Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Our Mc Dees Venue











We had a rather interesting meeting at Mc Donalds, Bangsar yesterday. I think our GE, Hadzrin was the earliest to arrive. Anyway our meeting began later than expected because of a few reasons. One of which being that we hadn't looked into the fact that it would be jammed on that day. The second was that neither Poh Leong nor I who had gone on an earlier recce of the premises was there beforehand to direct and to organise the seating arrangement as we had planned. For this I apologise. But thanks to Hadzrin, Rae, his lovely wife and other helpful early bird toastmasters, this was promptly taken care of. (unfortunetely Mrs Hong Meng Rae didn't stay long enough to be thanked for her efforts. Rae, please don't keep her a secret and do convey our gratitude.)

The jams, a usual occurrence during the berbuka puasa period witnessed almost everyone rushing somewhere to berbuka puasa with their loved ones. Mid Valley toastmasters too knew who their loved ones were, and accordingly spent the berbuka puasa moment with them. The love we shared amongst ourselves spread quickly and the rest of the meeting went on rather smoothly.
I don't know if everbody felt this way but pictures they say speak a thousand words. These are posted, so you be the judge.

Hadzrin, if you are reading this, thank you for the great GE-ing and for your patience.
And to Misal our TME again I say, a job well done.


cheers,
gerard

Monday, August 24, 2009

Area W3 Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest 2009










Area W3 Humorous Speech and Speech Evaluation Contest was successfully organised at 5th Floor, Cititel Hotel, Mid Valley on Tuesday, 18 August 2009.

The contest began at 7.30pm with Mohd Hazrin Shah, ACB, CL as the Contest Chair for Humorous Speech. We had our good laughs with 5 contestants:
1. Chan Chee Hong
2. Moi Kok Lum, Jason
3. Tah Poh Leong
4. Poh Ban Chung
5. Lee Su Jane

Gerald Wee is our Evaluation Contest Chair. The test speaker for the evening was Sam Thong with his Speech title; "How to Operate a SLR Camera". The contestants who evaluated Sam are:
1. Tah Poh Leong
2. Ernest Wong
3. Christine Ong
4. Jacylyn Wee
5. Moi Kok Lum, Jason

The results for the Speech Evaluation Contest are as followed:
1. Champion: Christine Ong
2. 1st-Runner Up: Jason Moi
3. 2nd-Runner Up: Ernest Wong

The results for the Humorous Speech Contest are as followed:
1. Champion: Poh Ban Chung
2. 1st-Runner Up: Jason Moi
3. 2nd-Runner Up: Chan Chee Hong

Congratulations to our winners as they made us proud tonight and the champion will be contesting in Division W Contest. Details are as followed;

Date/Day: 12th September 2009/Saturday
Venue: WISMA WIM, TTDI
Time: 1.30pm till further notice
Fee: RM15 (before 24th August) and RM20 (after 24th August) ; Lunch is included

Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest 2009 / 2010

Have you ever listened to a speech which was so dull that you were trying your best to stay awake? If you were falling asleep while listening to the speech, obviously the speaker had failed to capture your attention. Surely, you do not want to let your audience fall asleep if you were the speaker. Adding humor to your speech is one of the ways to captivate your audience (and keep them awake through out your speech).

Toastmasters Club provides you with the platform to learn how you can add humor to your speech. By participating in Toastmasters-organized humorous speech contest, you have the chance to practise incorporating humor into your speech. As the old saying goes, “Practise makes perfect”.

On 27th July 2009, Mid Valley Toastmasters Club held its Humorous Speech Contest 2009 / 2010. The contest started off well with the first participant, Leung Wan Choong, talking about how he grew up as a blur boy (and still blur until today). The laughter-filled speech was continued with the next participant, Su Jane, who spoke about marriage (and how marriage could potentially be a mousetrap). She spoke about how strange it is that the singles want to get married, and yet the married ones want to be single again. As the audience slowly contemplated that she might not be happily married, she clarified that she is actually happily married and happy with her life now. The next contestant, Poh Leong, spoke about his 2 younger brothers. He told stories about how one of them was so young that he was at times mistaken as Poh Leong’s son, and how the other one was so blur, which gave rise to a few embarrassing moments to his dad.

The Humorous Speech Contest was won by Poh Leong, with Su Jane as the 1st runner-up.

The humor-filled night was then proceeded with Evaluation Contest 2009 / 2010. As has been repeatedly mentioned in Toastmasters meetings, “Feedback is the breakfast of Champions”. For one to improve to be a champion, one has to constantly seek feedback to one’s performance, and improve from thereon. Through the Evaluation Contest, you can learn how you can provide encouraging and value adding feedback for a speaker to improve to become a champion.

The test speaker, Fariq from Help Toastmasters Club, presented his speech on the importance of history. He began his speech by introducing the term history as “his-story”, and went on to talk about the history of how the Portuguese conquered Malacca, before ending with explaining why learning history was so important.

He was evaluated by 5 participants of the Evaluation Contest. The participants were Leung Wan Choong, Poh Leong, Su Jane, Christine Ong and Gerard Peter. The evaluator who gave the most encouraging and detailed evaluation was Christine Ong, who was subsequently crowned as the champion of the Evaluation Contest. Poh Leong was the 1st runner-up and Gerard Peter was the 2nd runner-up.

The night was great, with good food and well organized programme line-up. Thanks to Chia Hur (who played both the roles of Organizing Chair and Contest Chair) and Su Jane (who helped Chia Hur in the background and arranged for the elegant trophies). Special thanks as well to the judges, test speaker, role players and guests.

by Tan Poh Leong, VPE Mid Valley Toastmasters Club