May Club Meetings Part I

Friendship AGM on Tue 3 May 2011

With the successful conclusion of our club officers’ election, Friendship is pleased to announce that the Club Officers for term 2011/2012 are

President – Angeline Lee
Vice President of Education – Chor Chee Hoe
Vice President of Membership – Alexandra Lau
Vice President of Public Relations – Susan Lim
Secretary – Daphne Au
Treasurer – Ian Tai
Sergeant At Arms – Andy Supramaniam

Past President Freddie has nothing but praise for our President, who has also completed the project requirements for Competent Leader (CL) and Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB).

President Zaiton deserves heaps of praises for her strings of achievements during her tenure. The term is filled with many events which she led persistently from the drawing board to fruition.

President Zaiton, your dynamism has certainly taken Friendship on a higher plane. Congratulations and a big THANK YOU for your outstanding leadership!

 

President Zaiton (center) with members of Friendship

Hasil on Fri 6 May 2011

President Piras never fails to amaze (word of the day) us with his eloquence and enthusiasm on his reading habit. After sharing with us nuggets of information about Tun Mahathir’s book, he then asked us to pick up the reading habit, as reading leads to information. Information leads to knowledge, and knowledge is power.

With Table Topics Master Khif providing interesting topics on Malaysians’ reading habit, sending children to music school and Facebook, everyone spoke their mind on the various topics. Timer Joriah had to remind us that time was up for the 20 minutes session.

 

Members of Hasil enjoying their club meeting

First-timer TME Sotimin warned us he might frighten us with his performance! When he attended his first Toastmasters meeting back in September 2010, his nervousness was apparent to us as he did his first Table Topics. However, his determination to improve and his willingness to take up meeting roles have paid off. Today, we witnessed a remarkable transformation to a confident speaker, as he performed his TME role with ease.


Exact ADC on Tue 10 May 2011
By Caroline, Exact ADC

Table Topics Master Edward prepared topics which were closely related to “Mother”, the theme of the day. First up, Brenda was asked to brag about her mom. She spoke of her mom’s great cooking and how it has resulted in her acquired taste for good wholesome cooking, made with motherly love. Our first time guest, Kang Ling Chee spoke about her strict mother when she was a teenager, which resulted in her siblings and her growing up as obedient children. Second time guest Judy Cheong, expressed that it would not be any different if Mother’s or Father’s day no longer exists, as you do not need a specific day to celebrate or spend time with your parents. Next speaker, Andrew, would bring his Mom to Singapore for a vacation if she were still alive.

 

Brenda is Best Table Topic Speaker

In the assignment speech session, Wan Suzielawati was a natural at delivering her Ice Breaker speech. Suzie told us stories of her childhood and upbringing, living with “Mak Tek”. Mak Tek is her foster mother, whom she still lives with, and is someone very close and dear to her. Mak Tek was always there for her and they spent a lot of time together.


One World on Thur 12 May 2011    

In this meeting, TME CK Ho informed us that we will be travelling from Europe to Japan as we listened to two project speeches on “How To Say It”. VPPR Ivan brought us to Europe while President Jessica shared with us her hilarious tale of her first visit to a Sento, a public bathing place in Japan. General Evaluator Kang, Area W2 Governor, had us laughing out loud when he said that Jessica’s demonstration of the size of a handkerchief had our imaginations running wild as to how she made used of it before she dipped into the hot water.

 

Members & guests of One World with John Cheah (seated, at the right)

At the end of the meeting, Division W Governor DTM Vincent introduced John Cheah, the incoming Area Governor for One World, which will be aligned to Area W5 wef 1 July 2011. John has started on his club visits to get to know his clubs before his duties officially starts on 1 July.

For John’s entertaining evaluation of Jessica’s speech, he won the Best Speech Evaluator award whereas Jessica was the clear favourite for the Best Project Speaker award.

April Club Meetings (Part 3)

KPMG KL on Sat 23 April 2011
With the evaluator roles filled by visiting Toastmasters from AFC, Friendship, Mid Valley and MII Toastmasters Club, it was a meeting of learning and sharing for members from 5 clubs.

With two Ice Breaker speeches and two advanced manual speeches, we were glad that we did not have to curtail the meeting to resume work as it was a Saturday meeting.

New members Janice and Michelle presented “So You Think You Know Janice” and “The Other Michelle”. Coincidentally, the other Michelle, namely Michelle Yip, presented her Monodrama speech from the Interpretive Reading manual. We heard the evil and gloating voice of Green Goblin from the Spider Man movies. Last but not least, Joanita presented her Interpersonal Communication speech.

Joanita & Michelle with their District 51 pins. Janice & Michelle with their red Ice Breaker ribbons

Thank you to TME Joanita who treated us to fruit tarts which she had baked for us. It provided a sweet ending to this lunch meeting!



Exact ADC on Tue 26 April 2011
By Caroline, Exact ADC

TME Andrew introducing the theme of the day “Friendly” (also the word of the day). As Malaysia was recently voted the 9th friendliest country, Andrew asked members their thoughts about the friendliness of Malaysians. In his President’s speech, he talked about the values of friendliness and the role Toastmasters play as an avenue to make more friends.

Table Topics Master Hoey Teng prepared two sets of cards – one set with the table topic title, and another set on the stand which the speaker is to take, i.e. if the speaker agreed, disagreed or remain neutral on the topic from the first set of cards. Instead of having volunteers, Hoey Teng handpicked speakers and invited them to come up to the stand.

General Evaluator Brenda pointed out that the table topic session of handpicking speakers instead of getting members to volunteer, exemplified real life situations where you would most likely be called upon and asked an opinion. It is a good experience to test how fast your brain thinks. With that, Table Topics Evaluator Chee Yoong was inspired to evaluate differently too. Instead of doing the evaluation from his viewpoint, he invited the speakers themselves to answer (i)How well do you think you did? and (ii) If you were to do it again, how would you do it differently?

President Andrew presenting the Best Table Topics Speaker certificate to Lee Lee

This was followed by Caroline’s Project #3 assignment speech, from the CC Manual. Her speech titled “Ipoh Mali” served to introduce the little wonders Ipoh had to offer from the colonial architecture to the natural limestone hills and many local delicacies. It would have been a nice touch if some of the Ipoh food spoken about were shared at the meeting!

Area Governor Angeline also shared news of Area W3 Blog being selected as one of the best website of District 51, with the results to be announced during the Penang Convention. She thanked Chee Yoong for his contribution to the success of the Blog, as he was the creator of the Area Blog.

One World on Thur 28 April 2011

In the Table Topics Session headed by Meifen, Sam told us he would give us his candid (word of the day) opinion about his favourite colour. With 5 other volunteers giving us their candid opinions, we were enjoying impromptu speeches about love, happiness, confidence, success and even about pirated DVD.

Best Table Topics Speaker Alex, Acting President CK Chong and TME
Ivan

In Amenny’s presentation about DISC, we learnt that knowing whether someone is in the Dominance, Influence, Steadiness or Compliance quadrant will help us to understand and handle various personalities that we will encounter everyday.

Lay Choo, visiting from TARC Toastmasters Club, provided a CANDID evaluation for Amenny, consisting of the words Clear, Awesome, Nice smile, Descriptive, Interactive and Direct. For her outstanding CANDID evaluation, she won the Best Speech Evaluator award.

Members & guests of One World

April Club Meetings (Part 2)

One World on Thur 14 April 2011

For the Project Speech Session, Kelson amazed us with his Ice Breaker speech, VPPR Ivan impressed us with his property investment speech and VPE CK Chong dazzled us with his mountain climbing exploits.

President Jessica presenting the Best Project Speaker award to VPPR Ivan

We were fortunate to have DTM Lum Woon Foong, a highly regarded Toastmaster, as our General Evaluator. She was impressed with the strong bond and camaderie among the club members. Her verdict ? It was a very enjoyable meeting !


Friendship on Tue 19 April 2011

For our Visionary Leadership meeting, first-timer TME Ian performed his role with gusto and enthusiasm. It was evident that he had prepared assiduously for his role. We were impressed with his TME skills, as he showed no signs of nervousness and empowered (word of the day) all of us to have an awesome meeting.

TME Ian

Was it “The Curse” as claimed by Immediate Past President (IPP) Ben when he found out two weeks ago that he had a speaking slot for 19 April ? He presented a hilarious and highly entertaining tale of how events seem to conspire against him while he was preparing for his speech. It was an AA (Absolutely Awesome) speech for its humorous content and we wished that it has been recorded so that we can enjoy it all over again.

Congratulations to IPP Ben who has completed his ten speeches for his Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) award. Well done to our IPP, as he was also the Best Project Speaker for this meeting!

Ben receiving his well-deserved ACB pin

KPMG KL-CIMA Joint Meeting on Wed 20 April 2011

At this joint meeting hosted by CIMA Toastmasters Club, SAA Ai Ling immediately caught our attention when she announced that there will be S.E.X. during the meeting. She then explained that S.E.X. stands for Smile, Enthusiasm and eXcitement.

During the Table Topics Session, we had entertaining and eloquent speeches from 5 “Ministers” comprising of Abu Bakar (Kelab Pidato KL), Grace (KPMG), Michelle (KPMG), Kok Loon (Money & You) and Victor (CIMA). Minister of Works, Victor, was voted the Best Table Topics Speaker.

Congratulations to Ling Sim of KPMG who presented her Ice Breaker speech and also won the Best Project Speaker award.

We also had 3 IBM guests, Kenneth, Wendy and Anthony, who had attended to observe the meeting proceedings. All of them were impressed with the Toastmasters educational program and told us of their intention to set up a Toastmasters Club for IBM.

Charming and enthusiastic TME Soo Qi confessed to us after the meeting that she was nervous, as her boss, HR Director of IBM, was at the meeting. We hope that her boss was impressed with her TME skills as it was a thumbs up performance.



One World Club Officers Installation on Fri 22 April 2011

At this Installation Ceremony, we were joined by One World Group CEO, Dave Lau, who is also the Charter President of Roof Toastmasters Club, Singapore. Just before the Installation ceremony, he asked us to write down 3 weaknesses that we faced and clip it to a RM100 note. He then challenged us to burn the RM100 note and the paper attached to it, if we think it is worth paying RM100 to erase the 3 weaknesses. A number of One World members stood up and pledged to burn the money and banish their weaknesses.

With that dramatic start, we then moved on to the Installation Ceremony of One World Toastmasters’ club officers, followed by the official opening ceremony for One World Damansara branch.

Division W Council members with the Club Officers of One World

April Club Meetings (Part 1)

Friendship on Tue 5 April 2011

At our “Magical Transformation” 5 April 2011 meeting, Past President James Arokiasamy who was our TME asked us, “How are we feeling?” Then he held up a cue card with the word “AWESOME” written on it. Indeed it was awesome, as we had 7 visiting Toastmasters from 5 clubs ! They were

General Evaluator DTM Geoff Andrew from MIM KL
Invocation speaker DTM Mohamad Abdullah from MII
Evaluators Daniel Teh and Jocelyn Lim, and guest Alireza from AFC
Evaluator V.S. Ravi from UEM
Patrick Lim from ITC Bintang

Another awesome fact was that we had 4 non-Toastmasters guests and two of them, Rosalie and Sylvia, signed up as members !

Guest Rosalie, Jocelyn (AFC), Phileo, guest Sylvia, VPPR Alexandra, Past President Lay Theng & Alireza (AFC)

Thanks to the effort of VPPR Alexandra to send out Facebook invitations, Patrick of ITC Bintang decided to attend our meeting as well.

Patrick of ITC Bintang

Exact ADC on Tue 12 April 2011
By Caroline, Exact ADC

For the first part of the meeting, Table Topic Master Chee Yoong prepared table topics based on pictures. Volunteers were asked to select a number and the Table Topic Master revealed a picture which the speaker had 2 minutes to talk about. The table topics session was definitely a nice change and an innovative way to encourage most of the members to participate.

In the assignment speech session, Boby delivered his Ice Breaker speech, titled “Life is Unpredictable”. Hailing from West Sumatra, he shared about his family and his ambition to study and work abroad. He felt that life was full of the unpredictable, just as how he came to work in Exact.


After the break, General Evaluator Ai Shiang, who filled in at the last minute, professionally handled the role even though it was her first time. She suggested to provide an additional stopwatch for the timer, so that it was easier to time entire sessions, while timing individual speakers.


KPMG KL Wed 13 April 2011
By Grace, KPMG KL

At this meeting, our guys took over the stage !

Tell me which club has 3 IT guys bravely giving their CC speeches PLUS they are not talking about computer or programming.

Jowy, Chee Seng and Gary with their TI ribbons

Jowy told us how he got his unique name "JOWY" and it is indeed different from the norm. Be unique, be different and stand out from the rest.

Chee Sing inspired us to dream and to create our own future. He reminded us about the dreams and stories of Thomas Edison and his light bulb, the Wright brothers and the airplane and even Tony Fernandes and Air Asia.

Gary confirmed that with his experiences in IT, with changes, comes resistance. He assured us that the world is moving ahead with time and new technology. He concluded that it is time to be, "Out with the Old and In with the New"

We also had a large group of visitors! Lead by Samantha Tai of MAICSA Toastmasters Club, who is also head of Boardroom Corporate Services, her team of 15 staff visited our club.