Our theme for the 249th meeting was Zombie, inspired by a particularly creative Table Topic put forth by Ryan Ting during our previous
meeting.
Meeting started slightly late, at 7.03pm. Even though we had
quite a number of guests visiting our
club that night, the meeting room was still visibly empty as many of our members as
well as the General Evaluator were still stuck in traffic due to heavy rain and
the commencement of World War Z at Federal Highway.
Sergeant-At-Arms, Siew Lai Yee, called the meeting to order
and told everyone to switch their phone
to silent mode, sit back, and enjoy the meeting.
Then came our most charming President ever, Shim Chee Loon.
Contrary to his usual Presidential speech, this time he kept his speech short
and sweet, and proceeded to ask guests and members to introduce themselves.
Second-timer Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), Christy Chang
took the stage. She shared with us her terrifying experience as a first-time
TME last meeting. After the previous
meeting, she felt she could have done a better job, so she quickly ran to our
VPE Timothy to book her role as a TME again for this meeting. Her tenacity in the
pursuit of improvement really inspired me.
Christy gave the audience a brief history of Toastmasters
International and followed this with a
very meaningful speech, a plea to us to not be a Zombie and settle for mediocrity, and that sometimes it pays to take
the path less traveled upon and just do something crazy. Kudos to our
VPE-cum-Creative Director for the meaningful theme of the evening, Zombies.
Because our Table Topic Master, Timothy Nakayama was still
caught in the rainstorm, we had to shuffle our agenda by having the prepared
speech session first.
Our first project speaker for the night was Sky Siew, a professional
financial planner by trade. He is always eager to impart his knowledge about
personal finance, planning for retirement and how to manage our debt. However,
for his CC#7: Research Your Topic project, his topic was “Global Warming”.
That’s something new. Yours truly was also Sky Siew’s evaluator. I told Sky
that I thought his speech was very well-researched
and well-organised. Our most charming President told me that he learned something
new from Sky’s speech and that he didn't know beef consumption was one of the
major causes of global warming.
Next up was one of
our Past President, Ang Chee Yong, ACB, ALB. He works at one of the fastest
growing financial planning firm in Malaysia. Working towards his ACS title, he
attempted an Advance Manual speech: The Effective Salesperson.
For this project speech, Chee Yong first did a role play with
our current President, Chee Loon where Chee Loon played a potential customer role and Chee Yong was supposed to sell him a book titled “Speak Like Obama”. In the
role play, the book was going for RM 129.90 and had Obama’s signature on it and Chee Yong
guaranteed that one could speak like
Obama if they purchased the book. Sounds like a good deal but I wondered how
much the book would cost if I didn't want Obama’s signature. Chee Yong even up-sold another book to Chee Loon, a book titled
“Just Get It Done” so that Chee Loon could avoid procrastinating.
Overall, the speech by Chee Yong, assisted by Chee Loon was
very entertaining and enlightening at the same time, teaching the audience some
effective sales techniques.
Next up should have been a speech by our VPE, Timothy Nakayama, but his
evaluator, Wong Woon Pen was still stuck on the Federal Highway so we proceeded with
Table Topics.
Our Table Topic Master for the evening was Timothy Nakayama,
our Creative Director who always comes up with very creative and interesting
Table Topics. In conjunction with our theme, Zombies, all the table topics are
related to the 7 Cardinal Sins – Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and
Pride. Speakers could choose one of the
seven sins, and then could decide whether they wanted to speak on a “Normal”
topic, which was your usual normal difficulty
sort of topic or a “Random” topic, if
they felt like having a go at a more creative
sort of topic.
First Table Topic speaker was first time guest Wan Pin, who
is now a member of Mid Valley Toastmasters Club! WELCOME!!!
Wan Pin chose Greed – Normal, and his topic was “Gambling
Destroys Life”. From his speech, we learned that Wan Pin is a good dancer as he
effortlessly cha-cha’ed throughout his speech. We also learned that he doesn't mind risking RM 50 to try out his luck at Uncle Lim’s place.
Our second Table Topic speaker was Ricky, another guest for the
evening. Ricky chose Pride (the biggest sin of them all) – Random. His topic
was “Pride Goes Before a Fall”
Ricky shared with us something from his own life story, on
how his father used to be so rich that they took a helicopter from Sg. Besi to
Genting, how his father then lost that wealth and eventually rebuilt both himself
and the family. Life lesson in 2 minutes – good job, Ricky!
Our third Table Topic speaker was our Past President, Ang
Chee Yong, who had earlier tried to sell our current President a book about how
to speak like Obama Chee Yong chose Wrath – Normal. His topic was “Your Anger”
For this topic, Chee Yong told us that he used to be
short-tempered and frequently raised his voice at others. His first job was as
a sales promoter, where he learned to speak like Obama and earned his pocket
money. His other endeavors, including being an insurance agent and raising a
family, have given him the training ground to become more patient and less likely
to get angry.
The fourth Table Topic speaker was May, also a guest. She chose Envy
– Normal and her topic was “Comparing Ourselves to Others”. She reminded us to
always focus on our own goals in life instead of trying to keep up with the
Joneses.
By this time, evaluator Wong Woon Pen had finally arrived so
we went back to our third project speaker, Timothy Nakayama, with his speech
titled “The Monster of Hakuba”. Tim told us the story of The Great Monster
Slayer of Hakuba, who encountered a “Mr. Pen”, during the Tokugawa era in 1600,
a man who was indeed mightier than the
sword. Fast forward to year 2012 , and he still bumped into the mighty Pen…
Evaluation Time!
Newly-minted Competent Communicator, Chong Carmen, as the
Table Topics evaluator.
Yours truly evaluated Sky Siew.
VPE, Timothy Nakayama evaluated Obama-like Ang Chee Yong.
And the mightier-than-sword Mr Wong Woon Pen evaluated
Timothy Nakayama.
Followed by Grammarian report by Ryan Ting, AH-Counter
report by Kow, Timer report by Lai Yee, and last but not least, General
Evaluator report by GE Jonathan Moh.
Next up was the award presentation session.
Best table topic speaker goes to…..Ricky!
Best Prepared Speech was awarded to……. Timothy Nakayama
(surprise!!)
And Best Evaluator goes to…..
past VPM, Wong Woon Pen!
Mid Valley Toastmasters Club is a very fun and happening
club. That’s the reason why we had announcement after announcement at the end
of the meeting.
First announcement:
It was from our Supporting Exco member, Ryan
Ting who encouraged and reminded everyone to sign up for the Slogan Contest.
Second announcement:
Mid Valley Toastmasters Club will be organising our
inaugural Tall Tales Contest with Ang Chee Yong as the Organising Chair for
this history-making event! The contest will be held in January 2015. For more
details please be in touch with Ang Chee Yong at angcy@vka.com.my
Third announcement:
On Mid Valley’s 250th meeting, which is our next
meeting on 8th December. Toastmaster Li Ping Woo will have a lot of
excitement in store for us. Stay tuned and attend our 250th meeting
to find out!
Fourth announcement
It was about our Christmas Party, which is
happening on 20th December 2014, in Puchong. For more information
please get in touch with Organising
Chair Christy Chang at christy_630@yahoo.com.
Terms and conditions apply.
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Mi Shan: I have always enjoyed spending my Monday evening at Mid Valley Toastmasters Club and hope everyone else does too. Our next meeting, a special one which is our 250th meeting, will be held on 8th December (Monday) at Level 5, Cititel Hotel, Mid Valley. Hope to see you there!~
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