Meeting #241 - Summary Report

28 February 2012, this is not a normal day, this is not the last day of February. Today, our beloved club, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club had our 241st meeting of the club. And, this was not a normal meeting that we had, it was a very special meeting for our members.

It was even before 6:30pm, our heavy weights of the club, our Club Advisor, Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM), Francis Ng, as well as our Vice President Education (VPE), Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB), Ken Chan were busy making arrangements for the meeting room.

Our Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms, Toastmaster (TM) Kelvin Chong has called for the meeting to order at 7:00pm sharp. Due to work commitment, our Club President, ACB, CL, Victor Wan did not make it for the President's Address; instead, it was taken over by our VPE.

The theme of the day was "Money Mastery". Ken has given us examples and stories on one that can be the mastery of money will not be worrying about their life. Our word of the day was "Mastery". Members understood it very well of the meaning of mastery. Everyone made use of the word "mastery" during our self introductions.

Our Toastmaster of the Evening, Competent Communicator (CC), Serena Kong took over the control of the floor after the acting president's address. We had a guest, Kuah Ken Ning (followed his brother, our new and youngest member). She has briefly introduced the history of Toastmasters International as well as Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club.

It was our CC, Competent Leader (CL), KH Song who presented the invocation of the day. he had told us a story of a millionaire and a monk. He brought up a message to everyone of us that if we change, the world will change accordingly. it was very good invocation presentation indeed and a very good learning session. Thank you KH Song.

Our program moved on to the next section, which was one of the most exciting moment, i.e. Table Topics Session. This is a session for all to practise and improve our impromptu skills. The Table Topics Master, CC, CL, EK Yeo, had explained the rules of the session and prepared with the topics, which were related to the theme of the day, "Money Mastery".

TM, CP Lau was the first volunteer to participate in this session. His topic chosen was "Money is the root of corruption, do you agree?". He has given his opinion and facts to support his stand.

Our guest, Ken Ning was the second participant. His question was "If you have a million Ringgit in your hand, what would you do?". he has given his view. he wanted to tour round the world and get a sport car even though he has no license at the moment. :)

TM, Kelvin Chong came out subsequently. he was asked, "Woman is good in managing money, do you agree?". Kelvin agreed and mentioned that in many of the successful and rich businessmen, they always have capable wives behind them, taking care of their money.

TM, Ken Yee took up the fourth question, "How do you let money work for you?". Ken Yee is still a student at the moment and has not much experience in terms of money. He did not get money to work for him. However, he shared a story of his friend who lost a lot of money in one of the share market investments.

And, the only lady participant of the session, CC, Serena Kong has took up her question, "Do you think you are the master of money?". Humble Serena admitted that she is not good in managing her financial. She always advised by her mother and trust the mother will get her money to work for her wisely.

All participants spoke within the time limit, hence, there was no time disqualification.

There was a 3-minute Humour Session allocated for the meeting. Our General Evaluator, Advanced Communicator Gold (ACG), Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB), also the Area C5 Governor, Sarah Abedi, has shared a story of how her daughter served tea to her husband. Ha ha....

It was time for the Project Speech Session.

Our first speaker, TM, Kelvin Chong, did his 6th project speech on vocal variety. His speech title was "The magic kingdom of 'What If'". he mentioned that there is actually nothing new on earth if we know how to ask the "what if" question. There should be no surprise if we find the answer of "what if". He highlighted that if we know how to ask "what if", we should be able to prepare for it and expect for it. He ended his speech with a song...

The second speaker, TM, CP Lau, did his 9th speech on the Competent Communication manual. He was supposed to "Persuade with Power". His speech title was "Go Learning, Go Internet Learning". CP Lau brought up the issues faced by children and parents today in their studies. Kids today are surrounded by all the high technologies. CP persuaded the audience, whom are the parents to buy an online learning product called Score A Program in order to help their children to excel in their examinations. He highlighted the features of the product as well as the proven records and Government's endorsement. Unfortunately, CP's speech has exceeded the time limit, hence, disqualifies for the "Best Project Speaker" run.

CC, Kok Sook Meng was the 3rd speaker, presenting her Technical Presentation from her Advanced Communication manual. Her speech title was "Palm Oil Processing". Sook Meng showed us he overall processes of palm oil. She also compared the primitive/manual ways from Africa and modern ways in Malaysia to process palm oil. This has shown a clear development of the technology in processing palm oil.

Finally, ACB, Ken Chan did his 2nd Special Occasion Speeches, i.e. Speaking in Praise. His speech title was "Don't Get Teary on Me". It was a speech for his late friend. Ken, during the speech had praised how his late friend take care of his family, friends as well as colleagues. Even though the late friend has passed away, his thoughts, advices and opinions are still alive and will be around to guide them.

After the short break, we had our evaluation session. Our general Evaluator took over the floor and invited the speech evaluators in sequence for them to comment on the respective speakers as well as providing them with some very useful and constructive suggestions for improvements if there were any.

DTM, Francis Ng did the table topic evaluation. He has commented on all 5 table topics speakers. His experience has enabled him to manage to comment on every speaker in terms of their good points and areas for improvements.

CC, KH Song evaluated TM, Kelvin Chong, CL, Eric Low evaluated TM, CP Lau, DTM, Francis Ng evaluated CC, Kok Sook Meng and DTM, Ramdas Nayar evaluated ACB, Ken Chan. All speakers found the evaluation were done very great and it was a very good learning session for everyone of us.

Below are other roles players of the night:-

1. Grammarian - TM, CP Lau

2. Ah-Counter - CC, CL, EK Yeo

3. Time Keeper - CC, Kok Sook Meng

Our president, ACB, CL, Victor Wan managed to come and presented the closing address. And, our awards went to the following:-

1. Best Table Topics Speech - TM, CP Lau

2. Best Project Speech - ACB, Ken Chan

3. Best Project Speech Evaluation - CL, Eric Low

I would like to highlight also that our club received the new Toastmasters banner as the achievement of Passion Drive 1. Congratulations to the club and thanks to all members' effort in working towards the passion drive.

We were honoured that we received the banner from

1. Lieutenant Governor Education & Training, DTM, Ramdas Nayar

2. The International President - Elect 2011/2012. DTM Dr John Lau

Our next meeting will be held on 13 March 2012 and we welcome all members and please bring along your guests.

Cheers!

CP Lau

1 Malaysia

Malaysia recently celebrated its ‘1 Malaysia’ day on 16^th September, for those who still doesn’t know what is ‘1 Malaysia’ day other than just a mere holiday- here is a small intro “Malaysia Day is held on September 16 every year to commemorate the establishment of the Malaysian federation on the same date in 1963. It marked the joining together of Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore to form Malaysia (Source: Wikipedia).

This is really incredible how people from different races and religions are so comfortable in this country, this is the reason that many people want to retire in Malaysia and want to make Malaysia as their second home, it’s very easy to find a proper blend of entire Asia here which is very rare in other Asian countries may be that’s why Malaysia is called Truly Asia.

Out Toastmasters is also the great example of this diversity is races and religions just like the country where we all different identities come together to make a group to help each other, we make friends who help other friends to succeed in life. Toastmasters never differentiate between people, a member is a member no matter where is he from or what religion or race he belongs to, we all speak one language – “Humanity” this program not only helps us grow in the fields of communication or leadership but also it helps us grow as a human being, it helps us learn new things, new culture. We celebrate Raya, we celebrate Christmas, We celebrate Chinese New Year and we also celebrate Diwali.
Every member is respected, given equal opportunities, in Toastmasters there is no superior or inferior thing, even a boss and subordinate are equal members, a DTM speaks the same way with a fresh TM as he speaks to the fellow DTM, everyone is ready to help everyone.

As they say, a country belongs to people or for that matter every organization is made up of people, without people nothing works, same way Toastmasters is nothing without its members and here in Money Mastery-KL we have that breed of members who are not only hard working but they are smart working and that is the reason that since 2003 we are always a President’s Distinguished Club and that is
the reason why new members are so encouraged and motivated to do better and better, they join the club because of the same. I would really like to appreciate and thank our members and mentors for their efforts. I would also like to highlight that even the new breed of members who joined recently are motivated so much that they are ready to take up any challenge, they are doing much more than what their role expects, they don’t hesitate to participate in contests and come out as winners. This mixture of both the breeds will definitely do wonders to our club. With this I would like to wish our club all success and luck for the next term and would also like to apologize if any of my comment has unintentionally hurt anybody's sentiments.

Signing off

Jitin Girdhar

1 Malaysia- Truly Asia

My Journey from breaking ice to Competent Communicator (9/3/10-22/2/11)

My journey began well before giving my first speech, my first step was not to prepare for the ice breaker but to decide to come out of my comfort zone and join the Toastmasters, attend all the meetings and participate whenever &wherever possible, I feel making up your mind is more important than executing your plans but at the same time it doesn't make this execution less important. I would like to thank the entire Money Mastery KL TM team; who always assisted me, inspired me, motivated me and made me capable of achieving this milestone.

I still very well remember my first planned speech. It was a very different feeling; I was nervous and confident at the same time. My hands were ice cold, I could hear my tummy making weird sounds (that happens when I m scared), I was allowed to use notes but still to avoid that I was memorizing my speech, the table topic session started but I was too busy to concentrate, I had a much bigger job, I had to remember my lines, my flow and yeah a strong ending with a strong quotation. I was so focused on the preparation of my speech that even a terrorist attack would not have distracted me. But that was wrong on my part, which I realized later. At toastmasters we give equal importance to listening as well and I was not completely listening to any speaker, I was just hearing what they were saying.

The moment came- we moved to planned speeches, my evaluator Paul Tan was asked to read out my speech objectives, then Lakhmichand (commonly known as Lucky) the GE was asked to read out Note to the Evaluator and then- “Can we call upon TM Jitin Girdhar for his first speech- “My life in my own words”- Jitin” (repeated twice). Well well well a complete darkness in front of me- my legs were paralyzed, with a firm handshake, I took control of the podium and started with my childhood, my parent and my family and I don’t know how the time passed and when the timer showed me the orange light which means it was the time for me to recollect the quotations I memorized. And it ended well in time 5 minutes 59 seconds. My hands were colder than before, fumbling and shaking I reached my seat. I was not sure what had I done and how good it was but when I received the best speech of the day award, I told myself- it was worth all these efforts, everybody liked that speech- well it was my own life and who else cud have narrated it better than me. The feelings were crystal clear and the knowledge of subject made me little confident, the efforts were well paid when Lucky (GE) in his concluding remarks said that this is the best example of the ice breaker speech and that we should use this as a sample for the new comers, and Gean Lau (then VPPR) asked me to frame the speech and publish in our newsletter (later which brought me into the editing team).

These awards were much bigger than the first prize in the international speech contest, I was so happy that immediately I decided that I am giving my next speech in the next meeting and then every meeting I kept learning and cruised along to my last speech. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Paul Tan for giving me such a wonderful and a positive feedback which really encouraged me and inspired me to give speeches regularly.

I wanted to finish my last speech at the same venue so I had to rush with my last couple of speeches and yeah the day arrived- the last speech before getting CC. The situation was totally different, my confidence was really high; no sign of nervousness, no memorizing of the speech- just remembered the bullet points and the flow. The actual speech started much before when I had to select the speech title- it had to be the best, after all I had to Inspire the Audience (yeah the speech topic) - so what could have been better than the topic of peace, love and humanity after all it touches everybody’s heart so I decided on “Live and let live” and this time my evaluator was none other than the General Evaluator himself- Distinguished Toastmaster Rohijas. This time I was well prepared with the statistics, and had all the material to substantiate my thoughts, I touched the topic of mother nature- the global warming and I was sure I’ll be able to gather everybody’s attention, this confidence was the outcome of my long journey of 11 months and the efforts put in by myself and my entire team in MM KL TMC. And the milestone was achieved with grabbing another best speech award for that day. I was very satisfied with my performance; I could easily see the difference between my first and my last speech of CC.

I would once again like to thank each and everyone who has directly or indirectly participated in making me a better communicator. I would never be able to repay you for this but would promise each one of you that I will give my level best to bring a communicator out of every Toastmaster. My journey does not end here, it is just the end of the beginning, and I will come back even stronger and will reach the pinnacle in style, with confidence.

Signing off

Jitin Girdhar, a proud CC and a member of Money Mastery KL TMC