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.

 Tim introducing his dish.

Becky giving game instructions.

Little Ang’s show time.

 Chee Loon being humiliated by the crowd.

Jonathan Moh’s classic selfie.

 We are the fun loving Mid Valley Toastmaster Club members!

Meeting #250: Holly Jolly Christmas! (Written By Wan Pin, Siew; Edited by Timothy Nakayama)

By Wan Pin, Siew

The theme for the 250th Mid Valley Toastmasters Club meeting was “Holly Jolly Christmas” and would prove a most jubilant night for all who attended. In light of the fact that the club had reached its 250th meeting, a great milestone for any club, there were some tweaks here and there in respect to the meeting agenda – what better way to spice up a meeting than by adding some twists and turns to the normal proceedings? 

Firstly, all participants were encouraged to dress according to the “Holly Jolly Christmas” dress code – gold, black and green! Most complied.  

Secondly, while we have always begun the meeting with the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME) introducing guests and new members alike to the wonders of Toastmasters International , things went a little different this time. The TME, Woo Li Ping, delivered the introduction in quiz-form, where she would quiz the members and guests alike on Toastmasters International’s history. If you failed to get the answer right, you would be sent up the stage to do a bit of a dance, to a Christmas song no less! Li Ping gleefully went about picking on the “unfortunate victims” for her quiz, but alas, most of the members and guests alike were well-versed in Toastmasters history – so, I have to say, that I, as the writer of this post, was pretty disappointed with that!  Oh, and well, yeah, just an FYI – I failed to answer one of Li Ping’s questions, so I had to dance in front of everyone. Haha. Go ahead. Laugh. 

Even the Table Topics session enjoyed a revamp. Instead of providing a topic for the courageous volunteer to speak extemporaneously on, the whole session took the form of a chain story, whereby the very first speaker begun telling the first part of the story, in any way he/she likes, and then the next speaker has to continue on with the story, and then you keep on passing the story on to the next and next speaker until one speaker concludes the story. So it’s like a giant make-your-story-up-as-you-go-along game plan, with each speaker getting an entire minute to stamp his or her creativity upon the story. 

As the Table Topic Master, Chong Carmen got things going by hand-picking our President Shim as the first speaker – and he was given the very first two words to begin the telling of the story: “Christmas Gift”.  

Let’s just say that the story became OMG Crazy after that. I can’t remember much of this rather hilariously-told story, but the basic premise is: 
A young man wanted to present a Christmas gift (perfume!) to his girlfriend, in her house. However, he got knocked out by his girlfriend’s father (ouch!) and, after regaining consciousness, police barged into the house and then subsequently chased the young man out. As the plot thickens, our unlikely hero bumps into his ex-girlfriend on the streets, and attempts to court her, despite knowing full-well that he already has a girlfriend. 
What happened next? Well, like I said, I can’t quite remember! My excuse? Too absorbed in the story itself that I forgot to take down any notes! 

The night continued and we reached the Prepared Speeches session. 3 speakers were delivering their speeches that night.  

Becky Benjamin spoke on “Stress”, whereby she defined stress and then spoke on how we could manage it. If you’re the type who has a lot of stress but were not present at our 250th meeting, I would suggest you contact Becky in order to learn how to manage stress!  

The second speech of the night was “Hair Care”, by Ivy Liew. To be honest, I wasn’t aware that there were 8 types of hair-care products that we could make use of in our everyday lives. Well, that was a very informative session from Ivy. Kudos to her! 

And lastly, we had “The Story of an Ethiopian Girl” by Mi Shan. The speech was a story, about the life of an Ethiopian girl who suffered from fistula. Although I’m not a lady, but I believe that living in a less-developed country, where  52% of the women give birth without a trained maternal health professional present, can be an extremely difficult situation for any woman.  I think we should cherish the fact that we live in a decent developing country , where we have up-to-date medical technology and where most people can afford the treatment required to cure similar afflictions.  

During the refreshment break, we celebrated the 250th meeting by consuming a very yummy raspberry cheese-cake (no eggs).  

(From Left to Right: Best Table Topic Speaker [Timothy]; Best Prepared Speech Speaker [Mi Shan]; Best Evaluator [Carmen])

It was a great night, to be honest, especially the Table Topic session and Introductory Quiz. All of the role players did a very good job in making this an awesomely spectacular meeting. If you are reading this but are not yet a Toastmaster, come JOIN US NOW! Not later, but now! You don’t even need to think about it – just come! I guarantee, that once you come, you will be thinking why you never made time to discover the goodness that is Toastmasters much earlier! 

Say Cheese session: 

Happy 250th Meeting for Mid Valley Toastmasters Club!

Meeting #249: Zombies (Written by Mi Shan, Wong; Edited by Timothy Nakayama)

By Wong Mi Shan

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 250^th meeting, which is our next meeting on 8^th December. Toastmaster Li Ping Woo will have a lot of excitement in store for us. Stay tuned and attend our 250^th meeting to find out!

Fourth announcement 

It was about our Christmas Party, which is happening on 20^th 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.
________________________________________________________________________________

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 250^th meeting, will be held on 8^th December (Monday) at Level 5, Cititel Hotel, Mid Valley. Hope to see you there!~