3rd of Nov Meeting

Blog post written by Gajendran...

First meeting of November…another glorious Saturday morning, mainly due to the fact that there was NO traffic jam. The guest speaker for this week’s meeting was Daniel Teh from Maxis Toastmasters Club, who was giving a demo speech for the 9^th speech from the Competent Communicator manual. The Sergeant-at-Arms for the morning was Gajendran and he called the meeting to order at 9:40am. After a brief introduction, he handed the control over to Shu Wei for her presidential address. Shu Wei warmly welcomed the members and the guests from Nottingham University to the club and gave a refreshing speech to kick start the meeting.

The Toastmaster of the Morning, Ernest was up next with a nervy yet motivating speech in which he inspired the new members and guests. He then introduced the role players for the morning. The Table Topics session led by Jason Moi followed soon after, and Jason, a young blood of this club ( as he always puts it =D) who never fails to impress, stunned the audience with his choice of topics for the session. He adapted a unique way of differentiating the topics by categorizing them by level of difficulty. All his topics for the day were thought provoking and serious as showed by the volunteers who took some time before stepping up as they knew that this was a new and dangerous territory they were stepping into. Nevertheless, Kai Ming who was a guest, bravely took up the challenge with his topic ‘The overrating of logic’ . Despite its in-depth meaning, Kai Ming pulled it up impressively by adding in humour appropriately.

Next up was Nini Yeoh with her topic ‘Is immortality a curse?’. Nini was as inspiring as ever with her powerful speech that wowed the audience. She had never ending anecdotes and quotes which were apt at the same time, meaningful to all of us. She's definitely someone who is very well read.

The third speaker was Jason Lim who was another guest and his topic was ‘The impermanence of reality’. Jason made the topic seemed so simple at the same time delivered his speech with much charisma and confidence. He must have definitely had some sort of experience in public speaking prior to this, or no?

Then it was our season guest of our club who volunteered for the final table topics session. It was Dennis Wee with his table topics title, ' The role of evil in the world'. I must say that experience comes in handy in cases like this. He was quick at diverting his speech from the role of evil into his own stories which were executed effortlessly and professionally. He totally surprised the audience by how he injected humour into such a topic with a very well-planned closing. Finally, the last volunteer was yet another guest,William with his topic ‘Is money the root of all evil?’ which he did a commendable job.

The last segment of the Table Topics session was the evaluation session by Shu Wei. As usual, with her experience in evaluations, Shu wei gave excellent feedbacks on the impromptu speeches. Her constructive advice and praises definitely went down well with the guests and new members.

Later, the assigned speeches followed suit with Jee Aik kicking it off.His 3^rd speech from the Competent Communicator manual entitled ‘Getting the right career’. Jee Aik impressed his evaluator and the audience alike with his speech as he projected an immense improvement from his last speech. His informative about careers definitely caught the audience’s attention which was pointed out by his evaluator Fong Wen.

Next up was John Lee, fresh from his first runner up triump in the District evaluation contest the week before. John did his 9^th speech and he titled it ‘Inspiration to Inspire’. His inspiring inspirational speech was well delivered and very informative as well. After John’s speech, the TOM called for a 15 minute break.The meeting resumed with Daniel Teh with his demo speech for the 9^th speech and what a speech it was! Very well structured and informative, Daniel’s demo speech had the audience hanging on to his every word. He even had a magic trick in his speech and as props he had a glittering glass diamond and a smooth rock. All these factors made the speech even more interesting. An open evaluation session was held after his speech. Daniel took questions on his demo speech and proceeded to give his answers to the audience.

After the quick evaluation session, General Evaluator for the morning, Francis Ng came up to deliver his overall views. He definitely gave each and everyone something to ponder about as he gave a very detailed and informative evaluation on the meeting that covered almost every aspect of a meeting. The final speech of the morning was the presidential address by Shu Wei. She made sure that her closing address was longer than her opening address which was a bit short. But it was a long speech with substance as Shu Wei thanked the guests and new members and informed everyone on the latest on goings regarding the club.

See you on the 17th of November 2007.