13.08.2019 Meeting # 442- Having Personal Integrity Accountability

Meeting Theme: Having Personal Integrity
Word of the day: Accountability

13^th August 2019, my day wasn’t really started well. My emotion energy level was flat. I was contemplating the whole day if I could skip attending the Toastmaster meeting tonight. However, I can’t because I have promised to be the Grammarian for the day.

Dragging my feet to the club’s meeting room, I could hear everyone was chatting and enjoying the heart-warming Nasi Lemak with fried chicken and omelette inside the meeting hall. What a great meal to have before the meeting start! Thank you to our dear Treasurer, EK Yeo, CC, CL for always taking care of our breadbasket at each and every meeting.

As I entered the hall, the energy was superb. The smile and greeting by everyone was definitely an uplifting one. Without realizing it, my energy bar raised by 20%. 

Just few minutes before the meeting start, our General Evaluator, S.K. Walia, DTM, or fondly known to Toastmasters as Mama Walia, came in with our Immediate Past President, Chittra, LD1. Everyone was so happy to see Mama Walia and all the senior members hugged and greeted her in a very warm and motherly manner. Being a new member to the club, I greeted Mama Walia and introduced myself. Her smile and tender hand shake warmed my heart and lifted my energy bar to 40%! Amazing!

Without further ado, our meeting 442 started. Theme of the day was “Having Personal Integrity” and word of the day was “Accountability”.

We started with the Assistant Sergeant At Arm (SAA) greeted everyone with her warm and lovely smile. After a quick reminder of the house rule and recital of the Toastmaster’s promise, the floor was handed over to the club’s President, Mr KL Loh, ATMG for the opening address.

This is the session where the theme and word of the day were used the most; from the opening address by Mr President to the round of introduction where all members and guests were invited to introduce themselves and shared thought about “Having Personal Integrity” and “Accountability”. In summary, I interpreted integrity as honesty to oneself and accountability is act upon the honesty. This reminds me of the famous quote by Sir William Wallace, “Every man dies. Not every man really lives”. To live your life to the fullest, ones must have integrity and accountability as both are the core values of a person must have in carrying out everything he/she does in life.

Everyone was given a chance to speak from the beginning of the meeting :)

Here came our Humour Master – Mr Matthew Philippose, CC, ALB! I used to have fear towards Mr Matthew, CC, ALB as he looked like my strict primary school English teacher who hardly smile and always commented on my poor grammar and vocabulary. (Until now, I still can’t believe that I was the Grammarian in this meeting!) However, today, he presented a totally different side of him! Started with a funny and hilarious laughter; he ended his speech with a humble smile. Bravo Mr Matthew, CC, ALB! You have lifted our meeting atmosphere to the top and my energy level was accelerated immediately to 80%!

Wow… Upcoming is another interesting session – the Table TopicsTM, the impromptu speech challenge!  This is always my favourite session because this is the session where you’ll find how every one of us dealing with uncertainty in just 20 minutes. For those who volunteered, their courage were definitely commendable. A big round of applause to our past President and birthday boy, Mr Ben Hoe, CTM, CL and our fearless guests Roger, Winnie and Amri! All your sharing today would definitely be our learning tomorrow.   

Speaker 1: Ben Hoe, Speaker 2: Amrik, Speaker 3: Roger Oh, Speaker 4: Winnie

Next, this was what I called the Toastmasters moulding platform – the Assigned Speech, a platform that mould the members of Toastmasters from Zero to Hero; from a local listener to a world's top leader. Started with our new member Mr CS Ong who was doing his Project 2 that required him to learn about giving, receiving and applying feedback. Using feedback received during his first speech, CS Ong successfully delivered his second speech with tremendous improvement and full of confidence.

Pathway or Highway – this was the second assigned speech delivered by Ken Chan, DTM. Thank you Ken Chan, DTM for the brief explanation about the Toastmasters' new learning path – Pathways. I found the 10-12 minutes briefing beneficial for new members like me. After listening to him, I had a better understanding about the Pathways and looking forward to see more and more seniors to join us in our journey to Pathways!

"Is it true? Is it good? Is it useful?" This is the Triple Filter Test presented by our Area Director, Julia Leong, ACS, ALB. It was fun and entertaining to listen to her well-crafted story where she used the name “Ken Chan” in her story and we learned about technique to differentiate between rumours and facts by applying the triple filter test.

Drum rolling please! Here comes the highlight of the meeting - The evaluation and report session – a session that gave meaningful closure to the meeting. To all the speakers including Table TopicsTM,  not only that you will be told about your strength and weaknesses, but you would also receive constructive feedback/suggestion for future improvement.

This session started with Ms Chittira, LD1, evaluator for Table TopicsTM. Well Done Chittira, LD1. You were such an observant and sincere evaluator. All the guests were impressed with her truthful feedback and advice. Next, we have our senior evaluators CP Lau, DTM,  Tn Hj. Hashim, DTM, Mr Matthew Philippose, CC, ALB, who evaluated the speakers of assigned speeches and Ron Yeap , ACB, CL, who evaluated the evaluation report done by CP Lau, DTM. Listening to their evaluation reports, I believe not only the speakers, but everyone in the meeting has in fact benefited and took away a lot of useful skills and techniques of public speaking including the body language, eye contacts, facial expression, hand gesture, stance and vocal variety. A big thank to all.

Finally, Mama Walia, the General Evaluator took the stage! Mama Walia applied a PIE technique. Seven (7) Praise and one (1) Improvement. Where is the E? I remembered Mama Walia said, “Please invite me again even as a Table TopicsTM Evaluator.” Thank you Mama Walia, your simple acknowledgement is a great Encouragement to all of us. Please join us anytime either at Pathway or Highway!

Before the end of the meeting, the President presented awards to:

Best Table Topic Speaker      : Mr Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL

Best Assigned Speech           : Ms Julia Leong, ACS, ALB

Best Evaluator                        : The unbeatable Tn Hj. Hashim Adnan, DTM

Our meeting adjourned with a group photo session.

Looking at the screen showing our Theme of the day, “Having Personal Integrity” and Word of the day “Accountability, I took a moment to reflect what I did today. Because of accountability, I decided to attend the meeting and withhold my integrity toward my promise to my camaraderie as the Grammarian of the day. I have no regret and proud to be part of MMKL-Toastmaster Club. Guess what? My emotion energy level has surpassed 100% without me realizing it! Thank you everyone to be part of my fabulous day!

Blog Writer: Jocelyn Chew

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2019/2020