Meeting #266, 8th January 2013

It is Tuesday 8^th January 2013, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club had their #266 club meeting since the club was chartered in 22^nd July 2002. This day the club meets with the Theme of the Day: “New Year Resolution”. The Word of the Day was Vigorous [vig-er-uh s] which means i)Strong, healthy and full of energy   ii) Characterized by or involving physical, strength, effort or energy.
 

TM, Angel Law

Today we have a new person has the Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms(ASAA), it is TM Angel Law, she just became a new member to the club recently and this is her first role. She pointed out that all phones and sound emitting devices to be put off so that it will not distract the meeting. TM Angel with a sweet yet loud voice led group to recite the first five promises of “A Toastmaster’s Promise”.  TM Angel than handed over the meeting to the President ACS, ALB Ken Chan.

CC Mathew Phillipose

The President welcomed everyone for the first meeting of the New Year. He than welcomed the distinguished guest ACB, ALB Henry Fu from D’Utama Toastmasters Club. As the President  asked for the Theme Of The Day, all in one voice repeated “New Year Resolution”, with that he called for the Grammarian CC, CP Lau to introduce the Word of the Day “Vigorous”. As the grammarian made the word known, the President called upon all present to introduce themselves. There was so much enthusiasm as each spoke of their resolutions and exhibited how vigorous they are to be present.


We had four new guests visiting us for the first time namely, Jenifer, Yvonne, Shawn and Kelly who were present. After the introductions ACB, ALB Ken Chan stood in the capacity of Area G1 Governor to make it known that his presence was also as the 2nd. official visit as our Area Governor. When he had addressed the audience with a few words, he called upon the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME) CC Mathew Philippose to take over his role. The TME read out the history of Toastmasters for the new guests and challenged them to make a decision to be a member.

CC Ron Yeap

The TME then invited the Table Topics Master CC Ron Yeap to conduct the Table Topics session. Yes, we had five who took to the floor. The first speaker was Anwar Ahmad followed by Cindy Foong, Hj Hashim, Angel and Kelvin. Each spoke the topics given to them making the evening interesting. As soon as Table Topics were over TME Mathew announced the project speech category.

TM, Anwar Ahmad

We had our 1^st Ice Breaker speech for the year from TM Anwar Ahmad who shared on the title ‘My life, so far….’ He gave the meaning of his name, meaning luminous and added many famous people have carried this name. His name is not strange but his life is more unique compared to all of them.   

TM, Sunny Low

The next speaker TM Sunny Low, came with a title “Never Give Up”, on the topic Get to the Point. This is his third speech, he game with a smile and shared his story of how he persevered difficult situations in Ireland, he never gave up and how he finally succeeded.   

TM, Mahadevan

Yes, we had our next speaker who had been speaking regularly for the last three months and he arrived at his 6^th Speech, we had our TM Mahadevan who always had something to say on health. This time he spoke on Obesity is a Disease.
 

CC, Kelvin Chong

Next rung of speakers were from the Advanced Communication manual, we had our cheerful smiling speaker CC Kelvin Chong using the Manual Persuasive Speaking, Speech #1 The Effective Sales Person, He spoke the title; How to Sell Yourself? He sold himself as a politician under the Party Umbrella challenging Party Bicycle. He shared how his party can deliver what the other party cannot because his party  have the expertise skill and finance. He had a series of question from the floor and he answered them all. Kelvin sold his services and convinced all seated he can deliver.

Our President cum Area Governor

The final speaker for the day was none other than ACS, ALB Ken Chan who was speaking from the Story telling Manual, on  a touching story. As the TME introduced Ken Chan he said this story was dedicated to all children who do not have a daddy. The story unfolded about a boy who recollected his Daddy on Daddy’s day in school. He ended the story with a dilemma phrase, his father did not drink and drive but another person who drank and drove a truck collided with his father’s car in an accident. That drunken man lived but his daddy died. The touching story gave a solemn atmosphere.  As the story came to an end the TME took over and adjourned the meeting for a break for 10 minutes.

ACB, ALB Henry Fu, General Evaluator

The break had the usual local food like nasi lemak, and various local delicacies. All enjoyed around the table with fun and laughter. The time passed so fast that one did not realize that it was time to start again.  As all hurried to take their places, Angel the Assistant SAA called the meeting to order. She than handed the meeting to the TME Mathew. Mathew invited the General Evaluator (GE) ACB, ALB Henry Fu to take over the Evaluation session. 

At the invitation of the GE all the evaluators were called from starting from Table Topics Evaluator ACB, ALB Victor Wan; DTM Francis Ng; CC Serena Kong; CTM, CL Tan Ben Hoe; CC, CL EK Yeo; and CC, CL Cindy Foong. Each of the evaluators encouraged the speakers and gave valuable points as room for improvement.

The GE called on the Grammarian/ Ah Counter CC, CP Lau to read his remarks followed by the Time Keeper's report by CC, CL EK Yeo.  Surely it was a time to check and further improve ourselves. The GE added on with his report with his good comments and areas of improvement. As he concluded he handed the meeting to the TME who called the President  for award presentation.  The best Table Topic Speaker’s award went to Hj Hashim, the best project speech went to Ken Chan and the best evaluator went to Francis Ng.

The President in his closing asked for updates and past president ACB, ALB Victor Wan gave away appreciation Pin to CTM, CL Tan Beng Hoe. The President ACS, AlB Ken Chan thanked all for present and adjourned the meeting to a close. 

CC, CL Hj. Hashim won the Best Table Topic Speech

DTM Francis Ng as the Best Evaluation Speech

A token of appreciation presented by President, Ken Chan to Henry Fu

After meeting fellowship for January babies, EK Yeo and Serena Kong

Open House 2012, 15 December

Saturday 15^th Dec 2012 was the open day for Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club.

The open house was held in our meeting venue in MCA building, 9C (3^rd floor), Lorong 8/1D PJ Selatan. Entering into the meeting room, one is greeted by a welcoming atmosphere. There was a large banner in front of the hall room with the words Welcome to Open House. Well who is the person behind this open house project? It is none other than CC Serena Kong. She was in the meeting hall early making sure all things went all.

The room leading to the meeting hall had all types of food well laid out. The food was irresistible. The guests were treated to lunch starting from 1pm. Among our members we had the following guests who made our day.

The guests present were, Edmond Lee, WH Lee, Ji Sheng, Ms Song, Mr Ang, Tan Book Wen and Meng Siow. Everyone was busy greeting the guests and having a lovely time. The guests were finally led to the meeting hall for the meeting. At the sound of the gavel, the Toastmaster of the Day (TMD), CC Mathew Philippose acting also as the Assistant Sergeant at Arms (ASAA) called the meeting to order. He introduced the house rules informed the audience of the amenities available for their convenience.

He then invited the President ACS, ALB Ken Chan to give the Opening Address. The president with a gleaming face welcomed the guests giving them a glimpse of what toastmasters is about. He introduced the theme of the day “Speaking with confidence” and the word of the day “Mesmerizing”, which means attracting, captivating; holding interest as if by spell. The President than invited everyone to introduce themselves and encourage to use the theme of the day and the word of the day in the short introduction.

As the President handed the control back to the TMD, Mathew took up the role of sharing the history of Toastmasters and its benefits and he inspired the audience to be part of Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club with the benefits that they will enjoy in speaking and leadership. He invited CC, CP Lau for the next agenda called “Mix and Match”. This is an “ice-breaking game” to enable each to know the other better.  Each person was to take a color of M&M sweets and according to the color they were required to tell about themselves for example about their hobby, family, occupation etc. It was an interesting time getting to know each other and the guest took courage to speak and to share.

By the time CC, CP Lau handed the session back to the TMD there was already an atmosphere to speak confidently. The TMD handed the session to The Table Topics Master CC Serena Kong, and we witnessed a stream of volunteers mainly from the guests who took turn to participate in the Table Topics speech.

The time came next for TMD to invite prepared speech as an exhibit for the guests. We had CC Serena Kong who gave a touching story from the Advanced Communication Manual Project 3, on the topic moral of the story entitled ‘Waris’ In her story she spoke about a woman from Somalia who traveled all the way to London bare foot. Along the way she went through many dangers including escaping from the lions. In London she worked as a maid and even as a cleaning lady in McDonald’s. The story finally unfolds itself this woman finally became a model, who even had to learn how to wear shoes. She finally says it is better to be a model than to be a cleaning lady. Her name is “Waris’ from where the title of the story comes. The key phrase that Serena Kong used in her story is “people do not seek for luck, luck seeks for the person.”   

After the speech the TMD adjourned the meeting for a 15 minute break. It’s was a time of food, fellowship & fun together. As the break time came to an end the TMD called the meeting to order and we invited DTM  Francis Ng to the evaluation for the speech given by Serena Kong. The evaluation given by DTM Francis Ng was a good insight on how an evaluation is done. He encouraged, motivated and inspired Serena Kong.  He then gave areas Serena can improve upon. 

After the evaluation the TMD called upon the President for his closing address. Before the president closed the meeting he asked the guests how they felt about the meeting. Some of the comments were as follows: “It’s encouraging”,  “I like to speak confidently”, “I wish it is my next step to learn”, “I too hope to improve in public speaking”.  The President in his closing address encouraged the guests to consider the benefits of the club and sign up. The meeting ended about 4.30pm.

Signing off,

Mathew Philippose , CC

Meeting #263, 27th Nov 2012

27 Nov, 2012 was a very special and honorable day for Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. Despite the normal meeting as scheduled, we have some very special guests, our Toastmasters International President 2012/2013, DTM Dr. John Lau visited us! In addition, our club sponsor, DTM Geoff Andrew was our General Evaluator of the meeting. Our Division G Governor, ACS, ALB Thiagarajah Nesan also visited us!

It was a rainy day, heavy rain in fact. However, we had a great attendance for this meeting. We had our usual seasoned Toastmasters, our youngest Toastmaster and some guests participated in the meeting.

It was a little different for this meeting. We used up to 2 rooms for our meeting. As we are in the  progress of preparing for our first ever Open House Event, we were planning for some video shooting for some esteemed Toastmasters to share with our guests on why Toastmasters, CC, Serena Kong had also set up s second room for this purpose.

The team was here at the Bangunan MCA, in PJ Selatan quite early for our 263rd meeting on 27th November 2012. This was the last meeting we had in this meeting venue for year 2012. This is because our meetings in December all fall on public holidays. We are going to have another joint meeting with Puchong English Toastmasters Club on 17 December 2012 (Monday) at 8:00pm.

The theme of the meeting was "Counting Down... Preparing... Welcoming You!", proposed by the Toastmaster of the Evening, CC, CP Lau. We are marching into the final month of the year. Many of us despite busy counting down for the festive holidays, a lot of us are still busy preparing for budget allocation and sales target setting for year 2013.

Our club is also counting down, preparing and welcoming all to our first ever Open House Event to be conducted on 15 December 2012. To all members, please look out for further details from our blog, Facebook Group.

The word of the day was "Resplendent". This was proposed by CC, Serena Kong, our Grammarian of the day.

CC, CP Lau started off the meeting by explaining to our guests about the history of Toastmasters International as well as our club, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. He also mentioned some of the benefits as Toastmasters.

Table Topics session has always been the most interesting session of the meeting. Our Table Topics Master was CC, CL EK Yeo. The topics prepared was in conjunction with our theme of the day and they were simple that all our participants were able to spoke on their feet.  Thanks to EK for your great effort.

Our participants for the table topics were:-

1.    CC, Mathew Philippose

2.    ATMG, KL Loh

3.    CC, Kelvin Chong

4.    DTM, Dr. John Lau

5.    CC, Ron Yeap

They are emphasizing an important point 

Bravo to all of them for accepting the challenge and giving their impromptu speeches.

The meeting moved on to the very interesting session, the project speech session. We have 3 speeches lined up for the members.

TM Mahadevan has begun the session by delivering his 4th speech. His speech objective was - How to Say It, and his speech was "Prevention is Better than Cure". He shared his experience on how to be healthy. It is always important to prevent something from happening instead of having to cure it later on. Mahadevan's speech has got us to think of our health.

CC, Mathew Philippose (Yes! He is officially a Competent Communicator now!) was the second speaker of the day. He presented his final speech of the CC manual, where he was to Inspire His Audience! His speech title was "Life is a Journey".  He started his speech by lighting up 3 candles wit different lengths. This indicated different of him at different ages, different stage of life. He emphasized that life is a journey, not a destiny. We must all live to the fullest of our life. With his powerful message, he has truly inspired us. Well done Mathew! A standing ovation from all of us to your achievement in the Toastmasters journey!

Our 3rd speaker was none other than our President, Ken Chan, ACS, ALB. He presented his 2nd story from the Storytelling series from the Advanced Communication manual - Let's Get Personal. His title was "Scam City". He shared with us his experience that he scratched a "Toyota Altis". However, it was a scam as there were more than 5 of his neighbors also scratched the same "Grand Prize" for the same day.

After the break, the meeting proceeded to the Speech Evaluation session. ACB, ALB Julia Leong was the evaluator for all participants of the Table Topics session. She commented on the strengths of every speakers. Not only that, she also provided constructive suggestions to them on how to improve and bring their speaking skills to the next level. Thank you Julia.

DTM, Francis Ng evaluated on Mahadevan's speech. from his evaluation, it was advised that Mahadevan should present some very specific points instead of the general points. perhaps he could have zoomed into one particular point and described in more detail.

ATMG, KL Loh evaluated on Mathew's speech. he evaluated on his speech content that every small story from him actually described the journey of his life and it inspired the members.

DTM, Dr. John Lau, our Toastmasters International President 2012/2013 evaluated the last speaker, Ken Chan. It was a very interesting evaluation from him. He suggested to Ken to changed the tonality and excitement to make the story more interesting.

Our Mr. General Evaluator, DTM, Geoff Andrew also provided his comments and constructive advices to speakers for their improvements.

DTM, Dr. John Lau was awarded The Best Table Topics Speech award, Ken Chan, ACS, ALB was awarded The Best Project Speech award and DTM, Dr. John Lau was awarded The Best Project Speech Evaluation award.

Appreciation to our role players of the meeting:-

·         ASAA -  CC, CP Lau

·         TME - CC, CP Lau

·         Grammarian - CC, Serena Kong

·         Ah Counter - CC, Ron Yeap

·         Time Keeper - CC, Kelvin Chong

The Toastmasters International President, DTM, Dr. John Lau also shared with us his valuable experience on how he met with people, encouraged and helped them to embark on the Toastmasters journey. His great manner, humble approaches as well as the enthusiasm has walked the talk of "Why Toastmasters!".

As the token of appreciation for his visit, Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club has presented a book titled "The Legacy Effect". We wish that DTM, Dr. John Lau, on his journey to visit Toastmasters around the world, will leave a legacy for all of us! (and carry our signatures to tour around the world!)

Meeting adjourned at 9:30pm.

Meeting #262, 19th Nov 2012

 Our 262nd Toastmasters meeting was a special one. Our original date for our meeting was on 13 Nov, which is a Deepavali holiday. We have our first joint meeting this term.

It was a joint meeting with University Malaya Toastmasters Club (UMTMC) on 19 Nov, 2012 (Monday).

"Holiday Mood" was the theme of the meeting and "Sojourn" was the word of the day. Sojourn means temporary stay.

DTM Francis Ng and I were there in University Malaya (UM) at around 6:00pm. Although the meeting would start at 7:00pm, we saw some of the Toastmasters had started to set up for the meeting room. We felt enthusiasm in these young Toastmasters.

The President of UMTMC, TM Cheok Wei Chin gave her opening speech. The university has just resumed after a one week of holiday break. She shared with us how "difficult" for her, whom was still very much in the holiday mood, to wake up for the lectures.

TM Fatima took over as the Table Topics Master of the meeting. She had prepared topics which were related to the theme of the day, holiday mood. The participants of the table topics session were as below:-

1.    Our club member, TM Mathew, spoke on the topic of "Festive Miracle".

2.    UMTMC member, ACB, CL Jing Yi, spoke about the festive that she looks forward.

3.    CC, CP Lau was given the topic "food delegacy on festive seasons". he highlighted moon cakes on Mid Autumn Festival, 'Yee Sang" during Chinese New Year.

4.    UMTMC member, TM Wei Chin shared with us her "dream holiday".

The meeting moved on to the project speech session. Our enthusiastic TM, Mahadevan presented his third speech of the CC manual, Get to the Point. His speech title was "How to have a Long, Healthy and Happy Life". Mahadevan told us that he is currently 65 years old and was diagnosed as a diabetic at the age of 50. However, he did not give up. Instead, he was so determined to take care of his health and looked forward to live up to 120 years. He shared with us how we should control our diet, exercise and with the help of supplements in order for him to achieve his goal - to live up to the age of 120 years.

The second speaker of the meeting was our young TM Kyle Kuah. Kyle has chosen a very serious topic, about "Capital Punishment" for his seventh speech in the CC manual - Research Your Topic. He has done very well in researching about this topic. He shared with us a lot of statistics on countries that support and object on capital punishment. There are pros and cons about abolishing the capital punishment. However, Kyle has managed to deliver such a serious topic in a very interesting manner. He ended his speech with a humor. Someone said, "We should forgive the prisoner, until they are hung". Well done, Kyle!

TM, Wei Chin from UMTMC presented her eighth speech - Get Comfortable with Visual Aids of the CC manual. Her speech title  was "Smoking Hot! Not? No!!!". Obviously, it was a topic to encourage people to stop smoking and do not start smoking. This reminded me of our CC Ron Yeap, delivered the similar topic during his eighth speech from the CC manual. Wei Chin used power point slides throughout her speech. She shared with us very informative slides on all statistics about smoking. We got to know from her presentation that the US president, Barrack Obama used to smoke.

Our last speaker of the meeting was CC, Ing Ting, presented her first speech from the Advanced Communication Series, Storytelling. Her first project speech on the Storytelling series was - The Folk Tale. The story title was "The Heroine". She told us a story of a young girl from China by the name of Mulan, represented her father to be the soldier.

After the break, the meeting proceeded to the Speech Evaluation session. DTM Francis Ng was the General Evaluator of the meeting. Our President, ACS, ALB Ken Chan was the Table Topics Evaluator. he described the speaking style of every table topics participants. Ken;s constructive suggestions for all speakers on how to improve and bring their speaking skills to the next level was very much appreciated. Thank you Ken.

Below are the evaluators for the respective speakers:-

1.    CC, Chen Long (member of UMTMC) evaluated TM, Mahadevan

2.    ACB, CL Jing Yi (member of UMTMC) evaluated TM, Kyle Kuah

3.    CC, CP Lau evaluated TM, Wei Chin

4.    TM, Mathew evaluated CC, Ing Ting

Our Mr. General Evaluator, DTM Francis Ng, also provided his comments and constructive suggestions to speakers for their improvements.

TM, Mathew was awarded The Best Table Topics Speech award, TM, Wei Chin was awarded The Best Project Speech award and CC, CP Lau was award The Best Project Speech Evaluation award.

Appreciation to our role players of the meeting:-

·         ASAA - TM, Sara (member of UMTMC)

·         TME - TM, Kelvin

·         Grammarian - TM, Agnes Tan (member of UMTMC)

·         Ah Counter - TM, Sara

·         Time Keeper - TM, Agnes Tan

 Meeting adjourned at 9:00pm.

Signing off,
CP Lau