It probably wouldn't come as a shock to you that a UK
research found that most sick leaves are taken on Mondays. As to why Monday is
a particularly moody day, well, it’s pretty obvious that we’d end up a bit down
when returning to work, especially after a fun and rested weekend.
Here’s a great way to minimize the ill effects of your Monday
Blues: have something to look forward to on Monday night!
For me, that means attending Mid Valley Toastmasters Club meetings!
This time around, it was our 252nd meeting, and also the
first meeting for 2015! The Meeting theme was “No Limits”, which was aptly chosen,
considering that the New Year had only just begun!
It was a fruitful meeting – in fact, the experience of being at
the meeting gave me a great shot of motivation as I managed to glean new
insight from the speeches of all the prepared project speakers. So powerful was
this motivation that I started picking up my routine jog, the one I had
abandoned for a while, the very next day. I’ll tell you why later in this post.
As usual, our club’s members and guests started arriving at
Cititel Mid Valley Level 5 by 6.00 pm, which is a great time to just mingle
around and get to know each other while enjoying some delectable fried rice and
fried noodles.
Our Sergeant-At-Arms for the night, Ivy Liew, got the ball
rolling by inviting all members and guests into the meeting room by 6.57 pm.
“Princey-dent” Shim Chee Loon
started off the first meeting of 2015 with a bang by delivering his
uproariously funny Presidential Speech. There were a total 25 attendees – 21 of
our own members plus 4 guests. After a round of self-introductions by all 25
attendees, the bubbliest girl I’ve ever met stepped on stage to take up the
role of Toastmaster of the Evening – she is none other than the one and only
Siew Lai Yee. She started off by introducing the history and origins of Toastmasters
International, using a presentation slide that was humorous and informational
at the same time – big kudos to her!
Lai Yee then moved on to introducing
all the role-players for the night. Our Vice-President of Membership, Wong Mi
Shan played the part of the Grammarian – it is because of her that I’ve dug a
little deeper into feminism. Jovial Becky took on the role of Ah-Counter, while
Yeap Wei Leeng, fresh from his “Far, Far Away” speech in the previous meeting,
returned with poise as the Timekeeper. This meeting might have been themed “No
Limits”, but our Timekeeper worked hard in ensuring that we kept time.
The General Evaluator of the
meeting was Chin Yeow Honn, one of our club’s favourite regulars – and this
time, in preparation for Chinese New Year, he came with a big jar of almond
cookies to share with everyone. A small gesture on his part, but one that went
a long, long way.
The ambiance of the meeting
became even more electrifying when resident cute-guy and club Sergeant-At-Arms
Chong Chee Siong took the stage as Table Topic Master. Chee Siong is a shrewd
guy when it comes to humor – he also knows how to uplift you in just the right
way, the cute-guy way.
The first speaker who bravely
volunteered is none other than the youngest member of our club, Ryan Ting.
Heart-throb wannabe Ryan returned from his hiatus – it was a one-meeting hiatus
but we still missed him like crazy anyways! The second speaker who attempted to
speak extemporaneously was none other than Timothy Nagapapa, the fellow who got
me thinking that perhaps he is a Pablo Picasso with words. Third and fourth
Table Topic speakers of the night were the handsome guests – Dylan and Kenneth.
At the end of the meeting, the Best Table Topic Speaker award went to ol’ Timmy -
.The night then reached that most electrifying of moments, when
suspense met anticipation – welcome to the Prepared Speech Session, where we
were greeted to speeches by novices and fully-fledged speakers alike.
The first to kick-off our journey of speeches was the biblical Eve
Chong, who delivered her Ice-Breaker speech, titled “Up and Down”. She shared
the “ups and downs” of her life, sending home the point that without
experiencing the “down” parts of your life, you’ll not appreciate the awesome
feeling you get when you enjoy the “Top of the world” feeling when you reach
the “ups”. Eve also shared a Chinese idiom – Failure is the mother of Success.
Eve gave many examples of the “ups and downs” in her life, from her teenage and
young adult life, to her job as a dealer-representative of RHB investment bank,
where she experienced the Up-and-Down Rollercoaster on a daily basis every time
she checked the stock market index and investor sentiment. Eve did a fantastic
job and won the Best Prepared Speech award of the night.
The
second speaker of the night was the ever-calm, ever-poised Kow Chee Khon. He
delivered his CC#2, titled “Live A Better Life with Butt”. Chee Khon started by
first asking us what the exact purpose of our butts was, thus eliciting a great
amount of curiosity among the audience. The correct answer (according to Chee
Khon) is: running. He went on to advice that the audience could stop the abuse
of butts everywhere by taking up running. Chee Khon also gave the two biggest excuses
for people skipping exercising: (First) too busy, (Second) too stressed! He
then pointed to the fact that even US President Barrack Obama runs for 45
minutes each day – and who’s going to be more busy and stressful than the
President of the United States of America? Thanks to Chee Khon, I got my ass
back into running the very next day!
The third speaker for the night was
Christy Chang. Her voice rang loud and clear as she delivered her CC#7,
speaking on the phenomenon known as “Couchsurfing”. Christy hooked those
members of the audience who were still in the dark about couchsurfing by promising
that this was a way they could get free accommodation while travelling! To be
frank, I had no idea what couchsurfing was until Christy enlightened me with
her speech; I like the idea – it’s like the key objective of this global initiative
is to bring together like-minded travelers who want to travel in a more
authentic and less tourist-y way, in order to promote authentic and sincere
cultural exchange. Thanks, Christy! I’ll definitely be trying out couchsurfing
in the near future.
Fourth speaker of the night had the
experience and expertise of being a brand expert, which naturally accounted for
his being smartly dressed, with a full-on suit and tie, standing tall and
straight, and articulating ideas with clarity and insight – all hail the great
Ian Lai, who delivered his CC#9 speech “It’s Never Too Late”. Ian hooked us
good by sharing an interesting bit of fact – 90% of people will forget their
New Year’s resolution within just 3 days’ time. The core message of Ian’s
speech centred around the importance of punctuality; he reminded us all that we
often have a tendency to be late in achieving our own resolutions. He went on
to share a useful way for the audience to bring back lost time, to think on our
feet about who we are to our closest ones, to our career and our friends – to
write it all down on a note and stick it firmly on the mirror, a perpetual
reminder that resolutions need to be achieved in a timely manner!
After all the insightful information and
knowledge from all the speakers, we went straight into Cheerful Mode, as we
tend to do at Mid Valley TMC – Ta-da, we got to enjoy a delectable Secret
Recipe cake, served every second meeting of the month. And we had approximately
10 minutes to enjoy that and take a bathroom break.
When time finally caught on to
us again, we were in the Evaluation session, where experienced and seasoned
speakers gave their valuable feedback on the speakers they’d be assigned to.
Ang Chee Yong evaluated all the Table Topic speakers. Chong Carmen leapt onto
the stage as Eve Chong’s evaluator. Wong Woon Pen gave us his thoughts about
butt and Kow Chee Khon’s speech, Timothy Nakayama surfed with Christy Chang on
her couchsurfing speech, and Sharm Siva stepped in to do the honors for Ian Lai’s
lightning-fast inspirational speech.
All in all, I felt that I’d
gained a lot by attending this (and every one of our club’s) meeting. The
wonderful part about Toastmasters is not how great the speakers are (which they
are), or how tremendously insightful the speeches are (which again, they are),
but the group of people who come together and take the time to spend attending the
meeting and making it happen. We’re all here with the same goal: to improve our
public speaking skills, to advance in life by honing our leadership skills. In
Toastmasters, there has always been loads of encouragement – it’s a great
platform to learn public speaking. And you get to know more like-minded people
and make new acquaintances and friends!
Although I’ve only just
delivered my first project speech CC#1, I can already feel that I’ve got more
confidence when it comes to public speaking. I must say that I have the utmost
gratitude for whoever came out with so many great Toastmasters ideas, and also
to the Exco members of Mid Valley TMC, who have spend a lot of time and effort
to keep the club going strong. Last but not least, for those who have not yet
had the pleasure to visit a Toastmasters club, feel free to pay Mid Valley
Toastmasters Club a visit. Every minute you spent at the meeting will be worth
it. You have my word.
Adios!
