The first meeting of the year.

Though it was another typical Toastmasters’ meeting, but this meeting was the first meeting in 2009; and 2009 is the 6th year since HELP University College International Toastmasters Club first established in 2003. John, the President was unable to present on the meeting and so the presidential address was taken over by Gajendran, the VP-E*.



Table topic session is always the ‘warm-up’ session to us; and this time, Michael (as the TTM*) awoke us with his interesting topics. To begin with, instead of asking us to pick a number for topic, he asked us to choose the level of difficulty for the topic to talk about.



First volunteer was Chee Hong who selected ‘Hard’ question, and his question was “If a friend of yours set a goal too high –will you tell him straight to face that he cannot achieve it or you will just keep quiet about it?” Well, instead of choosing the first option or the second choice, he gave his third alternative: To first change our point of view in believing that his friend can achieve the goal; and he related this to his past experience with a friend of him who achieved something that Chee Hong thought he couldn’t achieve in the beginning.



Second volunteer was Jaime who chose the ‘Medium’ question: In your opinion, which part in our education that you hate the most; but turn out to be important? In her speech, she told about the homework and assignments are what she hated in education; but marked the significance of them in everyday’s life. On the other hand, Jack chose the ‘Hard’ question and his question (perhaps the toughest amongst all) was this: “Why do you wear your clothes?” and Jack responded with the importance of wearing clothes through civilization and logical needs to wear it. Next was Ernest who also chosen ‘Hard’ question: ..Do you consider luck and chance; fair? He twisted the question a little bit by instead of stating that luck and chance are fair; he made the statement that if we believe that luck is there; there will be luck; if we believe that chances are there; there will be chances for you.



Finally, since Michael ran out of the ‘Hard’ question, Kang Han selected the ‘Easy’ question: “What is your favourite song?” Though it was a simple question, he managed to give the speech by stating the details of the song, and the reasons he love the song; “The Man who cannot be Moved by The Script”. After the session, the volunteers were evaluated by Gajendran on their strength and improvements to make.

Now, for the second part of our meeting was the regular assignment speeches session. First, Kang Han gave his CCM#5* speech with the title ‘T.I.R.E’. Based on his speech, ‘T.I.R.E’ was the acronym for the “Think out of the Box, Interaction, Relax and Error” tips on being creative.



Cassandra was the second to gave her third speech on ‘One Step Closer, Never Too Late’ which touches on the importance and the need of taking care of our face as it is the first part of the body that we will be judged on. In her speech, she taught us the 3 basic steps on cleaning face: Cleanse, Tone and Moisturize.


After that, Jee Aik gave us the insights on distinguishing between bias, presupposition, assumption and how they are related through examples in his CCM#8 Speech title: Facts Speak for Themselves?

Last but not least, Ernest completed his ACM#4* speech on ‘Struggle, Bloody, Satisfaction’ on his witty and entertaining ‘deepest, darkest secret’ of his in face saloon. After which, each of the speaker was then evaluated by their respective evaluator; Gajendran, Jee Aik, Qinmei, and Gajendran.



Calls for report came after the evaluation was presented by LE* Denise, TK* Kevin and AC* Faiq headed by GE* Chee Hong. Finally, the Table topics and assignment speech prizes session was lined by Ernest as the Best Table Topic Speaker and Best Assignment Speaker; Gajendran as the Best Evaluator. Congratulations to both of them!



*P/S: If you are curious of what is VP-E, SAA, TOM, TTM, AC, TK, GE, LE, ACM#, CCM#, and other acronym, maybe it’s a high time that you should pay our club meeting a visit! (or two, three, four....)

Jaime