Blog 435 – Plan, Prepare, Perform

We have come thus far! It was our 435^th meeting after 17 years! This meeting also marked the final 4^th meeting of the term. Time flies. Hence, we had our meeting themed “Plan, Prepare, Perform!” which we are gearing up for the formation of our new Club Officers! It was a regular club meeting cum Money Mastery-KL Toastmasters Club’s Annual Business Meeting.

Our Assistant Sergeant At Arms, Olivia Chen, PM1 whom had called the meeting to order, led us by reciting the Toastmaster’s Promise. It was a timely reminder that, as a member of Toastmasters International and our club, we “attend the club meeting regularly”. Thanks to Olivia.

Madam President, Chitirra, LD1 then took over the stage and gave her presidential opening address. She shared her experience being the president of the club this and brought out the importance of plan, prepare and perform in order for us to maintain up keep quality meetings. The word of the day, “Success” was introduced by our grammarian, Vijaykumar, CC. We had a few guests visited. Through the round of self-introduction, we got to know each other better and it gave us the opportunity to speak and make use of the theme and word of the day.

As we are in the Ramadan month, we brought forward our break time so we had the “bukapuasa” together with our Muslim members. It was a fun-filling and food-filling break session. Thanks to Hj. Hashim Adnan, DTM for his delicious dates. The signature nasilemak and bananas have never failed our taste buds.

During the break, we filled up our stomach. After the break, our past president, also the Area C1 Director, Ron Yeap, ACB, CL continued to fuel up our brain. He presented to us an invocation speech. Failing to plan, is planning to fail, the bring-home message that he had for us. His very close to us example, plan, prepare and execute the holiday plan, to have a pleasant and happy family holiday. Thank you Ron!

Our first timer Toastmaster of the Evening, Mike Chin, took over the stage. A round of applause to Mike for his courage in taking up this role and performed it very well. I particularly like the way he introduced the history of Toastmasters International as well as our club. It was informative, yet simple and precise. The overall conduct of the meeting was very smooth. Well done Mike! Keep it up!

We have our members whom took up the following roles during the meeting:-

1.       General Evaluator – Wendy Sim, CC

2.       Ah Counter – Rajendra

3.       Grammarian – Vijaykumar, CC

4.       Timer – EK Yeo, CC, CL

   Thank you for carrying out your duty diligently. Your demonstrated attentive listening skill is something ach and everyone of us should learn and practice. 

      Moving on, the exciting, interesting and fun Table Topics session was led by again our first timer, Rey Thean. Kudos to Rey! 

      

     She stood on stage, explained to us the objective, purpose and rules of this session very steadily. The topics Rey chose were interesting yet challenging. The audience was very participative. We have 5 speakers who challenged the stage and took on the topics provided, they are,

      

1.       Tan Be Hoe, CTM, CL – If it is to be, it is up to me

2.       KL Loh, ATMG – The most important lesson of my life, so far

3.       Steven Khaw, DTM – If you fail to plan, you plan to fail

4.       KT Chok, PM4 – Poverty is the state of mind

5.       Annie Wong – Courage is not the absence of fear

Congratulations to Steven Khaw, DTM for voted as the Best Table Topics Speech award! We learned a lot from your presentation.

The 5 table topics speeches were evaluated by yours truly.

      Our General Evaluator Wendy Sim, CC led us on the evaluation and reports session. She was very encouraging and uplifting during her evaluation. She has also suggested the rooms for improvement to us. Be puncture is the message she sent across to us. Thank you Wendy for your advice. We noted with thanks.

      

     

Due to the scheduled Annual Business Meeting, our meeting adjourned at around 8.30pm with the fun of learning, sweet smiles on everyone’s face in the group photo. We look forward to meeting all in our upcoming meeting on 28 May, 2019.

 

This is a great platform for everyone to learn and practice communication and leadership skills. Encourage, bring your friends to join us!

See you soon!

Blog Writer -CP Lau, DTM.

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2018/2019

      

Meeting #434 : Work Hard, Play Hard

It was a quiet month end as the members were coming in one-by-one. Many Toastmasters had to wear multiple hats today. The meeting began slightly late as our Sergeant-At-Arms, Toastmaster of the Evening cum Table Topics™ Master, Manish Jha, IP1, called the meeting to order.

The theme was Work Hard, Play Hard and the word of the day was contentment. The President was contented to give her Presidential speech for the evening as our fellow members had worked very hard over the last 9 months and finally was recognised in the last District 102 Annual Conference for being a President’s Distinguished Club. All the members on the floor were happy to introduce themselves as well in the round of introduction.

Manish Jha, IP1 then put on his Toastmaster of the Evening hat and briefed all on the history of Toastmasters and introduced the role players for the evening to explain their roles. Olivia Chen, PM1 was the Ah-Counter, Chitirra, LD1 was the Grammarian, Cetani Chen, ACS, ALB was the Timer while we had Shalini Taneja, ACB, CL from MAD Toastmasters as our General Evaluator. Following, he swapped hats once more to bring us through the Table Topics™ Session with a vast variety of topics. Every member who participated gave us a good takeaway message and feeling from their speech. 

The entertaining project speeches session then began as Ken Chan, DTM being the first speaker slipped into the role of a boss giving a talk on Lean 5S to his employees with his title “Lean 5S”. Following, we had Rey Thean deliver her second speech on ‘Researching and Presenting’ with her title “What Drives Us To Do Something!” and she spoke about Maslow’s Law on Hierarchy. Finally from the Advanced Communication Manual we had Julia Leong, ACB, ALB do a speech on ‘Uplift The Spirit’ with her title “Integrity” and as her title spells it out, she spoke on the importance of integrity. 

We had a very quick break session and we went on with the evaluation session led by Shalini Taneja, ACB, CL. First up was a very detailed Table Topics™ evaluation by Vijaykumar, CC. Later on the evaluations for the project speeches was done respectively by Srinivas K M, DTM on Ken Chan, DTM, followed by Kishan Pradip Doshi, DL3 on Rey and finally Ken Chan, DTM himself on Julia Leong, ACB, ALB. Their evaluations were critical yet convincing. 

After a short open evaluation session, each technical role player gave their respective reports. ShaliniTaneja, ACB, CL then gave her critical heartfelt General Evaluator report to all. With that the best speakers were announced by our Toastmaster of the Evening, Manish Jha, IP1 as follows:

Best Table Topics™ Speaker: Srinivas K M

Best Evaluator: Ken Chan, DTM

The floor was then passed back to the President who then gave an appreciation gift to the General Evaluator, received the guest’s feedback and made some announcements on the upcoming Annual Business Meeting. She then had a special segment to recognise the special award winners that received awards and appreciations during the last Annual Conference and over the term as follows:

Victor Wan, ACS, ALB – Club Sponsor (Roche SSC TMC)
Julia Leong, ACB, ALB – Area C1 Director (2019/2020)
CP Lau, DTM – Triple Crown Award, DTM Award
Olivia Chen, PM1 – Pathways Level 1
Dato’ Dr. Mary de Silve, PM4 – Pathways Level 1-4  
KT Chok – Audit Committee District 102 2018/2019, Pathways Level 1-4
Chitirra, LD1 – Audit Committee District 102 2018/2019
Ken Chan, DTM – DTM Award, Audit Chair District 102 2018/2019
Rey Thean – New Membership Campaign
Money Mastery-KL TMC – President’s Distinguished Club 2018/2019

 

It was truly a proud moment where we worked hard and played harder over the weekend of the conference. Truly hard work pays off. It is now time to pass on the knowledge and skills to the next term of EXCOs when the decision is made at our Annual Business Meeting next.

Till we meet again, always remember, work hard, play hard, work smart, play harder.

 

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2018/2019

Meeting # 433 – Earth Day(Protecting Species)

Money Mystery-KL Kuala Lumpur Toastmaster club held their second meeting of the month last Tuesday on 23/4/2019. Many members and guests were present that evening, the arrangement of chairs, tables and decorations were nicely done before the meeting started and the delicious legacy of a meal, NasiLemak, fruits & appetizers were brought and placed for the attendants. Everyone was looking fresh and motivated, looking forward to what this gathering could bring to us. Joy and good values into our daily lives. Every Toastmasters meeting is always unique, highly thought provoking and contains great joy indeed.  ''Earth Day- Protecting Species'' was the theme of this meeting which was meant to spread the awareness and remind ourselves as human of our responsibilities and duties against our motherland and other creatures. It is to preserve the existing natural ecosystem which we are a part of, not only for one day but for every day, years to come and for our generation and the next. It was certainly a theme with a great message carried out.

Ron Yeap, ACB, CL was the Sergeant-At.Arms for the evening.Before the meeting start he ensured everything was in order and everyone had taken their seats.At 7:15pm we started the meeting and Ron reminded us, members and guests of the house rules of the club.He also asked the members to stand and repeat after him the promises of Toastmasters. As he finished and the members were seated, he called upon the president Chitirra,LD1 and invited her over onto the stage. Chitirra, LD1 took the stage. She was wearing magnificent clothes looking as charming as a star coming from world of Bollywood. Chitirra, LD1 started her welcome speech,greeting the guests and members.She had a great sharing on the theme of the day which was dedicated to the earth and protecting the species. She stressed out that our earth is our home and we must always remember our duties as humans to preserve our home and natural species. She called upon the Grammarian to introduce the word of the day which was ''preserve''. She also encouraged everyone by giving them the chance to stand and introduce themselves to the audience and give a little bit of their sharing and thoughts about Earth Day and to make use and practice of the word ''preserve''. As her speech session came to an end, she thanked everyone for coming and wished everyone to enjoy the day, she passed the stage to the Toastmaster of the Evening to start the show.

Manish Jha, IP1 was the Toastmaster of Evening and with his smile, well presented on the stage, he made everyone comfortable and welcomed. He shared with the audience the history of Toastmasters.Furthermore, he introduced the role players of the meeting which were assigned as shown below. They all were given a chance to stand and explain their roles to the audience.

1.    Rey Thean (Ah-Counter)

2.    Chester Liam (Grammarian)

3.    Chong Yik Ming, VC3 (Timer)

4.    Foong Sook Hwa, ACG, ALB (General Evaluator)

At 7:55 pm, it was time for Manish, IP1 to invite Toastmaster Abdul rahman onto the stage and start the Table Topics™ Session. Abdul rahman took the stage cheerfully, engaged with the audience and let the fun begin. He briefed the audience on the Table Topics™ rules. It is an impromptu speech where the participant is invited to speak from 1 – 2.5 mins in any assigned topic without any prior preparation. It is certainly challenging but exciting.

The prepared topics were all related to Earth Day.Great delivery on the chosen topics by Rahman. There were four participants who took on the stage and they were given different assigned topics to speak about.

The participants were as follows:

1.    Vijaykumar, CC: Reduce, Reuse, Recyle

2.    Rey Thean: If you could invent something to save the environment what would it be?

3.    Rajendra: How would you spread the awareness to encourage others to preserve the environment

4.    Manish: Humans are the main reason to impact the natural ecosystem. Agree or disagree.

Well delivered speech and storytelling by all of the participants giving their best thoughts on the topics. Before the end of the session, Abdulrahman asked for the timer’sreport, all the participants were within the allowed time and there was no disqualification. The audience were asked to vote for their best Table Topics™speaker.

Manish, IP1 the Toastmaster of the Evening took the stage again.At 8:10pm, the project speech session was announced and Manish, IP1 introduced the speakers' names and a brief interesting introduction on their speech titles.

The 1^st speaker was Ken Chan, DTM withhis speech title ‘'Ken, He Can''. He was conducting the ice breaker speechfrom Level 1 of theDynamic Leadership pathway module. No doubt Ken Chan, DTM is one of the top professional speakers in MMKL with a strong presence of body language, gestures and confidence on the stage. In his speech content, he mentioned about where he came from which was from a small town in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur famous for ‘Yong Tau Fu’. He shared with the audience about the different levels of his past life, from his schooling days up to his working life starting of his career in accounts and reaching the top of his career in training. We were really amazed to hear some of Ken’s life stories.

The 2^nd speaker was Rajendra. He recently joined the club as a member, and this was his first prepared speech to start his journey in Toastmasters. He was doing the ice breaker speech from the path Presentation Mastery, Level 1 with his speech title ''Life Is Like A Roller coaster Ride''. Excellent delivery and confidence from Rajendra on the stage. He shared with the audience about where he came from which was South India. He spoke about his family and his past life as a student, graduating and starting his career in civil engineering. He also shared with the audience about his goals to be a leader one day in the future. He shared about his amazing wife and how they both found love and they would always encourage each other to pursue their dreams in life.

The 3rd speaker was none other than Ron Yeap, ACB, CL with the title of his speech “Keep Them Laughing'' taken from the Series of Humorously Speaking from the Advanced Communication Manual. His speech objectives were to develop a kind of communication, keeping it fun & entertaining. He succeeded on this from the time he took the stage. His vocal variety, gestures and funny jokes were well noticed and admired by the audience. We were just laughing along with his speech.He shared some of his personal career experience byputting a lot of funny contents which made us laugh and stay entertained.As Ron finished his humorous speech, the stage was passed back to Manish who asked for the timer’s report. There was no voting for this session as one of the speakers exceeded his given speech time limit.

After awhile, Manish announced for a 15 minute break where everyone was enjoying the food and having some social chatting and catching up amongst each other.

After the break, at 8:45 pm, we resumed the meeting and it was the Evaluation & Reports Session, where all the speakers received constructive feedbacks from their evaluators and members. The Toastmaster of the Evening, Manish, IP1 passed the stage to the General Evaluator, Foong Sook Hwa, ACG, ALB to run the session. She thanked all for inviting her to the club, and it was seen that she has a lot of love for MMKL. The members and I really appreciated her presence as our General Evaluator.

Sook Hwa called upon the Table Topics™ Evaluator, EK Yeo, CC, CL to come on the stage and give his evaluations for the participants of the Table Topics™. He described each speaker’s speech, focusing on the areas in which they excelled and also highlighting some of the areas of improvement such as their vocal variety, gestures and stage usage. After a while,Sook Hwa called upon the first evaluator Vijaykumar, CC to give his evaluation on Ken Chan’s speech. It was an excellent evaluation delivered from Vijay where he pointed out to the audience the parts in which Ken excelled in his speech and how impactful and easy to absorb his ideas were. He also mentioned that the vocal variety was well adapted in Ken’s speech.

The 2^nd evaluator was Hj. Hashim, DTM. He was impressed from Rajendra's improvement shown as his first speech although he newly joined the club.Hj.Hashim, DTM shared with the audience the areas where Rajendra excelled in his speech. Eventually, he also pointed out to the audience the areas of improvement and Rajendra's next challenge, such as vocal variety, use of stage and also his body language.

The 3^rd evaluator was Chitirra, LD1. She delivered an excellent evaluation for Ron. She highlighted to Ron his speech’s strength and how he met the objectives of his speech by making everyone laugh. It was challenging for her to spot any areas where Ron should improve as an expert speaker, however, Chitirra also suggested to Ron that he could adopt the speaking style of a comedian.She gave him an example of Russell Peters and other stand-up comedians’ delivery styles.

Last but not least,it was the session for Sook Hwa, ACG, ALB our General Evaluator to give her feedback to the evaluators. She thanked all evaluators and mentioned that overall the feedbacks were excellent and constructive. She also allowed for the audience for an open evaluation session to give their thoughts on the speakers’ performance. At 9:30pm she requested from all the technical role players (Ah-Counter, Grammarian and Timer) to share their reports with the audience. Nevertheless, Sook Hwa revealed her overall feedback on this evening’s meeting. She evaluated all the role players, evaluators and the whole club. She mentioned that MM-KL is one of her favourite clubs which she would never hesitate to come and visit anytime.

Before the meeting ended, it was time to appreciate our best performers of the meeting. Manish Jha, IP1 Invited the President Chitirra, LD1 to the stage to give the appreciation certificates and gifts. Everyone was excited and eager to hear the results. Drum rolls were in the air as everyone kept guessing the winners of each category. For this evening the awards went to:

Best Table Topics™ Speaker: Rey Thean

Best Assigned Speech Evaluation: Hj.Hashim, DTM.

At 9:45pm, it was time to do the closing address by the President. She adjourned the meeting as always with a remarkable photo of the day as a group. That was our event of the evening. It was full of joy and fun. Hope you enjoyed reading this and see you all in our next blog.

Blog Writer: Abdul rahman Azazi, PM1

Regards,

MM-KL EXCO

2018/2019

Blog 432 – Bloom From Within

It was Rajen’s first time as an SAA and he was blooming with confidence as he called for the meeting to order. It was MMKL’s 432^nd meeting with the theme Bloom from Within!

The President, Chitirra, LD1 then took the stage and welcomed the beautiful guests. She then invited the Grammarian to introduce the word of the day which was “Radiance”. The radiant Grammarian who was none other than herself proudly introduced the word of the day and passed the floor back to herself as President. Her confidence was peaking for she bloomed from within with a dash of fertilizer for advice from her Immediate Past President. The energy continued as every member and guest introduced themselves.

We went on with an invocation speech from our motivating Mathew, CC, ALB and his speech uplifted all our spirits. With that our newest DTM, CP Lau, DTM put on his Toastmaster of the Evening hat and brought us through the meeting proper. He kicked off by leading the very many guests through the history of Toastmasters and all the role players were introduced. Wendy Sim, CC was the Ah-Counter, Chitirra, LD1 the Grammarian, EK Yeo, CC, CL the Timer and we had the eloquent Lim Gim Kim, DTM as our General Evaluator.

 

The Table Topics™ Session was led by Shain Anand who had an array interesting topics to offer. Everyone participated with excitement and enjoyment.

It was finally time for the Assigned Speech Session and tonight we had an Ice Breaker speech from our member Rey Thean who left us with an inspiring introduction on “It’s Not About Winning, It’s About Never Giving Up”. Well done Rey!!!

Next, from the Advance Communication Manual we had to of our pioneer members, Julia Leong, ACB, ALB with her Impromptu Speaking and KL Loh, ATMG with his value based Storytelling entitled “Who Is The Greatest?” They were all so inspiring.

 

We had a short break for us to network and mingle over NasiLemak and once done we didn’t move on straight to the Evaluation session today. We had an induction session for our 2 newest members Rey Thean mentee of Ken Chan and Rajendra mentee of Shain Anand.

We then moved on for the Evaluation and Reports Session led by our fantastic General Evaluator, Lim Gim Kim, DTM. First up was Mathew, CC, ALB with his humble Table Topics™ Evaluation.

Then we had Mike evaluating Rey. Mike was also doing his Level 1 Project 2 in Pathways which was to give an evaluation for someone. He was then to be evaluated on his evaluation by another evaluator. Following, Ron Yeap, ACB, CL evaluated Julia on her speech thoroughly and Hj. Hashim, DTM rocked the stage as always evaluating KL Loh, ATMG. Tan Ben Hoe, CTM, CL then came on to do the evaluation on evaluation for Mike after a round of open evaluation by the members. 

 

The President gave her best closing address she felt she had ever given and called for all to get a group photo as she hit the gavel to call the meeting adjourned.

In Toastmasters, everyone is like a flower and we have evaluators to guide you as your fertilizers. The best apart about being a flower here is that you won’t have to grow under pressure but you will grow with pleasure and once you are fully bloomed at your own pace, you will be the most beautiful flower there ever can be. As the famous saying goes around my club, “When I grow up I want to be like you, I want to be like this, I want to be like that”. Well, when I grow up, I want to be a flower in Toastmasters.

Let's thank and appreciate for writing such wonderful blog, Mike Chin. Stay tuned for our next blog.

Regards,

MM-KL TMC

EXCO 2018/2019

Meeting #431 Time & Tide

 

Tick tock, 7.15 on the clock,
We called for the meeting, with the gavel’s hard knock
9 new guests, to our club today flocked,
Oh yeah baby, MMKL was about to rock!!!

The 431st meeting themed ‘Time & Tide’ of a club that had made it through the tests of time was held on 26th March 2019. As Abdul Rahman, PM1 the Assistant SAA called the meeting to order at sharp 7.15pm, we were all seated with the men buttoning their sleeves and ladies adjusting the creases on their skirts, making ourselves comfortable, prepping up for a whale of a time for today’s session. 

Abdul Rahman, PM1 led us through the Toastmaster’s Promise and invited the President, Chitirra,LD1 to take the stage. 

The President welcomed the overwhelming number of members and guests and honoured the ever so experienced General Evaluator, Ramdas Nayar, DTM. Following, the Grammarian Phang Chew Yee, CC was invited to introduce the word of the day ‘Epoch’ which means a particular or beginning period of time in history or a person’s life. 

The President shared the epoch of her Toastmasters’ journey with all and explained how she grew to become the President today. She also shared a very valuable lesson on how time has a way of teaching us many lessons and whatever happens at a particular time, even if it’s a sad or unforeseen occasion, it only happens at the right time for the right reason. With that, everyone gave their 2 cents about time of which is worth greater than any amount of galleons in the universe. Once gone, never to return. Just as how 2 seconds have gone as you read that statement. Once we were done with the round of introduction, which to our surprise was done within the given time limit as we usually exceed it, we then moved on to the meeting proper. Interesting how the theme kept us in line today.
To save time, today we had a terrific Toastmaster to bring us through the meeting in a timely manner by being the Toastmaster of the Evening and the Invocation Speaker both at once. The tenacious, tremendous and tiger of a man, KL Loh, ATMG led us through the meeting with vigour and verve and lifted our spirits with his invocation smoothly slipped in along the way. Well after all, when it comes to talking about time, KL Loh, ATMG is the king who awakened our awareness and put the procrastination monkey in us to sleep in his champion speech. 

The meeting started with the first session which was the brain teasing, thought training, Table Topics™ Session by our Table Topics™ Master, Chitirra, LD1. She made a pretty little paper plate clock with 12 topics stuck around it as the time from 1 o’clock to 12 o’clock. Behind each hour was a quote on time mentioned by celebrities and authors. A pretty fun way to emphasise the theme of the day. Members and guests a galore stood on their feet and spoke their thoughts about the quotes they received as topics. It was a thoroughly splendid session. 

We then proceeded with the Project Speeches where members plan their speaking slots to fulfil their speaking requirements as per their designed Toastmasters’ education. First up was our Ken Chan, DTM doing his Pathways Level 4 Project 2 – Manage Projects Successfully. As always with his motivational and management speeches, today he shared with us knowledge through his speech entitled “Now Everyone Can LEAD!”. Following was Abdul Rahman, PM1, one of our members who has been with the club for about 6 months now and has shown us that with practice and some time you can improve yourself vastly. Today he did his Level 2 Project 1 – Understanding Your Communication Style and gave off such a cute performance on how one message can be delivered in 4 different ways with his speech entitled “Keep Your Ultimate Rhythm But Be Adaptable”. Last but not least, we had our club’s Queen of Table Topics™ Julia Leong, ACB, ALB do her Project 5 under the Interpretive Reading Series which was The Oratorical Speech. Her title was ‘I Have A Dream’ which was literally her taking us back through time to 1963 by reading out Martin Luther King, Jr’s legendary speech with her best vocal variety. Truly she was amazing and is heading on to greater heights for as I type this, simultaneously she’s being voted in to be the next Area Director for the following term. 

Upon listening to all the wonderful speeches, our minds got full but our tummies were rumbling and so we went off for a short break to enjoy our timeless ‘Nasi Lemak’ moment.

But wait, there’s more! As much as waiting is one of the hardest things, this was worth the wait. It was time for the Evaluations Session where we will be fed like kings with constructive feedback. Our General Evaluator, Ramdas Nayar, DTM, led this session and kicked it off with the Table Topics™ evaluation by Ron Yeap, ACB, CL. Following, we had the panel of evaluators give their feedback to the project speakers. The humble Mathew Phillippose, CC, ALB evaluated Ken Chan, DTM, the bubbly Hj. Hashim, DTM evaluated Abdul Rahman, PM1 and finally the cheeky Ken Chan, DTM evaluated Julia Leong, ACB, ALB. 

Speaking of which, this just in, how time tells us news at the perfect moment. As I type this, I am receiving the news that Julia Leong, ACB, ALB has officially been elected Area Director of C1 for the Term 2019/2020. Congratulations Julia and we will be right behind you always through all your challenges and triumphant moments as the next Area Director.

To continue with, after the speech evaluations we had our usual Open Evaluation where all members from the floor can provide their feedback to the project speakers. Finally, we had our technical role players do their thing by reading out their reports for the respective specialised roles. EK Yeo, CC, CL was the Ah-Counter listening carefully to the slightest speech crutch, Grammarian, Phang Chew Yee, CC gave her best feedback on the language usage and Shain Anand was our Rolex for the day and gave his Timer’s report down to the last second. In Toastmasters, time is of essence just as our theme goes.

Alas, our external but crucial role player, General Evaluator, Ramdas Nayar, DTM gave his kind and generous feedback for us all. Upon that, we had a special session where our current Area Director who is also our club member, Ron Yeap, ACB, CL, gave his Area Director’s address highlighting the strengths and improvements of our club. For the record, we have successfully achieved our President’s Distinguished status by achieving 9/10 for our club DCP before April 2019. We will be going up the stage as a club on 27th April at the District 102 Annual Conference as proud members who have withheld this tradition over the last 16 years consecutively. We could have done this without the help of each and every member who have contributed to these key KPIs. As always, we live by our motto, friends helping friends succeed. Let’s strive for the 10/10 mark!

Time was ticking and we were at our close. President, Chitirra, LD1, once again took the stage to give out the awards for the best speakers, make some announcements and call the meeting to a close. 

Best Table Topics™: Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB
Best Evaluator: Hj. Hashim, DTM
Best Speaker: Julia Leong, ACB, ALB

And so the meeting was called to adjourn that night and although we may not have this very moment again, we can always capture it as a memorable group photograph. At least time can’t take that away from us, or so we hope. It was a splendid meeting and truly one can never tell how time flies so fast when we are enjoying something, and how painfully slow it moves when we’re not. Today time flew like a jet and it’s going to creep until it’s time again for our next meeting. I can’t wait but for now I’ll leave you with a quote to ponder your time away with.   

Every so often, we all gaze into the abyss. It's a depressing fact of life that eventually the clock expires; eventually the sand in the hourglass runs out. It's the leaving behind of everything that matters to us that hurts the most. – Ben Shapiro

Blog Writer: Chitirra

Meeting #430 Disconnect to Connect

It was an enchantress night on 12th March when we have our 430th club meeting. As usual everyone arrived earlier to enjoy the best "nasi lemak" in the town. This time we had the pleasure to invite our District Director of District 102, Dr. William Lau, DTM to join us in this meeting. Besides, there were up to 5 guests to join the meeting and 2 of them had decided to sign up the membership to join this family.

The meeting was called by ASAA, Rahman, PM 1 on 7.15pm where he had introduced all the ground rules and led the recital of the “Toastmaster’s Promise”. Next, our president, Chitirra, LD1 had her welcoming speech by introducing the theme of the day “Disconnect to Connect” and word of the day “Refreshing”. As a culture of our club, all people should stand a chance to speak and introduce ourselves whilst using the word “Refreshing” as much as possible.

Coming up, Dr. William Lau, DTM had given us an invocation speech. He talked about the power of humility which encouraged us to disconnect with ego and be humble and modest people. It was a very positive and inspiring speech to everyone. 7.45pm, it was time to introduce our role players of the day. KL Loh, ATMG, our Toastmaster of Evening, had introduced all the role players:

1. Chitirra (Ah-Counter)
2. Manish (Grammarian)
3. EK Yeo (Timer)
4. Aaron Chan (General Evaluator)

After that, Mike Chin started the Table Topics™ session. It was his first time to be the Table Topics™ Master which was a very good experience for him to learn and grow. This round there were 5 candidates who took their owned initiative to participate in the session. For some of them, it was their first time to be in this club and stand in front of everyone.

It came to the most exciting part which was the assigned project speech session. We had 3 speakers that were ready to give us their wonderful and miraculous speech. Our first speaker was Julie Leong, ACB, ALB with the title, Murder by Midnight. She was doing her Interpretative Reading, project no.4 and she was evaluated by CP Lau who just received his DTM one month ago. Our second speaker was Ron Yeap, ACB, CL with the title, How to Build a Great Determination with his project no.3 Make Them Laugh and his evaluator was Mathew Philippose, CC ALB.Ron had registered himself in at the very last minute yet he was still able to keep his level and most importantly, make us laugh! Last but not least was, Ken Chan, DTM with his title Lead by Storytelling, level 4 project no.1 and his evaluator was Hj. Hashim, DTM.

We started our evaluation and reporting after a short break. Aaron Chan, ACG, ALB had started his speech by explaining the purposes of this session. He invited Victor Ong, DTM to give his comments on those who participated in the Table Topics™ session. Next, it came to the individual speech evaluations where the panel evaluators had to give comments and ratings for their respectively assigned speakers. 

As usual, we had our open evaluation session, it was a session for everyone to speak out their points or comments to anyone. Then, it came to the reporting time, where all the role players had to present their own reports accordingly. Before the president announced the meeting adjourned, she announced few upcoming events and encouraged people to actively participate in those activities. This time we were slightly out of our time, the meeting ended at 10.15pm yet everyone had fun and wonderful moments with MMKL.

Best Table Topics Speaker: - DTM, Hj. Hashim
Best Assigned Speech:- DTM, Ken Chan
Best Assigned Speech Evaluation:- DTM, Hj. Hashim

Blog Writer: Mike Chin

Meeting #429 World NGO Day: A Good Cause

Meeting 429

We gathered today on the 26^th of Feb 2019 just as how Sir Ralph C. Smedley had had a gathering in the basement of YMCA in Santa Ana, California in 1924. A non-governmental organisation with a purpose to serve the public to speak. We stand proud as an NGO of 95 years and so we decided to commemorate ourselves with the theme revolving around World NGO Day that celebrates thousands of other humanitarian organizations. 

The meeting proper began at 7.15pm sharp with Manish Jha, IP1 as the Assistant SAA calling the meeting to order, introducing the house rules and leading the Toastmasters’ Promise recital. Something that reminds as to why we are here to serve the society in public speaking and leadership.

He then went on to invite the President Chitirra who welcomed the guests and invited the Grammarian to introduce the word of the day which was “Benevolence” which means kind-heartedness, public-spiritedness which is what this club is about. All the members and guests introduced themselves and spoke about the different NGOs they were involved with in their lives. Apart from Toastmasters, some were from the Red Cross, some from the Lion’s club, some associated themselves with sports service and volunteers for rehabilitation, all of which were noble causes. 

Ken Chan, DTM then came on to the stage to give out his invocation speech full of class and calibre always awakening our spirits before we head on to the meeting. 

We then had our Toastmaster of the Evening, Ron Yeap, ACB, CL always bright and happy to take on the stage and put on his TME cap with style. The dedicated role players for the day were Abdul Rahman, PM1 as the Ah-Counter, Shain Anand as the Grammarian, Wendy Sim, CC as the Timer and of course our guest of honour was Goh Chee Yong, IP2 as the General Evaluator. 

Our creative Table Topics™ Master, CP Lau, DTM brought on some Mandarin Oranges for his speakers to choose from and created topics that were surrounding the theme of the day. Everyone spoke happily on their feet at this fun session. 

Next it was time for the Assigned Speech Session and we had 3 amazing speakers rock the stage. First up was Mike Chin with his speech Change Your Mind, Change Your Life. His evaluator was Chitirra. He indeed shared tips and reasons as to why should change our thoughts in order to change our life and inspired us all. Then came along Ken Chan, DTM with his evaluator Mathew Philippose, CC, ALB. His speech title was K.I.D. No I’m not kidding. It was K.I.D. as in Keep Improving Daily. He shared with us on the steps to move forward in life and the life was like a camera. Take a shot, if it’s blur, take another one and develop yourself. Our final speaker was Julia Leong, ACB, ALB and her evaluator was Hj. Hashim, DTM. She did an interpretive reading of a Monodrama entitled Duchess of Padua. She moved us all with a melodramatic love scene that almost left me crying when she enacted the break up scene. 

We had a short break to enjoy the feast of Money Mastery-KL which was our signature ‘Nasi Lemak’ and then proceeded with the Evaluations session which we call the breakfast for champions. As per the order of the speakers and their respective evaluators, Chitirra, Mathew Phillippose, CC, ALB and Hj. Hashim, DTM came and gave their best evaluations. Our General Evaluator then called upon the technical role players to give out their reports and gave his personal review of the club. 

Alas, it was time for the awards session and the best speakers for the night got their certs of recognition as follows:

Best Table Topics™ Speaker:  DTM, Hj. Hashim
Best Evaluator: DTM, Hj. Hashim
Best Speaker: Julia Leong, ACB, ALB

It was truly a fun filled night and we all did recognise our purpose here tonight as a member of a huge NGO. As we always look forward to the next meeting, we bid goodbye and goodnight and called the meeting to adjourn with a lovely group photograph. 

 

Blog writer:  Chitirra