Friday, November 13, 2015

Meeting#265: Merdeka (Written by Quah SJ, Edited by Mak Kum Shi)

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

Hari Merdeka (Independence Day), celebrated on the 31st of August, is a national holiday for Malaysia, which commemorates the independence of the Federation of Malaya from British colonial rule in 1957. In conjunction with this celebration, the Mid Valley Toastmasters Club (MVTC) held its 4th meeting for the 2015/2016 term (24th August 2015), with ‘Merdeka’ as the meeting’s theme.
40 persons had attended this meeting, out of which 15 were guests. Our guests consisted of Toastmasters’ members from Germany, Russia, and other clubs, as well as many new visitors who are professional in various fields. Mr Wong Woon Pen (ACB, CL), our youngest member in MVTC, volunteered to be General Evaluator of the meeting.
Before the official start of the meeting at 7.00pm, our honoured guests were welcomed and served with refreshments by the club’s committee members. Like a gracious host at a wedding dinner, MVTC Sergeant-At-Arms (SAA) Victor had invited our guests to the function before the start of the meeting.

The meeting began with a welcoming speech from MVTC president Carmen Chong (CC, CL). The speech was followed by the ‘Getting to Know You’ session. Guests were invited to introduce themselves and express their reasons of why they were proud to be Malaysian. They are proud because of the nice Malaysian food, friendly Malaysian people, proficiency in speaking different languages, more public holidays as a multi-cultural nation, and peaceful country for living with minimal natural disaster.

Subsequently, Toastmaster of the Evening (TME) Kow Chee Khon shared a brief history of Toastmasters International with the audience. Dressed in white formal shirt with lattice design, Kow delivered his speech with his unique deep base voice.

Table-topic master of the day Ivan Guan presented a few table topics to the audience. He encouraged members of the audience to participate in the table topic session. Four gentlemen and one lady, namely Suren, Ang Chee Yong, Chee Siong, Adrain, and Susan, came forward and confidently presented their impromptu speeches. The session concluded within 10 minutes.


The project speech session began after the conclusion of the table topic session. A total of five project speeches were presented.

The first was ‘The Ice Breaker’ speech that was presented by Lawrence Khoo, with the title ‘Peaks & Valleys’. He shared his personal life experiences, allowing MVTC members to get to know him.
As per MVTC’s culture for first-time speakers, to commemorate his presentation of his maiden speech, the audience gave him a standing ovation to encourage him on his public-speaking journey.
Daniel Lim, delivered his third competent communicator speech with the title of ‘Golden Buddha’. He shared with us the story of the Golden Buddha and encouraged audience to take action to achieve what they pursued.

Our Senior Member Ang Chee Yong (ACS, ALB) delivered his first Advanced Communicator Gold speech with the title of ‘Why now?’ He shared with us that people often regret not doing things they wanted to earlier and urged us start now, especially our retirement plan!

This was followed by Shim Chee Loon, our charming former president of MVTC, who delivered his first Advance Communicator Bronze speech, with the title ‘Koogle Open House’.

Lastly, Carmen Chong delivered her Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB) special project speech with title ‘Meeting Roles & Responsibilities’. She shared with us the meeting role-players work as a team to drive a successful toastmaster meeting. She quoted from American Industrialist Henry Ford, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”


After the prepared speeches session had concluded, a recess of ten minutes was held. Sponsored by IGB Group, local food and drinks that were prepared by Cititel Hotel were served to members and guests at the function room lounge. Guests and members conversed with each other during the recess.

The speech evaluation session was held after the recess. This session has significance to members and guests, as audience members can learn from effective evaluation presentations, while evaluators are able to sharpen their listening and impromptu speaking skills. Speakers benefit from effective evaluations from evaluators who provide feedback and offer suggestions for improvement. 

The evaluators for the various speakers were as follows: Ahmaned Fawzy evaluated the table topic speakers, Siew Lai Yee evaluated Lawrence Khoo, Christy Chang evaluated Daniel Lim, Sim Bock San (from IEM TMC) evaluated Ang Chee Yong, and Jack Ying (from Help Uni TMC) evaluated Shim Chee Loon.



Immediately after the evaluation session, our role players of the day had presented their technical reports. For this meeting, Mr Wong Woon Pen volunteered to be our general evaluator. He is our ‘youngest and talented leader’ in MVTC. During the GE session, he further elaborated the key point on restrictions (more is less, less is more) for deliver a good presentation.

Also, he shared that he is enjoy joining MVTC, a young dynamic and energetic club. Even the humorous speech contest organised only allowed ten speaker participants easier fill up within 24 hours, this show how proactive the club members are, which keep him feel younger.

Other role players who presented their reports included William Cheong (grammarian), Hamza (time-keeper), Wong Woon Pen (general evaluator), and Phang Chen De (ah-counter).


Finally, the meeting came to a very exciting climax. The Toastmaster of the Evening led the awards announcement session. The best table topic speaker and project speech presenter of the evening were Chong Chee Siong and Sim Chee Loon respectively. This was followed by the best evaluator of
the evening Sim Bock San. The winners and the general evaluator were presented certificates of achievements as recognition from Mid Valley Toastmasters Club.

As the meeting was concluding, members received positive feedback from guests about the club meeting. Some guests had shown their interest in public speaking and were keen to join our club.





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