#410 Forgive & Forget

 “Selamat, Hari Raya, Kepada saudara serta saudari”……(Happy Celebration, to all friends and folks)

The famous rhyme of Eid Mubarak was played from the car radio, paving the mood to a Hari Raya Themed meeting at Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. In the spirit of “Maaf Zahir dan Batin”, the meeting was themed “Forgive and Forget”, with the Word of the Day “Solicitous”.

The meeting time was adjusted to start at 7pm as we can observe fasting, and break fasting with our Muslim members and guests.

In this 410^th meeting, we were visited by a few guests, including guest that was invited by members, as well as walked-in guest.

In this meeting, we are honoured to have Judy Lee, DTM from MIM PJ Toastmasters, taking up the honorable role as General Evaluator. The meeting was called to order by Assistant Sergeant At Arms, Crystal Chen, ACB, ALB at 7pm. The recital of Toastmasters promises led by ASAA reminded us of our pledge as a Toastmaster Member.

Madam President Wendy Sim, CC took over the stage with solicitous as this could be her last Presidential Address of the term. Nonetheless, Madam President in her address, would like us to be more forgiving and forget the past that could be holding us back, in order to move forward.

A round of self-introduction to the meeting was initiated by the President, and that given the opportunity to each attendee to state their role in the meeting, and the guest also got the chance to introduce themselves to the members.

Mandy Chan, CC, was the first speaker invited by the President to deliver the Invocation Speech. Mandy, after completing her Competent Communication project, grew more confident each time she took the stage. I was told she had volunteered herself to this role. How amazing a friendly environment like this able to build a character and boost up the self-confidence of an individual.

The Toastmaster of the Evening was a seasoned Toastmaster and Past President Serena Kong, ACB, CL. The history of Toastmasters and the founding history of our club was solicitously deliberated to the benefits of the guests who were among the attendees tonight.

To master the art of public speaking, one must be ready to speak impromptu. That is how the very exclusive Toastmasters program has included Table Topics^TM as its staple in the program. The session was led by experienced Toastmaster and Table Topics^TM contest winner, Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB. Crystal Chen, Michelle (guest), Victor Wan, Mike (guest) & Hj Hashim were among the brave souls took up the challenges.

In another session where assigned members came prepared with their project speeches, we saw Shain Anand being the 1^st speaker of the evening with his title “Down to Three” from Competent Communication Manual, Project #4 – How to Say It.

The 2^nd speaker of the evening was Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB in attempting his first project in the Pathway program, with the title “A Crucial Moment”. His chosen path is “Effective Coaching”, and this is project is from Level 1: Project 2 – Evaluation & Feedback.

Manish Jha, CC, IP1, was the 3^rd speaker and he was delivering from the “Innovative Planning” path, Level 2: Project 1 – Understanding Your Leadership Style. His speech title was “Lead By Example”.

Last but not least from the Project Speaker line up was Dr. Srikant, PM1. He was delivering his speech from the “Presentation Mastery” path, Level 2: Project 2 – Effective Body Language, with the title “Sailing in Indonesia”.

A mutual learning environment provided in Toastmasters allow the members know how they fair out in the performances. Judy Lee, as the General Evaluator, invited each Speech Evaluator to provide their comment and feedbacks for the speakers. The evaluation session started with Dato’ Dr. Mary de Silva, PM2, took the lead to give her Table Topics^TM evaluation to the speakers. CP lau ACB, ALB gave the evaluation for first speaker Hj Hashim, DTM was the 2^nd evaluator to evaluate on the performance of Mathew’s project speech. This continued with KL Loh, ATMG, the seasoned evaluator to evaluate Manish; and the incoming Division C Director, Ken Koh, ACS, ALB to evaluate Dr. Srikant.

Providing Evaluation Speech can be challenging yet rewarding. One has to practice his and her listening skill to listen attentively and analyse the speech presentation has met the project objectives at the same time. With the opportunity to observe and speak up, we will gain insight of the presentation requirements and skills at the same time.

When the technical evaluation team consist of Timer, Ah-Counter and Grammarian delivered their due reports, Madam General Evaluator Judy Lee given her General Evaluator’s report. We were relieved and grateful to hear that Judy gave a high compliment to the conducts of our meeting, which are in line to the Toastmasters International’s best practice. Judy also shared her thought to have a more contemporary and radical approach in the meeting practices, including placard of the TI history, app-based voting system and such, which are good suggestion for our consideration.

We thanked Judy Lee, DTM for her constructive feedback to the meeting.

In the final session, Madam President, Wendy Sim, CC once again took the stage for the closing of the meeting. The best performers of the meeting were announced, and the results were as below:

1. Best Table Topics Speech – KL Loh, ATMG

2. Best Evaluation Speech – Hj Hashim, DTM

The Best Project Speech award was not given due to time disqualification from 2 speakers.

President Wendy also took the opportunity to present the Pathway award ribbons to Manish and Dr. Srikant for their Level 1 achievement. The closing address grew more sentimental as President Wendy also give away her self-designed notepad with the Club Officers photos to her team of EXCO as appreciation of their contributions.

The meeting finally ended with a high tone by wishing the members and guest “Selamat Hari Raya” and happy holiday. We have chosen to “forgive and forget” the hatchet of the past, and we will choose to retain friendship and camaraderie moment forever.

Blog Writer: Ron Yeap ACB, CL