”
and prosperity to us.
We have our
member, Xavier presented the invocation presentation, which was very uplifting
and inspiring. He then handed the control over to the Toastmaster of the Day,
Mathew Philippose, Competent Communicator.
With a
strong voice, Mathew had led us through a very smooth, fun-filling and
educational meeting for the evening. Our General Evaluator of the meeting was
Sharon Wong, Advanced Communicator Silver, the President of OUM Toastmasters
Club.
Our ever
young, energetic and humorous member, Kelvin Chong, Advanced Communicator
Bronze was the Table Topics Master of the day. He had prepared many topics and
each topic was put into an “ang pao” (a packet that Chinese use to put in a
token of money and give to someone to wish them best of luck) in conjunction with the Chinese New Year. The
topics were very interesting, with some of them were on the new year wishes/
resolutions and some were on the Chinese Zodiacs. It was amazing to see some of
the non-Chinese members as well as guest took on the topics and managed to
provide some in depth explanation on Zodiacs.
Our member,
Dato Dr. Mary participated and was voted the Best Table Topics Speaker of the
meeting. Congratulations Dato Dr. Mary!
Our
assigned speech session started with our veteran and club champion, KL Loh,
Advanced Toastmaster Gold, rehearsed on his contest speech, preparing for the
Area Contest. The speech title was “The Monkey in Our Lives”. His speech sent
out a very timely and strong message to us that we ought not to procrastinate,
in our studies, career even in our health. Thank you for inspiring each and
every one of us, KL Loh!
KL Loh’s
speech was evaluated by our member Srikant, who was taking up this evaluation
task as one of his project assignment in his attempt on his Pathway Level 1
assignments. Even though it was Srikant’s first evaluation, he managed to
demonstrate the skill of listening and observation and provided evaluation on
KL Loh’s speech. He has also given area of improvement on the speech delivery.
Srikant’s evaluation, as a project on Level 1, was evaluated by CP Lau,
Advanced Communicator Bronze. CP shared some tips with Srikant in order to help
him in a more proficient evaluation in future. Well done Srikant and keep it
up!
Joel Silas
attempted to deliver his final speech on the Competent Communication manual, to
inspire the audience! His speech title was “What is Life?”. Despite the
delivery was not as smooth as how Joel wanted it to be, he completed his
speech. The speech was evaluated by our senior member, Tn. Hj. Hashim,
Distinguished Toastmaster. He had provided a very sincere evaluation to Joel,
pointed out how he should have approached he delivery of this speech. He has
recommended Joel to work on the speech again and arrange to deliver it for
another time. We look forward to hearing a more powerful speech from Joel in
time to come. Keep up the good work, Joel!
Last but
not least, our last speech of the session was a speech from Dato Dr. Mary,
completing her final project on Level 1, the path Presentation Mastery. The
title of the speech was “Colours. Awesome Colours.”. The speech caught us
surprise when the content was related to rainbow instead of any other “things”
that we could guess. The speech was beautifully and colourfully delivered by
Dato Dr, Mary. She has improved speech by speech. Kudos to you, Dato Dr. Mary!
It was so colourful. Her speech was evaluated by Mathew Philippose, took up
dual roles as speech evaluator as well as the Toastmaster of the Evening.
After the
break, our General Evaluator, Sharon Wong, Advanced Communicator Silver led the
4th session, the Evaluation Session. She had invited the Table
Topics Evaluator, Ron Yeap, Advanced Communicator Bronze. Ron was very good in
listening and observing. He has highlighted the strength of each speech, which
could also be a learning point for other members. Besides, he has also managed
to suggest some useful tips for all the table topics speakers. Thank you Ron!
Each and
every speech evaluator had delivered their evaluation. The technical role
players had also delivered their reports accordingly. We had:-
- Mandy Chan as the Ah Counter
- KT Chok as Grammarian
- Olivia Chen as the Timer
A round of applause to them for their hard
work, demonstrating the skills of listening and observing. I am sure the
speakers as well as the audiences had benefited from their reports presented.
Our Madam
General Evaluator, had provided her “evaluation” on our meeting. One very good
point shared by her, which perhaps our members should take note, “Do not down
grade yourselves by saying sorry!”. Until we have mentioned it, the audiences
do not know if you had made mistake. Thank you Madam General Evaluator and we
shall take note on the suggestions provided in conjunction with our effort to
bring our club to the next level!
Congratulations
to Dato Dr, Mary voted as “Double Best”, the Best Table Topics Speech and the
Best Assigned Speech! You have made it and the night was so colourful! Tn. Hj.
Hashim, Distinguished Toastmaster was voted the best speech evaluation.
Congratulations to all and keep it up!
Madam
President Wendy Sim, Competent Communicator presented her closing address and
announced the meeting adjourned followed by a happy group photo. The night was
very special, where we had celebrated the February born babies. In addition, we
had the tradition of Chinese during Chinese New Year, “Lou Sang”. Lou Sang is
an activity where we will stir on a plate of nicely cut vegetables, with some
raw fish on it. It means great happiness, great health and prosperous year
ahead. The higher we stir, the better we are!
Till we
meet in the next meeting, Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Blog writer: C P Lau ACB, ALB
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