150th Regular Meeting

Theme: Dream
Toastmaster of the Evening: Tok Lee Choo
General Evaluator: Mike Cheang, CC (Area Governor, C1)

Best Table Topic Speaker: Ken (Guest)
Best Prepared Speech Speaker: David Siew, CC
Best Evalutor: Janet Fernandez, ACB, CL

          Another record was achieved today at our 150th regular meeting with the high attendance by guests and members.

          The meeting started off with the gentle reminder on the club meeting regulations by ASA-2 Catherine Lim. The president shared his dream in toastmaster in the opening speech. The floor control was then taken over by the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), Tok Lee Choo, with the theme of “Dream”. She spoke on her dreams and efforts put in to materialize them. As a mandarin speaker, she has expanded her life horizon tonight by being the TME speaking English throughout the meeting in front of 16 members and 7 guests. She was doing well judging from her preparation and courage to lead the show. As ASA exco in the new term, again, she set a role model to the club members: Just Do it, a theme by Khor as TME at 139th Regular Meeting.

          In the invocation session, after the last meeting sharing of a story of geese by Khor, Amy Gan brought us the story of an Elephant tonight. We were inspired not to be limited and bounded by the hidden or unseen regularities while facing our life, like the giant elephants which were locked by the small chain since they were borne. The language evaluator, Francis Vasanthi introduced her word of today, “Disengage” which means free from something or someone.

          In the impromptu speech session, the table topic master, Competent Communicator Mei Lee led the audience with the table topics by browsing through a fashion magazine by the speakers. What a creative idea! We were entertained by Khor’s introduction on the famous “Char Seow Pao and Seow Yuk” (Roasted Pork), Michael’s urge to buy the Pasar Malam handbag when he talked on the topic of “Gucci”. We have also Francis and the guests, Alan and Ken talked on the jewelleries. From Francis, we knew some genuine jewellery cannot be displayed under the fluorescent light. You may end up with a scam if you were unaware of this when buying these jewelleries. Ken won the “Best Table Topic Speaker” with his fluent and natural delivery on the topic. The speakers’s performance was evaluated by the table topic evaluator Competent Communicator Inn Hoon who managed to give her entire constructive and encouraging feedback before the bell was rung. Kudos!

         After the light refreshment session with fried mee and fresh papaya, we continued with the prepared speech session by Bey, Michael Wong and David Siew. Bey was doing her speech assignment number two with the title of “The Power of Thinking Differently” by relating with two enlightening stories. One of them was the ice cream story which a lady comforted the kid who dropped the ice cream to step on it. Such an interesting thought! She was evaluated by another Competent Communicator Ivy Gam. Being the first time evaluator, her performance was fairly good with her sandwich evaluation techniques.

          In the advanced speech session, Michael Wong talked on the high crime rate in Malaysia. He distributed the graph where we could see clearly the rising crime rate since 1980s and led us back on some recent and remarkable crimes when he displayed the terrifying newspaper headlines in his speech. He even shared with us tactics to avoid from being the snatch theft victims while walking on the street. He achieved his speech objectives by effectively using at least one visual aid to enhance the audience’s understanding. We have been waiting for his prepared speech for a long time and today he didn’t disappoint us with his mighty comeback. We looked forward to hear from him. He was evaluated by Mike Cheang.

         It was later continued with a humorous speech from David Siew who was doing his second advanced speech manual “Leave them with A Smile”. The audience was amused by his stories on the “Tok, Tok, Tok” in the petrol station parking, ways to reduce the “Monday Blue” feeling and the bank officer who sat at the bank entrance. Janet Fernandez, the evaluator, suggested his speech would be more appropriate with the title of “Join them if you can’t beat them”. The laughter from the audience brought him the “Best Speaker” and his evaluator, Janet won the “Best Evaluator”.

        The third session was followed by the Evaluation session, taken control by Mike Cheang, Area Governor of C1. He was assisted by “Ah Counter” Charlie, “Timer” Amy Gan and “Grammarian” Francis Vasanthi. The new Executive Committee Installation was led by him as well afterwards.

        Area B Governor Joyce also joined us in the meeting. She shared her valuable points for improvement in the guests sharing session, especially in the speech evaluation. All the guests, Alan, Ken, Jack, Munis, Nicholas, Teck Chai and Wendy shared their views on tonight’s meeting before we finished at 9:50pm.