2015 Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest.

Saturday, 22/8/2015

Today was the much anticipated...

HELP University Toastmasters Club's Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest of 2015! 

Our contestants and members, role players and guests came early this very morning in an excited and lively spirit. Chairs were arranged and everything was (pretty much!) in order. With our smiling guests, enthusiastic conversations and our pristine, ready-looking and suited-up contestants, we could tell that everyone in the room just could not wait for today's event to unfold!

President Pravena and TM Tory discussing their preparations. 

Our wonderful guests! 

Today's contest started off with Humorous Speech. We had 5 of our treasured Toastmasters members contesting and before they began, each had to draw their numbers from today's Contest Chair for Humorous Speech, TM Yi-Jia.

TM Bryan waiting for his turn to deliver his Humorous Speech!

And guess who was our first contestant? It was TM Bryan Wong! Delivering his Humorous Speech, "Workout Habits". Being the past champion of our contest, Bryan had a lot to live up to, and he certainly didn't disappoint us with his speech on jogging and exercising - Doing pushups. "1, 2, 3..." A pretty girl passes by. "51, 52, 53....". He used a lot of acting and movement to induce humour in his speech and judging by the laughters we could hear throughout his speech, the audience certainly loved it!

TM Bryan waiting for his turn to deliver his Humorous Speech.

The second speech, "Phd of B&C " was delivered by TM Vincent and in his hilarious and entertaining speech he talked about himself being a Phd holder of Blaming and Complaining. The best part? It was definitely when he was promoting his book on Blaming & Complaining, which he had written himself in his speech. From flipping the pages of his book to telling the audience to 'ignore the blank pages' and 'its a good book', 'you should buy', we had a good laugh!

The third speech was "The Day That Was " by TM James Kan. As usual, he used his jocular acting and his high pitch voice to induce humor into his speech. He shared with us a memorable day of his life, using a lot of acting and dialogue to create vivid pictures for the audience's imagination.

TM James adjusting his tie, and looking professional! 

The fourth Humorous Speech was delivered by our club member, TM Vanessa, whom we haven't seen for a pretty long time (glad to see you again Vanessa!). In her speech, she talked about her working experience, but with appropriate pauses throughout her storytelling, she successfully delivered a really humorous speech as well. Boy do we want to work at this fun and interesting Club Med now - the place where she worked!

TM Vanessa. (We love that Club Med shirt!)

And finally, our final contestant was our very own Division International Speech Champion of this year, TM Taufiq. He shared with us his amusing story of going to the US, and standing up for his "beard", as this is an identity he holds dear to but is often misunderstood.

We took a short break for about 25 minutes, and then it was our Evaluation Speech Contest.

The test speaker, Yves, is a truly amazing speaker. He would certainly have been the champion of our Humorous Speech Contest if he was one of our participants! He delivered a speech on his first day of primary school, sharing with us a variety of stories from multiple angles. I say, the most memorable part was when he joked about himself, where one of his friend stereotyped him as Asian and asked - "Do you know Kungfu?". It was a funny and beautiful speech about his experience on his first day of primary school, that it swept a huge wave of nostalgia to the audience about theirs!

Again, we had our contestants drawing their numbers from the Contest Chair for our Evaluation Contest, TM Tory, before the contest began. The contestants were expected to assess Yves' speech and share with him their personal opinions.

TM Tory as Contest Chair for the Evaluation Contest 

Our first contestant was TM Vincent whom complimented Yves on his structured speech. Followed by, TM James, who evaluated Yves' speech and commended his use of creative twist. Then it was TM Yi-Jia and TM Edward sharing with us many points about what they liked about the speech and what they thought could be improved on. TM Bryan's turn came next and he shared several really detailed, comprehensive and well elaborated points of improvement in his evaluation. Finally,TM Taufiq praised Yves' use of using a unique method - ICE, which is an acronym: Introduction, Content, Ending. He gave only one very helpful but simple point of improvement to the speaker. Yves could be seen nodding his head and intently listening to our evaluators giving their feedback in the audience throughout the competition. What a productive and enjoyable part of today's contest it was indeed to be able to learn something from each evaluators, and our dear Yves.

The event is coming to an end, and after handing out a few Certificates of Appreciation to our role players for today, it was time for the price giving session!

The Champion of the Humorous Speech Contest went to TM Vincent, with the 1st runner up, TM Taufiq and 2nd runner up, TM Bryan.

Not forgetting the Champion of the Evaluation Speech Contest which went to TM Bryan, with the 1st runner up, TM Vincent, and the 2nd runner up, TM James Kan.

Our handsome winners! 

Congratulations to everyone!

A huge thanks to our chief judge and his panel of judges. We would like to thank our Area J1 Director, Gerard A Peter for being our chief judge for today. And also, to our role players who have done so much in making today's event a success!

Our dashing and helpful role players - timers for today's contest!

But the event hadn't come to an end yet!

After the price giving session, we had everyone sitting together mingling, chatting, laughing and eating together while enjoying our delicious curry chicken lunch. Not forgetting, taking quite a number of fun and candid pictures together! It was truly a great day for HUTMC.

Till our next meeting and special event - the 2015 Area Contest!

We hope to see everyone really, really, soon.

Thank you for reading!

From the perspective of  VPPR, Vincent Sar and Secretary, Woh Yi-Jia. 

Beyond Infinity.

Saturday, 8/8/2015

As usual, witty TM Ahmad began the meeting with his sense of humor, telling us to not answer our phones unless it’s from our mother.

TM Ahmad addressing the audience. 

President and TM Pravena delivering her presidential opening.

After that, our President, TM Pravena, delivered her presidential opening. She welcomed our special guests today, CC, CL Eddie Lai, CC, CL Justin Ong, and CC, CL Thiiban. She then shared with us the special infinity symbol that represents our theme for today: 

Beyond Infinity

Then, dashing TM Bryan enlivened the crowd by initiating a thunderous applause and described in detail the history of Toastmasters Club. He then asked everyone to answer this question as they introduced themselves: if you could have an unlimited supply of anything, what would it be? Answers ranged from money, love, free education, time, to positive energy, opportunities, justice and ........ girlfriends.

 

TM Bryan as Toastmaster of the Morning (TOM)

TM Edward Boey was our Table Topics Master (TTM) of the day. As TTM, he asked for volunteers and we had our first volunteer from our very own club, TM Yi-Jia, sharing with us the hardest decision that she has ever made in her life. She explained how choosing her degree was possibly one of the hardest decisions she’s ever made. Rather than finding a solution to her problem, she came to terms with the fact that she doesn’t need to have one. 

Next, it was our second speaker and guest Simon who volunteered after much encouragement from TM Jack. He spoke about how he would make friends with a stranger.

TM Yi-Jia delivering her Table Topics speech.

Our second volunteer and guest,  Simon! 

Our third speaker and guest, Daniel, talked about how he wouldn’t want to live up to an infinite lifespan if he was the only one with the immortality to live. He shared about the scary moments of his mother’s last few years and seeing friends pass away. Fourth speaker and fellow guest Cheong Min shared with us her story about working at Starbucks and how she had learned a lot of things about coffee and customer service. 

Here is our third volunteer and guest,  Daniel. 

And here is guest Cheong Min speaking about her amazing experience at Starbucks! 

Lastly, we had our senior who has always been the backbone our club, TM Jack Ying, sharing with us the weirdest thing he has ever done, quite philosophically – scolding people on stage while people were still cheering for him. 

TM Jack Ying. (Love that stance, Jack!) 

Then we had really experienced Toastmaster, Eddie Lai, evaluating the Table Topics speeches. It was a really detailed and well-elaborated evaluation by Eddie. Thank you, Eddie.

TM and Table Topics evaluator, Eddie Lai.

After the break, it was poise TM Denise Th’ng’s turn to give her speech, “Better than Nothing”. She talked about going to the gym and working out. In her speech, she shared with everyone the purpose of working out. True, some of us are looking to improve our health, while some of us go for the emotional aspect of looking sexy or muscular! In order to make a change, you need to change your mindset – start small, which is better than nothing. Also, we loved how she incorporated some humor in her speech by complaining about our body part – the lower stomach: “Like, why are you even there! You are like a muffin from last year.” Great speech, Denise!

TM Denise delivering her speech. 

Our second speaker, TM James Kan, began with a really humorous opening. He talked about how he had his “first night”. Then, how he had “multiple nights” and how his “right hand” became his best friend! It was a series of jokes for dirty-minded individuals. He also shared his experience on online gaming where he defeated the online Filipino players. He then shared about asking a gamer girl whom he knew online to meet up with him. When they did meet up, he talked about how he had to drive her back and he drove really fast that he got the both of them into a car accident (oh dear!). She then left him, and he was left crying all alone in his car.

TM James Kan. 

Next, we had our very special guest, TM Thiiban, from Taylors Sri Hatamas Toastmasters Club teaching sales persons to make their sales, with his speech titled “Chase the Purchase”. He started off with an interesting act, writing a few words up on the board in capital - “DRAMA” and “CLOSE”. These would be acronyms to remember by while making sales. He shared how he sold 200 hoodies at his college in just 2 weeks. Here are some of his tips for aspiring sales persons/ marketers:

·       Only sell items that people need.

·       Engage in sales with them, and have an authentic conversation with your customer.

·       Let another person share your back-story with their friends or clients, as it will make you seem far more credible and believable.

·       Demonstrate your product whenever it is possible.

·       Hand out free gifts as it obeys the law of reciprocity; it makes customers feel obliged to give back.

·       Use arithmetic; show how the long-term benefit will be worth it for the cost.

·       Avoid words like “deal”, “buy”, and “purchase”. Instead, replace them with “own” as it sounds more positive and elicit positive emotions.

·       Sell benefits instead of features.

·       Assure your customer. For most people, the toughest problem is about parting with your money. You can confirm this by identifying with the customer, saying this: “I am an avid buyer myself, I do understand that, but the problem is money does reflect the quality.”

·       Question your customer with a series of “yes” question, which motivates the buyer to say, “Yes” to the purchase later on.

·       A way to deal with time lag is to give them an alternate choice. Such as, “why don't we meet next Tuesday, or Friday?” This way, they will have to engage with you and choose another time to meet up. (Essentially, they are still delaying the sales, but they have a timing for it)

·       Close the deal by allowing the customers to make small commitments which build them up to the purchase. “If you were to buy, what color do you think you would choose?” Also, share with them stories and testimonies from other customers.

Wow, we've sure learned plenty from TM Thiiban! 

We moved on to the evaluation session which was led by our general evaluator, TM Justin Ong. 

The first evaluation for the projected speeches was then done by our special guest again, TM Eddie Lai, who gave his humble feedback on our persuasive speaker TM Denise Th’ng’s speech. 

TM Bryan Wong’s turn to evaluate TM James’ speech came next. In his evaluation, he commented on how James Kan was absolutely entertaining with his catchy intro. 

Finally, TM Jack Ying evaluated TM Thiiban’s speech. In his evaluation, he applauded Thiiban for giving us a long and detailed sales pitch training. 

It was a joy listening to the evaluators’ comments and feedbacks, as well as them humbly and helpfully providing suggestions on rooms for improvement. Thank you, fellow evaluators! 

And of course, what is a meeting without an Awards Ceremony to reward our speakers for their tremendous courage, effort and passion to speak? 

For today’s Award Ceremony, the Best Table Topics speaker was awarded to TM Jack Ying, whilst TM Denise Th’ng won Best Speaker for the projected speeches. For the Best Evaluator award, it falls once again, to our dear TM Jack. He must be tired of winning! 

All handshakes ...

... and smiles! 

A job well done to our winners!

Today's meeting ended on a really positive note and vibe. We took away a lot of things to learn and experience to add to our already infinite amount of memories. 

We'd like to say a huge Thank You to everyone who was present today. 

And to our dear readers, 

thank you for reading! 

From the perspective of VPPR, Vincent Sar. Edited by Secretary, Woh Yi-Jia. Pictures by TM Edward Boey.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Today's guests and their respective clubs:

Eddie Lai

Air Products Toastmasters Club at Bangsar South Horizon Tower 2A (Opposite Menara TM)

2^nd Wednesday – 5:30 pm

4^th Wednesday – 11:30 am

Thiiban

Taylor’s Sri Hatamas Toastmasters Club at Taylor’s Sri Hatamas Campus

Every Thursday – 4:30 pm

Justin Ong

Tan Chong Segambut Toastmasters Club at Tan Chong Factory

2^nd Wednesday & 4^th Wednesday – 5 pm

MII Toastmasters Club at Jalan Semantan 1

2^nd Tuesday and 4^th Tuesday – 7 pm