25th November 2008

It was another beautiful and lovely Saturday morning (well, quite figuratively) in DSA Room last Saturday’s Toastmaster Meeting. Meetings started exactly around approximately 9.40am, and BK, as the SAA of the Day started the meeting by asking us to introduce ourselves and ask us what the things we are grateful about. After that, John gave his presidential speech with the theme ‘Fight’ in our studies, Toastmasters and life. 

Next, it was Cassandra’s first time to become a Table Topic Masters, and she gave interesting titles to 5 volunteers. First, Merryn gave his speech based on the title ‘Don’t take life too seriously’ by telling his experiences working in a firm; he said that if we take things too serious, we will in the end lose more things. Second volunteer for the Table Topic section was Gajendran, where we were really curious when he got the title ‘Tell us about your Dream’. He talked about his dream of becoming successful lawyer, much influenced by his uncle, who is a famous and successful lawyer. However, he said that his uncle told him these: “Do not do law if you see me as a lawyer and successful, do law because you think YOU can be successful in law”. Next up, Paul was given the title ‘Behind a successful man is a surprised woman’. He expressed his gratitude towards Ka Chuan’s mother, who supported his studies and funded his entire education. On the other hand, Lourdes was talking about her ‘pursuit of happiness in life’ by telling us about seeking peace and the importance of her family to her. Finally, BK offered himself to talk about ‘If you could be any age for a week, what age you would be and why’. At the beginning he said that he don’t want to go back to his younger days; but later he said he would be delighted if he could return to his fifth former life, whereby he had great friends and teachers who supported him to study hard for SPM and prove to his parents, friends, and most importantly, himself. Then Chee Hong as the TT Evaluator gave his evaluation. 

As usual, after the evaluation there was the assignment speeches section. Ka Chuan, who have just joined in not too long ago gave his 3rd speech about his title ‘Think about It’, stressing about the importance of education in our life, and asking us to rethink the value of education today. Next, Jason Moi preceded his 6th speech with an interesting title ‘Are you M.A.D. enough?” To be M.A.D. or Make A Difference, there are three steps to be followed; do not think straight, be gay in everything we do, and throw the conscience away in order to be creative and unique such as Thomas E. Edison who created the light bulb, and other initially, well, considered him as ‘M.A.D’. Qinmei also enlighten us with her witty speech about ‘Evolution of A Name’ whereby she talked how different people could actually wrongly pronounced her surname, her name, and spaces between her name. She taught us the proper way of pronouncing her name correctly; which Qin actually pronounced as ‘Ch-in’ instead of ‘Que-in’ of ‘King-in’. Finally, John gave his Advanced CM about Presenting an Award to ‘Qin Mei’, as she ‘set examples for other women to follow’, where his speech was full of humor elements, which made us laughed during the speech. 

After that, General Evaluator of the Day Ernest (@Immediate Past President & Area Governor) gave his overall evaluation on the meeting. The assignment speeches were evaluated by Gajendran, Qinmei, John and Ernest respectively. Finally, the Best Table Topic Speaker was given to Gajendran while the best assignment speaker was Jason Moi, and the best evaluator of the day was John Lee.

by Jamie

18th October

The meeting started off with first time SAA, Cassandra, asking everybody to introduce themselves as well as share with the audience on what's so special about themselves. 

After the introductions, John took over the stage to give his presidential address. Taking the cue from the SAA of the morning, he centred his speech on being different and making a difference, and how we should keep trying to fight off indifference. In addition, he also took the opportunity to remind the audience to attend Division W's humorous speech and evaluation contest on this coming Saturday, 25th October. 

Next up, Toastmaster of the Morning, Book Keong, took over. He gave a brief history of Toastmasters International before asking the Grammarian of the day, Jason Lim, for the Word of the Day. The Word of the Day was epitome, which was, for the first time, used more than a few times throughout the meeting. 

The meeting then proceeded with the Table Topics session, conducted by first-time Table Topics Master, Ka Chuan. He did an admirable job, giving a brief introduction of the session for guests and new members before moving on with the session. 

The first speaker was yours truly, Pui Yee, who was 'rewarded' for her courage (ahem) with a topic called 'Donkey' (thanks a lot TTM). Yours truly went on to babble about cute donkeys and stubbornness, and ending the speech with a useful piece of advice – don't be a donkey. 

The second brave soul was Jee Aik, who attempted the speech topic, 'Great minds think alike'. He gave a interesting twist to the title, provoking the audience's thoughts by saying, 'Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ'. 

After that, the third speaker, Abel, took the stage. His topic was, 'You have invented the first time machine, what would you do with it?'. Surprisingly, he said that he would travel back to the era of World War II to see the movers and shakers of the world who altered the course of human history forever. 

Last but not least, Jason Lim, who gave an amazing performance when he talked about 'How I wish to be the opposite gender'. His speech prompted laughs and entertained the audience so much so that he was voted the Best Table Topics Speaker. 

Next up was the evaluation session, conducted by the always animated Jason Moi. 

The meeting proceeded with the assignment speeches. Ka Chuan, doing his CCM#2, gave a thought-provoking speech titled, 'Do you think what you think you think?', in which he questioned our very existence. 

The second speaker, also doing CCM#2, was Cassandra. She gave a hilarious speech titled, 'I promised to be safe'. She recounted her experience in learning how to drive and although it was funny, it was a good reminder for the rest of us to be careful while on the roads. 

The third speaker was our regular guest from UEM Academy, Hedzrin. He also gave a humourous speech titled 'Why so shy?' from the AC manual.

Last but not least, our very own Immediate Past President, Ernest, gave a speech from the AC manual titled 'You can be a better communicator'. He was awarded Best Assignment Speaker. 

by Evon Low

the 27th of September

Toastmasters Meeting on the 27th September commenced exactly at 9.38am. Members and guests introduced themselves to break the ice and get the meeting up and running.

Denise, the table topics master, presented unique idioms as the day’s table topic titles and everyone on the floor are given the opportunity to speak based on the idiom. It was quite tough as speakers are to relate a story to the idiom. Nevertheless, the volunteers managed to speak their way through with good vocals and points. There were five speakers altogether, namely Joshua, a second timer as a guest at our club, Fun from UM toastmasters club, Boon Keong, Jamie and Ka Chuan. Micheal was the evaluator and for his evaluation, he offered praises for the speakers’ strong points. He also highlighted their weaknesses and suggested ways of improvement. It was a thorough evaluation.

Moving on, we had 2 ice breaker speeches. The first is given by Cassandra, titled “You will never know”. Her topic was interesting as we get to know things which we may never have guessed. Her speech contains bits and pieces of her life and incidents which mattered deeply to her. Second icebreaker speech was presented by Ka Chuan. He started his speech by narrating briefly about his birth which I found was really interesting. He moved to talk about his family and his involvement in sports. From his speech everyone got to know him as a good sportsman who can play many sports.

Third speech of the day was by Jamie titled the past and the future. She spoke about making decisions in life and the importance of following up with the decisions we made. It was a speech full of values we can absorb and put into practice. Last speech was by John Lee titled “The Roast”. It was a humorous speech as John “roasted” two “fictional” characters named Gajendran and Qinmei who were getting married. John’s speech left the audience roaring with laughter.

Next was the evaluation session. General evaluator Gajendran invited his team of evaluators to evaluate the speakers. First evaluator was Jee Aik, followed by John Lee, me(Chee Hoong) and lastly Qinmei. The evaluators offered compliments to the 1st timers Cassandra and Ka Chuan and they also gave sound advice to them. I pointed out the good points and weaknesses of Jamie while Qinmei did similarly for her evaluation. Our aim is to assist in any way we can to anhance their speaking skills. General evaluator also offered some pointers for the speakers to consider. The evaluation session was completed with the Ah counter report by Faiq, Timekeeper report by Pui Yee and language evaluator report by Qinmei.

The final agenda is the presidential address by John Lee. John Lee promoted the idea of visiting other clubs to gain exposure as well as contacts. He also mentioned the mentor-mentee system for our club which have been revived. The winners for best table topic speaker, best assignment speaker and best evaluator was announced. The champion for the day for best table topic speaker was Boon Keong. Best assignment speaker goes to John Lee while best evaluator falls on the hands of Qinmei. Congrats to everyone above. That ended our meeting for the day. I hope that everyone gained something from it and make the best they can out of their experience at HELP toastmasters club meeting.

THE Contest we have been waiting for.

With bated breath and beating hearts we anticipated the Area W2 Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest. And it has finally arrived!

Our contest chair was none other than Sai Masters Toastmasters Club president himself, Suresh!

Well, straight into the action, here are the various contestants in action for the humorous speech. In action were the representatives from the 5 clubs in area W2 namely HELP, Hasil, Exact ADC, Ernst&Young and UEM Academy.

After a short break for refreshments, the evaluation contest got underway with our test speaker the charming Gene Lau.

After each contestant presented their evaluation, it was time for the judges to decide the winners to represent the area in the upcoming division W contest.

And now ladies and gentlemen, presenting the winner of Area W2's Humorous Speech Contest 2008 *drumroll please*

Hadzrin from UEM Academy!

As for the Evaluation section, the winner is none other than HELP TMC's president John Lee!

Congratulations to both. Come support them at the upcoming Area W2 Contest!