Let's Go 'Clubbing'

As a one-year old Toastmaster, I'm addicted to go 'clubbing'. Why? Because of the hot girls in the club? Or free flow of beer? Maybe due to the high-spirited, loud music? Oops... Sorry, the club I mentioned is not any night club but Toastmasters Club. I have been addicted to visiting other Toastmasters Clubs, simply because of one reason: the continuous learning opportunity!

After completing my Project 9 in the Competent Communicator (CC) Manual, many members in my club were asking me when will I be delivering my graduation speech. Graduation? Such a significant word. Am I really competent enough to graduate as a CC? Before doing my tenth speech, I decided to hone my communication skills by doing something else so that I can be an eligible CC. That was when I decided to start with my 'clubbing' activities.

Fun and fabulous Christmas Exact ADC meeting

Exact ADC meeting with the theme of 'Formality'

I have benefited a lot from the club visits. The learning opportunity that was available from the visits has transformed me to a more natural speaker. By visiting different clubs, I had the chance to learn from different Toastmasters. No doubt my club, Friendship Toastmasters Club, has many experienced speakers who guided me with utter professionalism. However, by visiting other clubs, I am able to learn different skills from other experienced Toastmasters in Malaysia.

Best Project Speech Ribbon from generous members of KPMG KL

Visiting other Toastmasters Clubs is indeed an eye-opening experience for me. I enjoyed the different atmosphere of other Toastmasters meetings. Redoing my speeches in other clubs made me a more proficient speaker and I had the privilege to listen to the comments from various excellent evaluators. Visiting other clubs can really boost our communication skills. However you must grab the golden opportunity to speak in every club visit. In my opinion, learning is all about practicing!

Historical first meeting of One World Toastmasters

Besides the learning opportunity in the communication track, 'clubbing' also helps us improve our leadership and management skills. During club visits, I am given the opportunity to try out different meeting roles such as general evaluator, speech evaluator, table topics evaluator, grammarian, ah-counter and humour master. These experiences were very useful for me to complete my Competent Leadership(CL) manuals. I started my CL projects in March 2010 in my club, however my progress was extremely slow before I began my club visits. In only two months of club visiting, I've done 70% of my CL assignments. I also managed to expand my network and made a lot of new friends during club visits. They are all very sincere people and eager to help me to improve.

Warm and friendly welcome by Sunway Toastmasters

Visiting clubs is not only meant for Area Governors. You may use the time constraint reason to tie you to your comfort zone and claim that you have no time for club visits. Time management is one of the leadership values, as practiced in Project 4 of Competent Leadership Manual. By managing your other commitments, you will be able to squeeze out a little spare time for club visits. Believe me: you will benefit significantly! I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the clubs that welcomed my presence. They are KPMG KL, Sunway, Shah Alam, Exact ADC, IME, CIMA, One World, Phoenix, Speakers' Dream, D'Utama, AFC and Kelab Pidato.

Invited by dear Kim Chow(right) to the exhilarating meeting of Kelab Pidato

What are you waiting for? Let's go 'clubbing' together!


Contributed by Chee Hoe

January Club Meetings (Part I)

Friendship on Tues 4 Jan 2011
By Michelle, KPMG KL

Members & guest of Friendship

One thing I like apart from the cozy and friendly atmosphere at Friendship is their delicious food and team of roles players, guest and evaluators.

I presented my second speech from the Storytelling manual. The objective was “Let’s Get Personal” and my speech was about “That Bright Yellow Dress and Its story”. It was a story about a bright yellow dress I bought in Bali and how it made my then-friend on the holiday, fall in love with me during our trip to Bali. I hope I managed to woo the audience with my romantic story.

VPM Chee Hoe presented “Finding New Members” from the Successful Club Series, in a very comfortable and experienced manner.


It was a good meeting and I look forward to attending future Friendship meetings.


Exact ADC on Tues 11 Jan 2011
By Hairani, Exact ADC

Table Topics Master Hoey Teng explaining to Ai Shiang how it works

Hoey Teng introduced a new twist to the Table Topic session by getting volunteers to choose two options instead of one. The first one is the name of a person while the other is a resolution. Imagine Michelle Yeoh having the resolution of acting in romantic movies and Rosmah, the Prime Minister’s wife having a resolution of avoiding taking a bath whenever possible in order to save water !

Caroline presenting her second speech

Next, we had the long awaited speech from Caroline entitled “Resolutions”. She shared her personal experience about resolutions that she made since her younger days. A memorable quote that she shared was, “Procrastination is like a credit card. It’s a lot of fun until you get the bill.”

Finally, Yuen Kai presented “Live saving proposal”, an eye-opener and interesting speech on alternative treatments for cancer.


KPMG on Wed 12 Jan 2011
By Grace, KPMG KL


Our first meeting in the New Year was at a New Venue. It was indeed a very encouraging beginning for the club to have close to 40 of us attending the first meeting of 2011.

Honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed with the numbers and the size of the room but it was exciting to know that the club has grown. I’m also very happy to report that our young members have progressed satisfactorily and took up the challenge of organizing and hosting this meeting.

Thank you every one, for your great effort and I’m sure you will achieve your goals of becoming competent communicators and leaders by end of 2011.


One World on Thurs 13 Jan 2011

It was not everyday that you have someone who has achieved the DTM award twice to be your GE. DTM Geoff Andrew was very encouraging in his recommendations for Grammarian CK Ho to end on a positive note, by finishing with good examples of English. He also reminded all evaluators it was not necessary to speak on every point of the speech objective, in order to keep within the allocated time.

VPE CK explaning what is his resolution for 2011

We also heard from three brave members on their Ice Breaker speeches. VPM Amenny’s memorable “Love money Chua” phrase will not be soon forgotten. VPE CK Chong explained that his name meant “great, smart and outstanding” and we laughed when he told us that he has the face of a 20 year old, the voice of a 30 year old and the body of a 40 year old. VPPR Ivan went beyond the requirements of the Ice Breaker speech and inspired all of us to strive to be the best Toastmasters club in KL !


Hasil on Fri 14 Jan 2011

Loke, Shash, Joriah, Marsita & Mohd Zakuan

President Piras’ opening speech was inspiring, reminding us that there is always room for improvement and that in our endeavours, we may be a guide or inspiration to others.

Table Topics Master Sotimin gave us challenging questions. Although stumped at first, President Piras and Past President Yoga raised to the occasion and spoke eloquently on their topics. It was not a surprise to us when President Piras was announced as the Best Table Topics Speaker.

Joriah presented her mouth-watering second CC speech about two chicken recipes. We wished that she had bought samples for us to savour!

Compiled by Angeline Lee

Shin Ying's Sharing

Toastmasters – Opening more Opportunities for my Life and Career

Shin Ying (second from left) at Area W7 Contest Aug 2009

I never thought that one day, I will be nominated by my boss, Head of Finance department in KPMG (HOD), to organize an event.

Recently, my HOD asked me to be the representative of my department to organize a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project together with other representatives from the business support team, to help the less fortunate people in the shelter homes. To a shy and quite person like me, this was a surprise and a great opportunity.

Not only can I help to bring a positive impact to the shelter home we have selected for our CSR project, I have this fantastic opportunity to put into practice the communication and leadership skills I have learnt from Toastmasters. It has indeed impacted my career and personal life in a positive way !

Shin Ying (second from right) with her KPMG KL club members at KL SAC Oct 2010

In fact, after joining Toastmasters, I felt there is more to life and work. I was so excited that I have been sharing Toastmasters with my family and friends so much so that they too are inspired after seeing the positive change in me. I want to share all the benefits I have learnt and received from Toastmasters, to the “less fortunate”. To my friends, colleagues and family members who lack self confidence and are terrified of public speaking, including interviews.

Now I can assist them by providing constructive help instead of just comforting them.
Although I am still learning the basic concepts and skills from Toastmasters (especially the Table Topics session – the ability to handle impromptu speeches), I know that I am already more confident and organized in my thoughts and in handling my work.

All these, I have to thank Toastmasters and to my club in giving me the opportunities to serve as club officer (Treasurer and SAA for term 2009/2010 and Treasurer for term 2010/2011).

Shin Ying (at left) at KPMG KL Club Officers Installation Ceremony June 2010

You will always learn something that will add to your knowledge and skills. For example, even though I am in the Finance department, I learnt so much from Grace Loh on how to prepare a treasury report with better presentation. TLI was another excellent opportunity for me to learn from Treasurers of other clubs when all Treasurers were given a special session to share and learn from each other.

I strongly encourage all of you to reap the benefits of being a Toastmaster by attending club meetings, visiting other clubs, attending TLI and joining contests, as well as serving as a club officer.

Hooray to KPMG KL Toastmasters Club !!

Tay Shin Ying, member of KPMG KL Toastmasters Club

December Club Meetings

KPMG on Wed 8 Dec 2010

We were listening raptly to tales of headhunters of Sarawak, in the meeting room of KPMG, far from the jungles of Borneo. Krystle not only had interesting stories of her ancestors for us, we relived the days of Rajah James Brooke in her well-researched speech.

Toastmaster of the Day Chee Sing decorated the meeting room with Christmas ornaments and we had a “Delightful December” meeting, knowing that we were safe from any headhunting activities. General Evaluator Michelle diligently evaluated each role player and was especially impressed with Table Topics Master Nas’ shopping bags, which provided the creative topics for our Table Topics session.

Krystle and Chee Sing with their ribbons, with President Grace

At the end of the meeting, President Grace was presented with District 51’s Select Distinguished Club award for 2009/2010. Congratulations to KPMG !

Hasil on Fri 10 Dec 2010

Mazlin, a new member, presented her Ice Breaker speech without reading her notes. This secretary shared with us stories about her family life. We are certainly looking forward to her future speeches.

Toastmaster of the Day Mustafa also presented his interesting “Beer” speech which was an explanation on tax rates and tax rebates. It cleverly explains how the higher income group is paying the bulk of our bills and is helping everyone to enjoy the benefit of tax rebates. How appropriate that we have a Toastmaster working in the Income Tax Department explaining about tax to us in an easy to understand manner.

Exact ADC on Tues 14 Dec 2010 (By Chee Hoe, Friendship)

First experiences are always memorable. My first visit to Exact ADC was not only memorable, but interesting and exhilarating (word of the day) as well. President Andrew arranged a fun game session, "All I want for Christmas", to infuse the mood of Christmas into our "Christmas in the Tropics" meeting.

Gunalan guessing who wrote the “All I want for Christmas” message

As a first-timer Toastmaster of the Day, Caroline impressed us with her smooth delivery and excellent introduction of role players. Ai Shiang also had her first experience in taking up the role of Table Topics Master. She gave us interesting topics for us to practice our impromptu speaking skills. Then General Evaluator Hairani, also her first experience in this role, lightened up our lunch meeting with her nice smile and friendly feedback. My first experience at Exact ADC was utterly fantastic!

Friendship on Tues 21 Dec 2010 (By Caroline, Exact ADC)

I attended Friendship’s “Make it happen” meeting - and make it happen, they did! They set a white Christmas ambience for the meeting by encouraging a “white” dress code, adorning the room with simple Christmas ornaments and playing cheerful Christmas songs in the background. It was truly a pleasure watching another club in action and TME Angeline sure had it organized with utmost professionalism. Having renowned Dennis Wee presenting “Vocal Variety” was an entertaining, learning experience.

I thoroughly enjoyed Chee Hoe’s unconventional Table Topics session, which added a twist to the “Passing the parcel” game, which helped to get everyone in the festive mood. I’m sure it brought back many fond memories for those present. It was also a delight to watch eloquent Toastmasters, Michelle and Alexandra, present their respective project speeches. I definitely enjoyed my first visit and look forward to my next!

One World on Thurs 23 Dec 2010 (By Chee Hoe, Friendship)

The year of 2010 was coming to the end, and it was the genesis (word of the day) of One World Toastmasters Club, our new sibling in the family of Area W3. The very first meeting was held two days before Christmas. We had a few high-ranking officers of District 51 attending and supporting the first meeting of One World.

It was my pleasure to guide new Toastmasters to play the roles of Ah Counter and Timer during the meeting. The first timers and fast learners, Ivan and Rachel, did very well. Kudos to both of them!

Inspired by President Jessica's closing address, many members of One World volunteered to deliver their Ice Breaker speeches and take up meeting roles for the next meeting. I certainly like the warmth and friendliness of One World. In the Toastmasters world, no matter who you are, we are under one roof and under 'one world'!

Compiled by Angeline Lee