Meeting #261, 30th October 2012

The clock was ticking. It was close to 7.00pm and the Klang Valley area was in a retarding traffic flow due to earlier downpour. It was the fifth Tuesday of the month, where Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club would have their meeting.

The meeting was forced to start 14 minutes late, but to everyone’s surprise, members and guests were not deterred by the traffic condition ahead of them in attending a Toastmasters meeting. A number of members and guests had shown up for the meeting.



Ken Chan delivering his opening speech

After Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms Mathew Philippose, TM called the meeting to order, he led us through the recital of 'A Toastmaster's Promise'. The chair was handed to President Ken Chan, ACS, ALB for his opening address. Ken invited the Grammarian to read out the Theme of the Day and Word of the Day, which was ‘Year End Vacation’ and ‘concerted’. Every Toastmaster and guest who stood up to make self-introduction had not short of using the Theme of the day as well as the Word of the Day. Ken thought that ‘Year End Vacation’ is still early.



Ron Yeap as Toastmaster of the Evening

President Ken Chan passed the control of the meeting to the Toastmaster Of the Evening, Ron Yeap, CC. Ron greeted everyone who made it to the meeting. Ron explained that Year End Vacation fever is approaching as the school holiday will start soon. It is also the right timing to plan ahead if anyone will go for a Year End Vacation. He also introduced to our guests the history of Toastmasters as well as Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club.



Francis Ng as Table Topics Master

After the formal opening of the meeting, we proceeded to the first exciting program of the meeting, the Table Topics Session. Ron handled the control to the Table Topics Master, Francis Ng, DTM. Francis used a different approach in conducting the session. He framed a scenario to the audience, with “The year end vacation has started, my wife and our two daughters and son went for an enjoyable vacation…” Participants will have to continue the story and keep it evolving. We had Mathew, Kelvin, Wendy, Anwar and Ken took part and gave their plots and views of the topic.



Our guests were actively taking part in Table Topics session



Moving on, we had our new and committed member, Mahadevan, TM to deliver his 2^nd speech from Competent Communicator manual. His speech title was “The Power of Our Sub-conscious Mind”. He gave an interesting example using sub-conscious mind when he was searching for a parking lot. Whenever he reaches a destination, someone will pull out from the parking lot.

We have Kyle Kuah, TM as our 2nd speaker in delivering speech no. 6, Vocal Variety. Kyle presented a fairy tale story “The Princess and the Pea”. The story went alive from Kyle. He did not end his story in a normal manner, he commented the fairy tales contained many out-of-logical plots, like why a king has to open the castle door by his own, where are the servants!? How come the mighty fiery dragon can get killed easily by the hero of the story?



The final speech saw Mathew Philippose, TM delivering his 9^th speech, Persuade with Power. His speech title was “Love Your Neighbour”. Mathew pointed out some people lack of caring towards others. Finally, he also offered the telephone number of Bukit Aman so that we can seek immediate aid should needed.

A special talk given by Sarah Abedi

In this meeting, we were fortunate to have invited Sarah Abedi, DTM, the Assistant Division C Governor for Education and Training to share with us on ‘How to Perform Your Role as a Good Grammarian’. Sarah offered tips on how we can be rich in choice of words by practising having words of different degree (positive, neutral and negative) in mind, so that we can be more expressive in our communications. It was a very educational and beneficial session to our members as well as guest.

The meeting went to 15 mins break at 8.50pm. Members and visitors took the opportunity to enjoy the refreshments.

Coming back fresh after the break, the meeting proceeded with Evaluation session. CP Lau, CC was our General Evaluator that led us through the Evaluation session. We have EK Yeo, CC, CL as our Table Topics Evaluator. He managed to pinpoint the strength and room of improvement to all the Table Topics Speakers. He also complimented Wendy, who was our guest, on her willingness to take part.

First Project Speech Evaluation started by Victor Wan, ACB, ALB on his evaluation to Mahadevan. Victor enjoyed in Mahadevan’s topic, but also stressed that the organization of the speech is important to help audience be focus on the topic that he presented.

The next Evaluation on Kyle Kuah was conducted by Francis Ng. Francis liked the way Kyle presented a well-known fairy tale in a lively way. He also complemented Kyle that he could leave the audience with some points to ponder.

The last Evaluation was from Ken Chan to Mathew Philippose. Ken agreed with Mathew’s topic that is to ‘Love Your suggested Mathew should give more emphasis on why we should take action and start ‘Love Your Neighbour’.

Many hands were raised and given more feedbacks by the audience to the speakers during the Open Evaluation session.

The Grammarian, Sarah shown us a good example of performing this role. She highlighted on the excellent use of phrases, corrected the misuse of words and grammer. Time Keeper’s report was delivered by Victor Wan; while Ah-Counters report was delivered by Kelvin Chong, CC. General Evaluator CP Lau then summing up his report about the meeting.

When the TME took over the chair, he was accompanied by the president to present the awards to the best performers of the meeting. The results are as below;

Best Table Topics Speech award: Ken Chan, ACS, ALB

Best Project Speech award: Mahadevan Arumugam, TM

Best Project Speech Evaluation award: Francis Ng, DTM

Finally, the President took over the control to deliver his closing speech and made announcement of some up-coming activities. The president had also presented the token of appreciation to the 1^st-time General Evaluator, CP Lau for his effort. Not forgetting the token of appreciation to Sarah Abedi for accepting our invitation. We also welcome 2 new members joining the MMKLTMC family, En. Anwar and Ms. Angel.

The meeting ended fruitfully at 10.00pm. We took this opportunity to take a group photo for submission to Brands contest of Toastmasters International.

Toastmasters International!! We want to be heard!!

Signing off,

Ron Yeap

Meeting #260, 23rd October 2012

23rd October 2012 is a very special day for Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club. It is very special for a number of reasons. Firstly it is a day after Toastmasters Day. Oh! Yes, Toastmasters International completed 88 years. As for Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club we are going to witness two special speeches, the Ice Breaker speech by our newest member Mahadevan Arumugam, TM and also Ron Yeap, TM is giving his final speech from the Competent Communication manual.

On this day the weather was fine and the coolness of the day was a good setting for this special day. What can one say of the excitement that filled the faces of all who walked in?  It was not only the members who were trailing in to the special meeting room in 3^rd floor MCA PJ Selatan building; it was our four guests who were coming for the first time.

Oh! Yes, we begun our meeting with lots of food and fellowship. Greetings were exchanged and there was much laughter and fun as members and guests were talking to each other creating much life to the environment. So who were our guests? They were Meyyappa Manickam, DTM from Exact ADC Toastmasters Club, Delliotte Malaysia Toastmasters Club and also the Division B Governor; and our first time guests, Mr. Anwar Ahmad, Ms. Agnes Wong and Ms. Tracy Li.

The Assistant Sergeant-At-Arms Serena Kong, CC calls the meeting to order. She reminded all present on the house rules, and led the members to recite “A Toastmaster’s Promise”.  She then handed the meeting over to President Ken Chan, ACS, ALB announced the theme of the day as “Voice is Breaking”. Later at the President requested the Grammarian CP Lau, CC to introduce the “Word of the Day” as “Melodious”. It is an adjective pronounced muh-loh-dee-uhs.  He said the meaning: 1) having a pleasant sound or pleasing tune having a melody. 2) Agreeable to hear. Examples: 1) Their melodious singing and impressive dancing makes them great candidates for the leads in the upcoming musical. 2) He relaxed under the tree, listening to the melodious sounds of nature.

The President then invited members and guests to introduce themselves, many of them used both the word of the day and the theme of the day as they introduced themselves and their respective roles for the evening. He next invited the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME) Mathew Philippose, TM to take over the meeting. The Toastmaster reemphasized on the theme of the day and called the Table Topics Master Serena Kong, CC to lead the session in table topics. 

There were five volunteers gave an impromptu speech that was interesting as they were all given topics based on the word of the day. Truly one can say the voice is breaking as the speeches rolled off. Two of them were our first time guests, Mr. Anwar and Ms. Agnes.

As the TME took control again He introduced the first speaker Toastmaster Mahadevan Arumugam, as soon as the Evaluator and General Evaluator spelled out the objectives and roles respectively. First timer, Mahadevan took the floor with much eloquence and confidence with the title ‘The Melodious Life of Mahadevan’. Truly we came to know more of him and his achievements.  One thing we know he is a happy man and although he has passed 60, believes he can live to the age of 120 years. In his gesture of love was willing to share his secret to anyone keen to know about longevity.

Next speaker was Toastmaster Ron Yeap with the title “My Fruitful Journey as a Toastmaster’. Ron Yeap was giving his 10^th speech from the Competent Communication manual. It was a speech full of emotion, bringing forth his aspirations in the journey of Toastmasters; he did share some disappointments and his hopes that keep him going to this final speech. He was so expressive and entertaining with his humor and witty remarks. Some of his remarkable phrases were: “the soul is placed in the body like diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear”, “I know that I will achieve a very small milestone in the long Toastmaster’s journey”. As he concluded one can say it is not the Ron Yeap we saw few months back his voice has broken to a loud confident speaker.

The final speaker for the day was from Ken Chan, ACS, ALB and he was speaking from the Advance Communication Manual, Specialty Speeches. He made the audience the Human Resource of a company and he was selling the idea of setting up of a Toastmasters club in the company. The unique title of his speech was, “Now Everybody Can Sell”. Towards the end he called upon the audience for questions, he took on the questions like an expert. It was an inspiring moment to see him lift the meeting to a climax in the project speeches and in a voice that is breaking to greater height.

           It was by this time due for the most wanted break and once again guest and members adjourned to refreshment corner as the TME announced the break time. It was a good break of almost 15 minutes and all were gathered back for Evaluation Session.

 The Evaluation session was led by the General Evaluator Meyyappa Manickam, DTM. At his invitation EK Yeo, CC, CL praised the participants who bravely came to speak. He noted well some points such as repeating the title was good for an evaluator to understand the topic, he congratulated for eye contacts and body languages. He said it was remarkable to hear good speeches by both the new guests Mr. Anwar and Ms. Agnes.

He was followed by Francis Ng, DTM evaluator for our Ice Breaker speech by TM Mahadevan. He congratulated Mahadevan for his first speech and said it was well organized in a chronological order of events. He said “This has helped us to know you better.” 

We had EK Yeo coming up again with a broad smile and congratulating Ron Yeap who will now move to Competent Communicator (CC). He said Ron Yeap’s final CC speech was captivating the audience added with body gesture, facial expression and it was topped up with lots of humor and vocal variety. 
Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL evaluated Ken's speech and highlighted the 6 steps of selling.
During the open evaluation, there were many feed-backs from the floor on the speeches delivered.

Than came the reports from the Grammarian on misused words and words and phrases that was commendable. The Ah counter said there were not much of ahs or umps or repeats and mentioned the few. The Time Keeper gave the timing report from the beginning and it was noted that all went on time.

And finally we had the General Evaluator who summed up the evaluation with praises, admiration and areas where improvement can be made. He handed the meeting back to the TME. The TME than called on the President Ken Chan to give away the awards. The ‘Best Table Topic Speech’ award went to Mathew Philippose, the ‘Best Project Speech’ went to none other than Ron Yeap and the ‘Best Sppech Evaluator’ went to Francis Ng, DTM. The 
President called the guests to give their opinion of the meeting. The guests showed much enthusiasm has they gave their remarks. 

It is the tradition of Toastmasters for recognition of the significant achievements by the members. Tonight, we gave away 2 standing ovations to our two members of the club that had achieved different milestones in Toastmasters.  
 
Our first standing ovation went to TM Mahadevan, who made his debut speech tonight; and the second standing ovation went to TM Ron Yeap, who had completed the 10 speeches in the Competent Communication manual. Congratulations to both of them.

The President then with concluding remarks and said the day met the theme objective and our voice is breaking and there is melody in our speeches. Before he ended, he invited the General Evaluator, Meyyappa Manickam, DTM to receive a token of appreciation for making time to play an important role in our meeting tonight. He adjourned the meeting at 9.35pm.

Signing off,
Mathew Philippose

Meeting #259, 9th October 2012

It was 6:00pm and it was raining heavily out there. The traffic condition was so bad, that I would think the attendance would be poor in this meeting.

As the VPE was in the Taylor's College attending their Toastmasters meeting, sincere appreciation goes to Mathew, Ron and Serena whom had come early to help setting up the meeting room despite the rain and poor traffic condition. This is what we called TEAM WORK! Thank you team.

The team was here at the Bangunan MCA, in PJ Selatan quite early for our 259th meeting on 9th October 2012. Food was ready, and Ron has started to arrange tables and chairs with Serena's help.

I must take this opportunity to thank all members, despite the heavy rain, many of you have turned up and made this meeting a successful one. And, this has given a very good impression to our guests, Mahadevan, Teresa, Angel and Ms Lee. Thank you for your valuable time and effort to pay us a visit. And, we would like to welcome our new member, Toastmaster Mahadevan!

Our meeting started a little late. Our President, Ken Chan, ACS, ALB and our club advisor, DTM Francis Ng were late due to heavy traffic. Nevertheless, we proceed with the meeting and VPE, CP Lau, CC had temporary taken over as the Acting President.

The theme of the meeting was "One Step At A Time", proposed by the Toastmaster of the Evening, CP Lau. He highlighted that we have moved into the last quarter of 2012 and urge all members to continue to strive for goal achievement. Late is always better than never, as long as we proceed, one step at a time, we are heading towards the fruitful destination.

The word of the day was "Contemplate". This was proposed by Tn. Hj. Hashim Adnan, CC, CL. He was our Grammarian of the day.

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 TM Ron Yeap. He was creative and did it a little different from the normal Table Topics sessions. He used different type of teas for different types of questions. In addition, he put the questions into the tea cups. The participants chose the topics from the cups. Well done Ron!

Mr. Mahadevan during Table Topic session

Our participants for the table topics were:-

1.    TM Mathew Philippose

2.    Tn. Hj. Hashim Adnan, CC, CL

3.    Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL

4.    Mahadevan

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 Mathew Philippose has begun the session by delivering his 8th speech. His speech objective was to get comfortable with visual aids. Mathew has showed very interesting power point slides. He talked about building confidence in public speaking, which was very relevant to all members, especially to our guests. He demonstrated how well the late Steve Jobs spoke on the stage.

Serena Kong, CC was the second speaker of the day. She told us a humorous story, which with some of her experiences in it. She told us that her life is full of test. During her story telling, she demonstrated to us, how she overtook cars in front and she overtook 4 cars consecutively instead of being instructed to just overtake "1" car at a time. What a brave girl..

  
Our 3rd speaker was none other than our president, ken Chan, ACS, ALB. He presented his 1st speech of the High Performance Leadership manual. He shared with us his vision as the G1 Area Governor. His inspiring speech has captivated all of us and we followed him to shout "I" to believe that we can achieve our vision in the Toastmasters journey.

After the break, the meeting proceed to the Speech Evaluation session. DTM Francis Ng was the evaluator for all participants of the Table Topics session. The commented on the strengths of every speakers. Not only that, he also provided constructive suggestions to them on how to improve and bring their speaking skills to the next level. Thank you Francis.

Ken Chan, ACS, ALB evaluated on Mathew's speech. Besides his very attractive presentation, Mathew was advised not to show the video of Steve Job's speech. The reason being, Steve was so good which he had stolen the limelight from Mathew. The star should be Mathew. It was suggested to just use his picture and describe how well he spoke. I find that it was a very good input for all of us.

And, once again, Francis Ng, DTM evaluated on Serena's speech. he commented on the vast improvement of Serena's speaking skills. She spoke loud enough for the audience to hear her. Perhaps she will have to inject more humor into her speech in order to keep the audience laughing. I thought this could be a difficult task to do, but well done Serena!

Francis also evaluated the last speaker, Ken Chan. He was inspired by Ken's speech. He highlighted that, Ken was using the "template" of power point slides provided by Toastmasters International and recommended the members to use the same in future.

Our Mr. General Evaluator, Teoh Chun Ming, CC, ALB, also provided his comments and constructive comments to speakers for their improvements. He liked the way we implement the time disqualification checking after each session. He would also recommend his club to practice the way we encourage our members to make use of the word of the day during the self-introduction session at the beginning of the meeting.

Tn. Hj. Hashim Adnan, CC, CL was awarded The Best Table Topics Speech award, Ken Chan, ACS, ALB was awarded The Best Project Speech award and Francis Ng, DTM was award The Best Project Speech Evaluation award.

Appreciation to our role players of the meeting:-

·         ASAA - Mathew Philippose, TM

·         TME - CP Lau, CC

·         Grammarian - Hj. Hashim Adnan, CC, CL

·         Ah Counter - Serena Kong, CC

·         Time Keeper - Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL

Best Table Topic Speaker, Hj. Hashim Adnan, CC, CL (left)

Best Project Speaker, Ken Chan, ACS, ALB (right)

Best Speech Evaluator, Francis Ng, DTM (right)

Ken presenting token of appreciation to General Evaluator,
Teoh Chun Ming, CC, ALB

Immediate Past President, Victor Wan, ACB, ALB took the opportunity to present appreciation pin from District 51 for the club's achievement in Passion Drive (membership recruitment drive).

Meeting adjourned at 9:30pm. Our next meeting will be held on 23th of October, same time, same place.

"Make sure you have finished speaking before your audience has finished listening" - Dorothy Sarnoff Forthcoming events: ~~Division G - Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contests on Sunday, 21 October 2012, 12:30pm. @ Taylor's College, Lecture Theater 1, First Floor, No. 1, Jalan 15/8, 47500 Subang Jaya. ~~

~20^th Semi-Annual Convention 2012, 16 & 17 Nov, 2012 (Fri & Sat @ Holiday Villa Hotel & Suites, Subang Jaya) ~

Signing off,
CP Lau