22.09.2020 Meeting # 470- Do What Matters Now

It was 4^th Tuesday of the month 22 September 2020, members and guests supposed to get online on or before 7 or 7:15 pm. I was rushing from office as I planned to take all the measures proactively to attend meeting on time because it really matters how we plan. So, Tonight I was playing a role of TME and honestly speaking I was partially prepared. So sorry hehe.

Oh Gosh, I reached home by 6:50 pm finally. I smiled and turned on my laptop to get ready before 7. There I was, many members waiting for me to get in, greeted good evening and I kept working behind the chat room on my preparation till ASAA call for the meeting.

Meeting started at 7:15pm as usual on time without any delay by ASAA, the charming Rey Thean PM2. She recited the Toastmasters promises and reminded us our oath being a Toastmaster. She also made sure we are all set to begin with and gracefully passed the floor to our Mdm. President Julia Leong, DTM. Julia is our president who is positive and encouraging to all. She opens the floor and asked all of us to share what really matters or mattered in your life in our introduction. This is something that, you can’t find it in all the clubs where each member and guest are invited to introduce themselves and use WOD and Theme of the day in their intro. It also helps us to practice to use WOD in our learning journey.

It was about 7:40pm, my name was called out, ‘now I like to pass the floor to our Toastmaster of the Evening Manish Jha.’ My ears rose to take command. As a TME, I am obligated to run the meeting from beginning until end. I first briefed the guest about the history of Toastmasters International and our club, so they can see the benefits Toastmasters membership offers. Moving on first session was prepared by Julia Leong, DTM as Table Topics® Master. Julia prepared all the interesting topics and we had 4 brave challengers accepted this nerve racking challenge to speak in Table Topics®. Table Topics® is the one that teaches us how to think on our own feet and speak effectively within two minutes. It allows us to craft a mini speech on the spot with interesting opening, examples and a take home message. That’s why it is challenging. Trust all four- Aizat, Emran, CS Ong and Myself(Manish Jha) really had a great time sharing experiences and personal stories.

It was then when our dedicated Timer announced times up for Table Topics® and I then commenced for prepared project speech session. This evening, we were fortunate to have 3 brilliant speakers. Abdul Rahman, PM2 was the first speaker – He was doing his speech from Toastmasters educating program path Presentation Mastery, level 3, project 1 – His speech was about to deliver a well organised social speech. Rahman made setup of social event and talked about how Toastmasters in MM-KL has helped him in his speaking journey. He actually praised his fellow Toastmasters for contributing in his life. The speech was fun and inspiring. He made us feel touched. Trust me, he has improved tremendously. You are on the right track buddy, keep it up!

Our second speaker Rey Thean, PM2 was very humorous. She was also attempting her speech from Presentation Mastery path, Level 3. Speech objective was to know your Humour. She actually made us laugh all the way from her experience about food delivery services. She started with her first experience when she was hungry scrolling through Facebook and an ad pop up “Crave it and Grab it” . Hahaha... We all got connected in her speech. She gave her Asian mindset, how it triggered her calculative thoughts when she wanted to order doughnuts for RM2, and she had to pay RM5 for delivery charges... hahaha, it was rather right, and I could not disagree. She took a turn and calculated how could she spent her RM5 wisely; how her mum nagged her on the money spent. It was completely entertaining speech. Those who missed it had missed so much entertainment.

Finally our speaker 3 is Mathew Philippose,EC3. He attempted the path of Effective Coaching, Level -4. His speech objective was to handle difficult audience. He was sharing the comparison between online meeting and physical meeting. There were some interrupters, chatterers, arguers planted prior to the speech to ask any type of difficult questions to the speaker, to see how they are handled effectively. It’s not easy to handle when you are presenting your prepared speech and questions are coming spontaneously from all the sides. Let me tell you Mathew did excellent not just by answering all the questions, also completed what he wanted to tell the audience within time. This ability takes time to develop and master. That’s how Toastmasters education program is designed to train you to  speak even with difficult audiences.

It was time to break for 5 minutes before we continue the evaluation session. Our General Evaluator of the evening was NK Valli, DTM from MIMPJ Toastmasters club. She is a member of Toastmaster for the last 25 years. She came back after a break and I handed over the control to her to conduct the hallmark of the meeting which is the Evaluation Session. She started by briefing what is evaluation for the benefits to the guests. The first evaluation was began with Table Topics® Evaluation by our ATMG, KL Loh. He got shine one for his detailed evaluations for all four Table Topics speakers. He clearly highlighted speaker’s strength and recommended what can be improved with justification. Next, it was time to hear evaluation from Toastmasters CP Lau, DTM, Chitirra, LD1 and Tn. Hj. Hashim, DTM. Our awesome evaluators did pretty good job. They listened the speech, highlighted the speaker's strength, suggested the change on their deliveries.

Finally it was time to appreciate best performers of the evening. Unfortunately due to one speaker got time disqualification so we couldn’t vote for the best speech. However, we voted for the best Table Topics® Speaker and Best Speech Evaluator- I was surprised until my eye popped out when I saw my name as the Best Table Topics® Speaker which was rarely happened because our club got many good speakers. The Best Evaluator went to the unbeatable Tn. Hj. Hashim, DTM. With all this fun and joy, we finally finished our meeting at a high note. Mdm President expressed appreciation to everyone and concluded the meeting with our memorable group picture.

 

Blog Writer: Manish Jha, IP1

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2020/2021