Mid Valley Toastmasters Club: A Usual Weekend with the Unusual Group – Mid Valley Toastmasters Club’s Christmas Party 2014 (Written By President Chee Loon, Shim; Edited by Timothy Nakayama)

I mean it - the unusual group, further clarification will be provided as you continue reading. Last Saturday (20/12/14), it was my pleasure to join Mid Valley Toastmasters Club’s (MV TMC) Christmas party, organized by the Secretary of MV TMC – Christy Chang.

The unusual attendees of the party were as below:

1. Wong Mi Shan

2. Timothy Nakayama

3.      Christy Chang
4.      Shim Chee Loon
5.      Cheky Ng
6.      Vivien Lim
7.      Chong Carmen
8.      Becky
9.      Sam (Becky’s friend, just friend)
10. Wan Pin
11. Wayne Poon
12. Ang Chee Yong
13. Mrs. Ang (Ang Chee Yong’s wife)
14. Little Ang (Ang Chee Yong’s daughter)
15. Ryan Ting
16. Jonathan Moh
17. Eve
18. Daniel Lim

*For illustrative purposes only

We started the party at around 7.30 pm and kicked-off the Christmas celebrations with a wonderful food & drinks extravaganza!

·         Carmen’s Spanish fruit platter
·         Jonathan’s healthy homemade ice cream (no preservatives)
·         Tim & Mi Shan’s mushroom, feta & leek tart + pumpkin & potato gratin (full of love)
·         Christy’s Nando’s flame-grilled PERi-PERi chicken (bought under the rain – full of affection and some sweat)
·         Wan Pin’s KFC chicken bucket & potato wedges (all the way from Seputeh)
·         Ang Family’s home-cooked fried mee hoon (cater for vegetarian as well) + pandan cake
·         Cheky & Vivien’s priceless cake (three days booking required)
·         Chee Loon’s special cocktails (group contribution from Daniel, Eve, Wayne & Ryan as well)

We were excited about the food and almost finished every single piece of it, simply because we were unusually hungry and the food was yummy too. The variety and portion of food were just nice, not too much yet sufficient. Credit goes to the F & B Manager – Timothy Nakayama.

We then proceeded to the unusual Table Topics session conducted by Wong Mi Shan. Why do I say unusual? The Table Topics Master decided to do it differently by allowing all of us (a total of 16, excluding Little Ang and the Table Topics Master herself) the opportunity to participate! And all the Table Topics were unusually CHALLENGING! Just to name a few:

My first time.
Tell us one secret about yourself that no one knows about.
Tell us an instance when you embarrassed yourself.
Are you generous or cheap with yourself?
Tell us how and where you meet your current significant other.

The questions were indeedchallenging. Our shining speaker,also known as the most dramatic queen, Chong Carmen, was stunned for seconds when she was given one of the questions above. At the end of the session, the Table Topic Master was forced by the crowd (a total of 17 participations) to do Table Topics, with the question being posed by the crowd. That ended our Table Topics session! We follow the motto of – ‘what stays there ends there’, an agreement we have made with Ryan Ting before he delivered his Table Topic.

The party continued with some fun games. There were two parts. Part One was led by Becky, a game called Truth or Dare, which everyone was already familiar with. As usual, ‘expected’ questions were being asked to whom the spinning bottle pointed to. The climax of the game was – the provocative & sensuous pole/pillar-dance performed by Jonathan Moh It was way better than all the shows located along the Walking Street, Pattaya.

Part Two was then led by Chong Carmen. We were separated into two groups. The game was about singing and numbering; the losing group would have to perform whatever the winning group requests. Toastmasters are always creative; we had dance, role-play and scene act. We burst out laughing during the role-play where Becky played the part of a casualty in a car accident and Wayne being the kind-hearted pedestrian, stopped and offered help. Suddenly, Sam, Becky’s acting husband, saw the moment where Wayne was performing CPR. He was pissed off and they started to… (Ask the blog writer for the rest of the story)

The event continued with the Best Dressed & the Lousiest Dressed.The dress code of the day was White, Silver and Gold. Everyone was given a minute to show the crowd whether they fulfilled the dress-code requirements. And then we voted! . The Best Dressed went to Chee Loon (male representative) and Christy Chang (female representative) while the Lousiest Dressed went to, none other than Jonathan Moh. The Organizing Chair, Christy, decided to reinforce punishment to the Lousiest Dressed. Poor Jonathan was asked to take 4 cutest selfies.

The night ended with cake-cutting. Little Ang, assisted by Ang Chee Yong and Mrs. Ang, chaired the session. We then did some housekeeping in order to ensure that the venue was neat and clean; credit goes to Chong Chee Siong who willingly and selflessly lent us the use of this great venue.

I enjoyed myself, indeed. I see teamwork, joy and friendship. Sometimes, we just need to pull off the usual mask at the right time, act freely and be the unusual you.