Be Bold for Change

The theme of the day was lined up with the International Women’s Day on 8^th of March 2017. This was to honor the achievements of women. These days, the average woman wears many hats. Today women are bold and they are capable to achieve everything.

The venue before the start of the meeting was arranged by whoever comes early, some of those who were earliest were Serena, Mathew and EK Yeo. Normally we begin with refreshments as early as 6.30 pm but on this day due to heavy down pour the food arrived late and there were no refreshments. However, we have a break time at 8:35 pm. Heavy rain can be a challenge, however our members managed to arrive on time. Our Distinguished guest General Evaluator Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB), Competent Leader (CL) Amelia Chan, also arrived to the venue on time despite the rain. Assistant Sergeant At Arms, (ASAA) called the meeting to order at 7:15 pm. She led the club in reciting the Toastmaster’s promise”.

@7:18 pm: Acting President Wendy Sim took over the meeting in the absence of the President. She is club Vice President of Education and this role she took up for the first time. In her welcome address, she greeted the distinguished guests who came from other Toastmasters Club, non-Toastmasters and Club members. Then she invited the Grammarian Distinguished Toastmaster Dr. Thilla, DTM to introduce the word of the day “Courageous”. She invited members and guests to introduce themselves and encouraged to use word of the day and theme of the day “Be bold for change”. All the members and guests did well during self- introduction.

@7:38 pm:The Toastmaster of The Evening (TME), Competent Communicator, Competent Leader (CC, CL)EK Yeo CC, CL took control of the meeting. He shared a brief history on Toastmasters International and our club. He mentioned how TI (Toastmasters International) was founded and inspired millions of people across the world to extend this Toastmasters family.  He also explained the benefits of the Toastmaster’s educational program. He then introduced the role players in the sequence, Grammarian-Dr, Thilla, DTM, “Ah” Counter-Shain Anand our new member who took up the role for the first time, Timer- Serena Kong, ACB, and the General evaluator from Maxis Toastmasters Club Amelia Chan ACB, CL. All of them introduced their roles and objectives. 

@7:50 pm:  Our sweet and charming Table Topics™ Master Serena Kong, ACB was invited to the stage to take over the control from TME. She has prepared 12 topics related to the theme of the day and pasted on the card board. Members and guests were encouraged to participate. She explained the objective of Table Topics™, time limitation for each speaker and the rules before all the Table Topics™ speeches. The purpose of Table Topics ™ session is to develop the impromptu speaking skills which include opening, body and conclusion in a speech.

The order of Table Topics™ speakers who volunteered were as below:

1) Manish Kumar Jha–“When is the time you need to be bold”

2) Hj. Hashim Adnan – “Do you think girls or women need to be bolder these days”

3) Jun Hua – “Why bold doesn’t have to be big”

4) CP Lau – “When is the time you make bold in your office”

5) Crystal – “Why do we need to be bold for change?”

A big applause to all the 5 speakers and a vote was to cast for the best Table Topics speaker.

@8:05 pm:TME took over the session from Table Topics Master to proceed with the assigned speeches from Competent Communication Manual.

1^stSpeaker- Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB Speech Title- “Compassion”

His speech evaluator was CP Lau, ACB, ALB

This is his project speech no.4 “How to say it” from Competent Communication (CC) Manual. Mathew has used this speech for his Area C1 International and Table Topics Contests on 12^th March 2017. He ended as 1st runner up in this contest. The speech was well crafted with passion, vocal variety and body language. He gave the speech in accordance to speech 4 of the competent communicator manual. So we should say he was doing both the speech and practicing for upcoming Division Contest.

2^nd speaker- Foo Fung Jiun, Speech Title-“The Non-S0-Sweet Truth about Diabetes”. His speech evaluator was Manish Jha, CC.

Fung Jiun was doing his 8th speech from competent communication manual “Get Comfortable with Visual Aids”. He shared with us the root cause and type of diabetics, measure to prevent and overcome it. It was very informative and educational to the audience.

As a Pharmacist with his vast knowledge and experience he was able to give us many insights in this related field.

3^rd Speaker Ken Chan, Speech Title-“Present with Power”.

His speech evaluator was Tuan Hj. Hashim, DTM.

If we are not mistaken, it was the 7^th times Ken Chan DTM was doing his speech from the CC Manual. He gave the speech based on No. 8 from the CC Manual. The topic of the speech was “Get Comfortable with Visual Aids”. In this speech delivery, he has demonstrated to us how to use visual aid in the presentation, vocal variety, body language, pause and interact with audience. It was a marvelous speech caught the heart of the audience as he shared how to present with Power.

A vote was caste for the best speaker.

@8:35 pm: Break for refreshment for 12 minutes.

@8:47 pm:ASAA Chitirra called meeting to order after the refreshment. Now was the time for Induction for new member. Being the Vice President Membership, Chitirra herself conducted new member’s induction for Shain Anand with the support from club members. She then passed the control of the meeting to TME.

@8:55 pm: General Evaluator (GE)Amelia Chan, ACB, CL was invited to chair the meeting in invitation of the TME. She led the session with her panel of evaluators. She begun by explaining the purpose of the evaluation followed by evaluation from all the four evaluators, role players’ reports and her general evaluation. Evaluation is the breakfast for the champions because a constructive and specific evaluation helps to improve speakers and make them better in future than yesterday. There is no vote for the winner due to time disqualification from one of the evaluator. For a vote we need three or more participants qualified by time.

The Best Table Topics™ Speaker was CP Lau, ACB ALB and the Best Assigned Speech Speaker was Ken Chan, DTM.  The Acting President Wendy Sim invited the GE Amelia Chan ACB, CL to receive a token of appreciation for presiding over the meeting and for her invaluable advises.

  

Finally, Mdm. Acting President Wendy Sim summarized the entire meeting and asked the guests to share their thoughts about our today’s meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 pm followed by group photo and cake ceremony to the winners of Area C1 International and Table Topic Contests on 12^th March 2017:

In record our Champions of the Club for Area International Speech and table Topics Contest are as follows:

Table Topics Champion: Ken Chan, DTM

International Speech 1^st Runner Up: Mathew Phillippose, CC, ALB

International Speech 2^nd Runner Up:  KL Loh, ATM-G.

Sincerely, 

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

Vice President Public Relations 2016/2017

P/S: 

Thank you so much to the whole team including writer -Ekey Yeo, editor, reviewer- Mathew Philippose and critics to provide your timely sincere support and feedback to keep up the good work.

Lessons Learned the Hard Way

On this day, I was assigned as an ASAA (Assistant Sergeant at Arms). However, I could not make on time. Hence, the Toastmaster of the Eveing, Kevin Khoo, CC, took over the control and ran the meeting without delay. This is how we learned to support each other sincerely when the situation called upon to do so.

Our Club President Ron Yeap, CC open the floor from his presidential opening address. We had our theme of the day “Lessons Learned the Hard Way” and word of the day “Kaput”. Each one of us shared our best life lessons learned the hard way to illuminate each other’s life. It says, experience is a master teacher, even when it’s not our own.  Most importantly, everyone was happy to speak in the meeting as we always provide very friendly and comfortable atmosphere.

The Toastmaster of the Evening, Kevin Khoo, CC, took over the floor from the president. He quickly announced the changes found in the agenda so that everyone could follow the flow of the meeting. Also, he made sure all the role players like Ah’ counter, Time keeper, Grammarian including General Evaluator were in place. Not only that, he provided an informative session to our lovely guests about the history of Toastmasters International and the benefits of Toastmasters offer. 

After that, he introduced Table Topics™ Master, EK Yeo, CC,CL to handle the Table Topics™ session. I am so happy that we had four courageous self-driven speakers and they are:

 1. Kevin Khoo 2. Vijay Kumar 3. Ravi from IND, 4. David Tan from PJ TMC. All the topics were related to theme of the day and what they spoke very well. They shared their life best story that left us touched.

Now our Toastmaster of the evening, took us to another segment of the meeting and he introduced all the prepared speech speakers one after another.

First speaker- Carim, his speech title “My Origin”.

Our first speaker brought up his very first prepared speech with his speech title “My Origin”. He set a new milestone as he had broken his ice in front us. He was brave, audacious, and he made a valiant attempt to his ice-breaker speech. Well done, Carim! In fact, we had been given the opportunity to know you well.

According to him, his name “Carim” means kindness and generous. He comes from Philippines, and now he is working in Malaysia. He mentioned about his childhood, about his big family, his siblings. He was born in a big family and he was the fourth kid in the family. Maybe because of this, he learned how to tolerant and be patient. He loved playing chess and his father was his teacher. He taught him how to be a quick learner, become a more mature person and be a critical thinker. I listened attentively as I don’t want to miss any single thing about his speech. 

He deserved a standing ovation from all. Well done, Carim!

2^nd Speaker- Mathew P. CC ALB, his speech title “Magic Words”. He was doing his second round CC, speech no. #3 Get to the point. He is a proficient speaker. He is a corporate trainer by profession. He shared how three magical words changed his life whenever he encountered the toughest situations. Words like “Sorry”, “Thank you”, “Please Forgive Me”were very powerful. It was a very entertaining speech and we broke to laughter when he acted how he was lifted up by someone. I love his facial expression and how he switched off someone’s anger.No wonder, he won first place in our club international speech contest. Mathew, keep it up!

3rd Speaker: Joel, Speech Title “Development of Money”- Joel was doing his fourth speech from the competent communication manual- How to say it.  He touched about the topic of the inflation and deflation and how they affected the development of the money. It was very informative and learned something from his speech.

After Inspirational and educational talk, our VPE brought next speaker to have some entertaining talk.

4^th Speaker- Ron Yeap, CC. Speech Title- Presents for Your Love Ones. He was doing this speech from his advanced manual –Entertaining speaker (Resources for Entertainment). In his speech he put a lots of humor and surprises to educate the married and unmarried men example, how to surprise our loved one even with small surprises. I believe, he came up with his personal story which kept the audience giggling and captivated for 7 minutes. Ron was so comfortably in delivering his speech, maybe in the near future, he should try to talking on standup comedy. hahahaha..

 Give your wife pleasant surprises, she will love you more -Ron.

It was time for a break as our stomachs were growling. Therefore, our generous Toastmaster of the evening, Kevin, CC announced the break for 15mins.

The meeting resumed by having the General Evaluator, Edwin Wong CC to take the lead. He is from Air products Toastmasters Club. He called all the speech evaluators, in sequence to give their feedback to the speakers. This was one of the session that gave value to all of us. We were not only given the chance to learn the way to speak, but also to learn how to give constructive feedback rather than criticism. It was an art!

After that, role players gave their reports. Our General Evaluator also gave his general evaluation reports where he clearly highlighted the club strengths and pointed out some points of improvements. We appreciated the points as we should not stay complacent in where we are. 

The night was at the peak when Toastmaster of the evening announced the best performers in the meeting. The results were as below: 

Indeed, we had a quality meeting and everyone was happy.  Join us if you are around in Petaling Jaya. 

Sincerely, 

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

Vice President Public Relations 2016/2017

P/S: 

Thank you so much to the whole team including writer, editor, reviewer and critics to provide your timely sincere support and feedback to keep up the good work.

Valentine’s Day

The 374^th meeting of MM-KL held for a lovely date night on Valentine’s Day was themed after the occasion with the word of the day “Enchant”. All the singles without a date that night and all the veterans with their dates at home came to celebrate the night.

After a mini feast, the meeting begun at 7.15pm with Foo Fung Jiun leading the session as the Assistant SAA.
Upon introducing the house rules and reciting the Toastmasters’ Promise he passed the floor to our Club President Ron Yeap, CC. The president greeted us with his warm smile and opening address related with the theme of the day. It was today that most of us learnt that Valentine’s Day was celebrated to commemorate the passing of a Roman pastor St. Valentine who used to match make soldiers who were forbidden to fall in love. His Cupid act is celebrated worldwide with flowers, chocolates but most importantly love itself. 

Then, the president allowed the Grammarian, Dr. Thilla, DTM, to introduce the word of the day “Enchant” which means to attract or bewitch. After she did so, everyone introduced themselves, talked about Valentine using the word of the day.

Alas, the floor was passed on to Manish Jha, CC our Toastmaster of the Evening, who led the session through much calm and composure. He spoke the History of  the Toastmasters and even included extra statistics in the meeting. Did you know that in the past women were not allowed to join Toastmasters and now there are more women than men in the Toastmasters movement? Interesting.

He then introduced the respective role players for the night. Dr. Thilla, DTM was the Grammarian, Chitirra was the Ah Counter, Serena Kong, ACB was the timer and our General Evaluator for the night was Ms. Anita Wong, CTM, CL.

Upon that, Yap Ooi Yee took the stage as the Table Topics™ Master. She was packed with an array of topics related to Valentine’s Day of course and that night.

 All the guests participated together with one of our good standing members, Vijay Kumar CC. These were the appetizers for our Valentine’s date tonight. Vijay expressed his teenage love story with poise, while Shain Anand, Halen, Shin and Mike all spoke with much confidence being the first timers. The winner however was Shin for she added much humour into her speech. Congrats, Shin!!!

It was 8.00pm and while most lovers would have had their dinners served about that time, we however were served with a variety of project speeches. 2 main courses tonight and on the menu we had “Be Prepared” well prepared by Mr. Mathew P. CC, ALB and a colorfully presented “Photo Memory” by Ms. Wendy Sim. Boy was the meal delicious. Mr. Mathew skilfully thought us how to change our car tyer and how to always be prepared for a flat tyer. 

Wendy on the other hand spoke about how she stores memories the old-school manner by making cute little photo books. Something we used to do in the 20th century. However, it was a great idea to save our precious memory.

Being prepared may not get you the 100% result in a situation, but this will definitely will give you the best sense of doing better at times - Mathew Philippose CC ALB.

Photo is a memory and memory is always precious. Preserve it, better to be more happy, in life called Photo Memory - by Wendy Sim.

It was break time and we got a 10-minutes special break where we cut a cake for our beloved CP Lau. It was all fun and interaction until our punctual Timer hit the bell and called us back for the Breakfast session. 

But we just had dinner? What’s this breakfast about? The evaluation sessions in Toastmasters is known as the Breakfast for Kings as breakfast is the most important meal of our day full of nutrition. The evaluation sessions give speakers an idea on their performance and how they can make better to themselves.

Ms. Anita Wong, CTM, CL conducted the session with much spirit. She is such a kindred spirit. Mr. Kelvin Chong, ACB carried out the evaluation for all the Table Topic speakers using the Sandwich Method. Later on Mr. Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL gave a good feedback to Mr. Mathew, CC, ALB while Mr. KL Loh, ATMG, shared his best feedback for Ms. Wendy Sim, how to bring this speech to next level.

Finally, dessert was served at 9.15pm when our President presented the Best Table Topics award to Ms. Shin our guest and the award of appreciation to our pretty General Evaluator Ms. Anita Wong. He made a couple of announcements and the meeting were adjourned early today as we had a special AGM to right after the regular meeting.

Sweets were served together with love and indeed this was one of the best Valentine’s I’ve had. Atleast, I could say I wasn’t alone on Valentine’s and hey, what better way to celebrate any day than to have a lovely, joyous Toastmasters meeting. 

See you again all of you in our next meeting on 28th of Feb !!!

Sincerely, 

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

Vice President Public Relations 2016/2017

P/S: 

Thank you so much "Chitirra" writing this wonderful piece. I also thank the whole team including editor, reviewer and critics to provide your sincere support and feedback to keep up the good work.

Happy Chinese New Year 2017

The festive times are always great for a reunion. Here, we got reunited for the 2^nd time in the month of January on 24^th, 2017. It was a lovely moment with a lovely theme- Chinese New Year, very relevant word of the day “Abundance”. We celebrated an abundance of prosperity and happiness together with club members and guests this evening. May your happiness and fortune be bountiful in the year of the Rooster. Happy Chinese New Year from us @ Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club.

We came early to fill out our tummy first before the meeting started. Here, I indicated the ASAA to begin the meeting at 7:15 pm. Guess why I, indicated? Hehehe.

@7:15pm: Our Assistant SAA ‘Carim’ called the meeting to order. Carim, is a new member but very enthusiastic. He made everything perfect on the part of the meeting arrangements and begun with “A Toastmaster’s promise” which is a ritual for the members to create a commitment from within us to get the best education from the Toastmasters educational program.

@7:18pm: Our Club president Competent Communicator, Ron Yeap, hopped on the stage to set the atmosphere warm and exciting to unleash the best speaking ability in all of us on this beautiful evening. In his welcome address, he welcomed the distinguished guests who came from outside of the Toastmasters and the other Toastmasters club. Also, he invited the Grammarian to introduce the word of the day “Abundance”.  Later, he invited members and guests to introduce themselves and encouraged, while introducing themselves use word of the day and theme of the day as much as possible. We did very well on that.

@7:40pm:The Toastmaster of The Evening ,Competent Communicator (CC), Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB) Mathew Philippose, briefed on the history of Toastmasters International and our club. He mentioned how TI (Toastmasters International) was founded and later inspired millions of people across the whole world to extend this Toastmasters family.  He also explained the benefits of the Toastmaster educational program in our professional career and personal life. He introduced the role player for this meeting in the sequence,Grammarian-CP Lau, ACB ALB, “Ah” counter-Sivadas, CC, Timer- Manish Jha, CC and the most important person of this evening, the General Evaluator -Victor Ong, ACB CL. All the role players introduced their roles and objectives for the evening. Here, everything was set to have an exciting evening. I’m sure, you want to know what’s next, right? Hehehe

@7:52pm: Invocation speaker, Distinguish Toastmaster (DTM) Ken Chan came up to begin the meeting with a motivational speech. His speech title “WATTS”. He did a really good job breaking the ice on inspiring everyone to enjoy the further speeches. 

@7:57pm: I saw our Table Topics™ master  Kelvin Chong ACB walking towards the stage. I also saw that he was holding some gift packet in his hand to give the gifts to the speakers. He was in a  traditional Chinese outfit. On this day, there were few other people including me in red color dress to support the theme of the day, Chinese New Year. Kelvin Chong explained the Table Topics™ purpose and the rules before all the Table Topics™  speeches. The purpose of Table Topics ™ session is to develop the speaking skills and thinking processes of a person simultaneously. 

These are the table topics™ speakers:
 1) Michael FG (from MIMPJ TMC), 2) Our guest (from INDIA)
  3) Ida (Our Guest) and 4) Ji Sheng  (our former member).

 

Ida, she came here with her colleague and they came to see our meeting in the presence of Division C Director K M Srinivas and Club growth Division C director Michael FG before they charter a new club in their own company. Congratulations to all of you.

@8:09pm:This was the time to listen some prepared speeches where speakers spent a lot of time to prepare their speeches. This session was for 27 mins. Indeed it was extremely interesting listening to them.

1^stSpeaker- Joel Silas, Speech Title- Friends and his speech evaluator was Serena Kong, ACB.

Joel was doing his 3^rd speech “Get to the Point” from competent communication manual. So far, he has done really nice speeches and growing with great enthusiasm. Today he came up with an interesting story from his experience. He described friends to be in three categories.

       1. Friends for a reason 2. Friends for a season and 3. Friends for a lifetime. 

Be careful and enjoy all the three types of friends in life but never give a 2^nd thought about a friend for a lifetime.

2^nd speaker- Yap Ooi Yee, Speech Title-My 1^st Wall Climbing experience and her speech evaluator was DTM, Hj. Hashim Adnan.

Ooi Yee was doing her 5^th speech from competent communication manual “Your body Speaks”. Her speech really teaches us all a lesson, Never Give Up. After all, once she decided to do a wall climbing experience with her husband. She climbed the wall and she won, however her husband reached first at the top. She won his heart. That’s the beautiful part of life, winning hearts. She showed all the body movements which require climbing a wall. We got some awesome tips.

3^rd Speaker Foo Fung Jiun, Speech Title- First Time Property Investment and his speech evaluator was DTM, Dr. Thilla Chelliah.

Fung Jiun- He was doing his speech #7 from the Competent Communication Manual “Research your Topic”.  During his presentation, it was not just about his data from various sources. Also, he tried to bring our attention to the areas in KL, MY where there is low cost and high cost properties to invest in. This is called educate with fun. Good Job, Fung Jiun.

“The early you start investing, the early you will get the return”.

@8:36pm: This was the time for break + Lau Sang

@9:01: General Evaluator, Advanced Communicator Bronze, Competent Leader, Victor Ong was walking towards the stage to conduct the evaluation session. He led the session with his panel of evaluators. He begun by explaining the purpose of the evaluation followed by evaluation from all the four evaluators, role players’ reports and his general evaluation. Evaluation is the breakfast for the champions because a constructive and specific evaluation really matters to improve speakers and make them better in future than yesterday.

@9:39pm: Club president was called on the stage by the Toastmasters of The Evening to do the presidential closing address. He first thanked the TME who handled the meeting so well then awarded the best speakers for the evening.
Best Table Topics™ Speaker- Michael FG from MIMPG TMC,
Best Assignment Speech on this evening - Yap, Ooi Yee.  
Best Evaluation - Hj. Hashim Adnan, DTM and 
Also a Token of appreciation to the GE- Victor Ong, ACB CL

Finally, Mr. President, Ron Yeap, CC, summarized the entire meeting and asked the guests to share their thoughts about our today’s meeting.

Eventually at 9:45 pm: Mr. President waved his hand towards the audience and adjourned the meeting saying, good night, safe journey home, Happy Chinese New Year and happy holidays to you all. See you all in our next meeting on 14^th Feb. 2017 which is Valentine’s Day.

Sincerely, 

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

Vice President Public Relations 2016/2017

P/S: 
I, Thank the whole team including editor, reviewer and critics to provide your sincere support and feedback to grow healthier and better.

International Speech & Table Topics Contests @ 2017-01-10

    Happy New Year 2017!!!

Today was the first meeting of the year 2017. It was great to see members getting together in the New Year. In addition to that, on this day is our clubs big event. It is our clubs International Speech & Table Topics™ Contests 2016/17. Wow, first meeting is a challenging day for the participants and the organizing committee.  We have a good crowd of both members and guests!  I should say is a good start in 2017!!

6:15pm

Some contest committee members had arrived early to prepare for the contest arrangements. There are many details that has been looked into to have a setting for a contest atmosphere and also refreshment arrangements. The committee was busy to make sure everything's in order so that contest runs smoothly later.  Well some guests and members have already started arriving as early as 6:15pm . Also being early gives you the opportunity to enjoy a friendly atmosphere with people having a lovely chat and meeting new friends and at the same time enjoy the refreshments of the day. It was a lovely moment to treasure.

Contestants also arrive early to receive the briefing by the Contest Toastmasters Competent Communicator (CC) Manish Jha, and by our Advance Communicator Bronze (ACB), Advance Leader Bronze (ALB) CP Lau.  It is the contest  procedure that the both the contest toastmasters  for the International Speech Contest (IS) and Table Topics (TT)  have to provide briefing on the procedure and rules of the contests respectively.  There were also some contestants who took part in both IS and TT contests therefore the briefing is held one after another. During the briefing there is a draw by which the contestants pick their names to determine their speaking order at the contest. 

 Once the speaking order is confirmed, our Sergeant At Arms (SAA) Chee Chiao Hui would immediately update the speaking sequence on the contest slide which is projected on the screen.  The ballot counters, timers and judges is simultaneously briefed by the Chief Judge Eddie Tan, CC in another place called the “holding room”.

7:32pm
Competent Leader (CL) Jerry Wong, who played the lead role as a chairperson called the meeting to order.  Jerry Wong, is a member of PJ Toastmasters Club, I should say, he is a humorous person thus has he addressed the audience it lit up a lively atmosphere.  He gave the house rules and without wasting much time passed the control to the Contest Chair  Chitirra Amithalingam.  Chitirra welcomed the audience with a brief Opening Address.

7:42pm

Soon after the opening address the contest chair Chitira, invited the Contest Toastmaster Manish Kumar Jha, CC for International Speech contest. He briefed everyone on the contest rules and introduced the contestants in their order. There were a total of five contestants.  I could sense the tempo of hearts beating as each waited their turn to speak.  So the contest started with the first speaker taking the stage.

KL Loh – Durian Days and Friday Rendezvous

This was the first time I saw KL Loh giving speech, since I joined MM-KL in the end of 2015.  I had always known him as a good speech evaluator.  I should say he is a good humorous speaker, he shared how we can choose a good durian.  He actually brought the knife that is used to split the durian skin. As he demonstrated on choosing durians he shared also about the good friends he made and how they used to share a good time over a durian party. He attributed choosing durians to smelling, shaking, and hearing the seeds move inside.   He likened choosing good friends as choosing good durians, we cannot judge by just the outlook. We need to mix well with good fellowship to know who is a true friend.

Kevin Khoo – The Black Dot

Kevin started by showing a white paper with a black dot in center, and asked the audience what they saw. He took a vote of how many saw the black dot and how many saw the white paper.  His speech was informative and captivated the audience to think how they saw life. Is the small black dot in life magnified compared to the positive things white part that surround one's life?  A challenging and a motivational speech to the power of positive thinking.

Ken Chan – Blood, Sweat, Tears

Ken, a seasoned speaker in the club meetings, as usual he connected to the audience by throwing a few questions. As the audience responded, he shared his story and advised the audience not to give up even though while facing many failures at times. A moving speech of his experiences of childhood, youth and adulthood, how life’s blood Sweat and tears able to lift moments of failure to guaranteed success.  He also concluded with a question, “Are you ready to bleed, sweat and tear?”  And guess what the audience would have replied, they said YES.

Kelvin Chong – Nothing Left but Money

Kelvin captivated the audience with a song: “…. Money, money, money.  Must be funny. In the rich man’s world….”.  Haha, he enjoyed to sing on the stage. He asked audiences who can we call, if we facing problem.  He drawn the attention of everyone, he brought out the story of how people come to him when they needed help. It was a time when he was holding a position in the government sector.  When people do not need him the same friends had disappeared.  Money is important but he echoed that we cannot forget friends when we find money.  He said if less money one can raise a humble child, on the contrary if too much money can also lead to problems. At the end of the day we need money so we must save money…..Haha  

Mathew Philippose – Magic Words

Mathew shared with us the 4 magical or golden words which can bring a big impact in our life. Here, they are “Sorry”,“Forgive me”,“Thank you”, and “I love you”. He also shared with us how he used the 4 words in his life, which worked and still working awesome. Later, his speech made him champion this evening.

8:38pm

After the 5 attractive speeches, it was time to have a 10-min break and some quick bite. While Chief Judge Eddie Tan, CC and his panel team were required to finalize the IS contest results. During the break time, SAA Jerry has alerted all of us with the timing and called up the contest to order after 10 mins sharply. Some audiences and contestants were still enjoying the ‘NasiLemak’. Hahaa…they have to finish their food and back to seat as soon as possible. Jerry invited Table Topics™ Contest Toastmaster, CP Lau, ACB, ALB to take over the control of the TT Contest session.

8:49pm

Same as previous session, CP Lau briefed the outline of contest rules and introduced the contestants and their order of speaking. The difference was, CP invited Chief Judge Eddie Tan went on stage and picked one topic from three of prepared topics. The selected topic would be the one who was going to be presented by all the TT contestants.

Title: If you are given a 2^nd chance

Julia

Julia shared with us how she satisfied and happy with her life, In family as well as in career now. Instead, she returned the question back to audiences why she need 2^nd chance. She even stated that we must do well in the first chance, so that we don’t need the 2^nd chance.

Mathew Philippose

Mathew commented he is currently living his second chance of his life. After a massive heart attack he was resurrected a few years later.

Kelvin Chong

Begin with a statement “If I’m given 2^nd chance, I won’t join politics. He shared with us how he be respected by others when he is still holding the position in government agency. But once he quits, many ‘friends’ disappear. He said it is not easy to start again after the loss of power. So, if he has the 2^nd chance, he will like to do his own business. He comments that, as of now, the best way to earn in Malaysia is running business.

Joel

Joel is a new member in MM-KL, still a student, but his courage to participate in Table Topics™ contest is really a good very appreciable attempt. He started his topic by saying ‘Joining Toastmasters Club is his 2^nd chance’. Then following by mentioning himself is a bad guy and sharing with us the loss of his friend caused him realizes the importance of life and he need to do something to correct his bad attitude

Vijay kumar

Vijay said, he has done many mistakes before. If he has the 2^nd chance, he will be a better son and better brother. He will study harder and save more money. Besides, he will do something just on relationship. In the end, he ended his thought by reminding audience that, there is no 2^nd chance. So, when the first chance comes, let’s seize the chance immediately.

Ken Chan

Ken gave us some examples on relationship and job opportunity. He highlighted that: “There is no 2^nd chance, but we can do something by not giving up”.To be initiative, he suggests if we miss the first chance then we should look for the 2^nd chance ourselves!

Kevin Khoo

Kevin Khoo, surprised us by saying he will like to be a female if he has the 2^nd chance. He asked audience whether notice of his good elements that should be in a female. Haha…For example, thick and black hair, fair and smooth skin, young look even in his 30s. But he dislikes the young look at this age which is not convenient for his life and career, when people treat him like a cute kid.

9:23pm

Finally, the Table Topics contest came to an end. There was 2 minutes of silence for the judges to complete marking their ballot. After that Chief Judge and the ballot counters went to the holding room to finalize the result. Meanwhile, in order to continue enlightening the audiences and release the tension from contestants, Jerry conducted an interview session with the contestants.

Afterwards, Contest Toastmasters presented a token of participation to all the contestants. Contest Chair Chitirra presents token of appreciation to Chief Judge and his team, and also to all the role players.

This was the time to disclose the result! Chief Judge, are you ready? Chief Judge replied confidently and walked to the stage steadily, then passed the sealed envelope to Table Topics™ contest Toastmaster CP Lau, ACB ALB and Manish Jha, CC respectively to announce the results. President, Ron Yeap, CC was called on stage to give the awards to the winners. Here, are the results!!

2016/2017 Table Topics™ Contest Results

3^rdplace → Julia Leong, ACB ALB, 

2^nd place → Kevin Khoo, CC and

 1^st place → Ken Chan, DTM

2016/2017 International Speech Contest Results

3^rd place →KL Loh, ATMG, 

2^nd place → Kevin Khoo, CC and 

1^st place → Mathew Phillipose, CC ALB

Congratulation to all the winners!!! The 1^st and 2^nd place winners will represent the club in the area contests.

For contestants who could come under top three, don’t give up, you may be the next winner. Your courage and efforts will work for you. A big thumps up to you guys.

9:57pm

At last, Mr. President Ron Yeap was called to do his presidential closing address and presented the token of appreciation to our Contest Chair, Toastmaster Chitirra. Then he led us to the photo session. As usual, since this was the first ‘meeting’ of the month, we were having a cake cutting session for the January’s born babies.

In conclusion, organizing a contest is not an easy task as there are a lot of things need to be prepared and communicated beforehand. It needs co-operation and commitment from person in charge and participation from members, needs advice and guidance from senior members or president. Moreover, it may have some ad-hoc changes or issues happen in the last few days. It really tests the committee’s patience. Let’s congratulate to Chitirra and her team for successfully conducting the contests.

I sincerely thank to all the role players, Chief Judge and his team, ballot counters, timers, photographer, SAA, audience and contestants. Without all of them, the contests would not have been organized successfully. That’s all from our 1^st meeting of the year 2017.

See you again in our next meeting !!!

Sincerely, 

Thanks to the Team,

Manish Jha, CC

Money Mastery –KL Toastmasters Club

Vice President Public Relations 2016/2017

P/S: 
Thank you so much "Yap, Ooi Yee" to write this wonderful blog. I also thank the whole team including editor, reviewer and critics to provide your sincere support and feedback to keep up the good work.