Sunday 25th July, 2009 Cheshire Home , Johor Bahru
Johor Bahru Toastmasters Club had 8 participants at the Training Workshop, including the Division Governor, ACS, Cindy Wong, of course!
The workshop was conducted by the veteran in Toastmasters, ACS Mohd Awee. I benefitted from his generous sharing on the subject.
Our Club members, Praba delivered his “Attitude, Attitude, and Attitude!”…Andrew Tan, spoke on very comfortably with his Visual (the Golf gears); good messages were delivered: have good attitude and lifelong learning whether on golf or Toastmasters!
Kudos to Jey Shin who did his first Evaluation report with smooth delivery and confidence; I welcome him to our Club evaluation team ya!!!
It was a spectacular 2nd Chapter Meeting. The theme for the night was 'Speakathon Night'. As the theme implies, the event was focused on prepared speeches whereby for the first time, we had a total of 5 speakers! In order for this to happen, the table topics session was temporarily plucked out to make room for all the prepared speakers.
The meeting kicked off with an induction ceremony conducted by ACB Adilin Ariffin. We were extremely overjoyed to welcome our newest member, TM Oo Moo Tan. Everyone was initiated to stand up to recite the Toastmaster's promise right after the recital of the pledge by the new member. Following that was a very inspiring speech delivered by our very own club president 2009/10, CC J. Kannan.
Toastmaster of the Evening, Eugene Paw did a splendid job of grabbing the audience’s attention with his great sense of humour. The flow of the meeting went perfectly well with the help of dedicated appointment holders.
As mentioned before, there were 5 prepared speakers whom of which are TM Rus Maryani, TM Derek Goh, TM Prabakaran, TM Carmelita and ACB Jay. Although there were no table topics, it was worth it because the prepared speakers spoke magnificently well and managed to amuse the audience with their interesting speeches.
The word of the day was 'Splendid' and it was used for a staggering 12 times throughout the event and was considered a major achievement as mentioned by ET Lee during his General Evaluation of the meeting.
It was a special chapter meeting this time around because we had not one, but two best prepared speakers: TM Rus Maryani and ACB Jay. The best evaluator went to TM Andrew Tan for a thorough and meaningful evaluation. Congratulations to all of them.
Overall, I really enjoyed our chapter meeting and am anticipating for the next session.
An amazing evening it was, the Joint Installation 2009 of 8 clubs held in Austin Hills, Johor Bahru on the 11 July 2009. CC Evelyn Nabila and CC Nash Bhullar the lively and good looking hosts of the evening graciously welcomed the crowd of toastmasters and guests and got the ball rolling. The theme of the evening was ‘Unleashing the Speaker in You’ . Then it was time for the highlight of the evening! FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD! While enjoying the wide range of food, we were entertained by three cultural performances. The first performance, swift, smooth and fluid motions of Taichi. Then the delicate and beautiful Malay dance, Zapin, and ended with a fierce explosion of colours and energy with the Indian dance Barathanatyam.
Michael Chu, CC the Organising Chairman of the Joint Installation delivered his short yet solid opening speech which was followed by ATMB John Foo’s earnest toast presentation.
Then came the purpose of the whole evening, the installation ceremony. First the Sergeant at Arms of all eight clubs were installed, they came up on stage in a row, perfectly coordinated, gavel in hand, after passing on the gavel left the stage, next came the Treasurers for the term, already waiting in a neat line behind the SAA’s, as they stepped forward, the row of Secretaries took their place, this was followed by the Vice president of public Relations, Vice President of Membership, Vice President of Education and last but not least, the Presidents for the term 2009-2010. The Presidents of each club, gavel in hand took their oaths full of spirit and sincerity.
As expected Champion Speaker K Loghadran, DTM , world award winner in Public Speaking was the guest speaker for the evening. He took the stage by storm. In the literal sense, he was welcomed with a thunderous applause. His speech was not only motivational and inspirational but full of humour, he thought us a new Malay proverb “kalau cuba, cacing pun boleh jadi naga” ( meaning a worm can become a dragon, if one tries hard enough). Sharing with us his experiences and the power of believing in ones self, injecting humour in saying that “to be standing where he is, he had made more mistakes than any of us”. I have to tell u, hearing that made me feel a whole lot better, lifting a whole load of me. (………mind wondering to all the embarrassing moments in my life)
Mariana Pascal, CC , District table topics champion 2008, who carried out the table topics session for the evening had us hooked with her hilarious sketch and acting skills, she charmed us all. A member from each club took part in the table topics session, walking towards the stage bravely, full of poise and confidence, not giving a hint of edginess, and into the lions den! Our very own ATMB John Foo, like every other time, made our club proud. He WON the best table topics award, talking about his lucky charm, his wife. (awwwwww…. isn’t that sweet !)
After the presenting the guest speaker with a token of appreciation and acknowledging all the appointment holders for the evening, weeks of planning and preparation was over before we could fully digest its awesomeness. Text by Sankaree Venugopal Photo and Video by E T Lee ( edited from original video from TM Abdul Rajak)
The new term started with a big turn out at the 1st chapter meeting.
It was an extraordinary evening; the meeting room was packed. Guests were practically ‘flowing’ in! Tm Andrew, Shegar CC and Michael Chu CC were kept busy arranging for more chairs. These are auspicious signs that we have grown from " Let's Grow" to the more action packed year of " We can do it!".
TM Andrew started the meeting with the Humor session. May be members had somehow got use to his jokes,there was a bit of struggle to make the audience laugh.
The brand new President presented his inaugural speech. He introduced the new EXCO members to the audience. He said he will lead the Club into another excellent year by having ‘changes’ and reaffirmed the Theme of the new term “We Can Do It”! He said there is no need to always subscribe to the saying " IT WAS ALWAYS DONE THIS WAY". He clearly demonstrated his style of Leadership!
TM Nadirah, despite being a new member to the Club, was able to discharge her duties as the Toastmaster of the Evening. Kudos to the Toastmaster Spirits in you.
This evening, we had 4 Prepared Speeches;
TM Abiramy did her Ice Breaker,
TM Jey Shin did his Project 3,
TM Andrew was doing his project 7 "Research Your Topic". The title of his speech was “Why children told lies” .
TM Ahmad of Malacca Toastmasters Club presented project 8 with the speech entitled “The Man with the Dream”.
TM Jey Shin was selected as the best Speaker for the evening. Don't "play play" with these young Toastmasters!
As usual. our Evaluators were supportive and gave positive feedbacks to the speakers! ATMB John Foo was selected as the best evaluater. DTM E T Lee said : " it is a challenge to speak at the same meeting with John Foo".
TM Saravanan, first timer as Language Evaluator, with his imposing physique convinced us to respect the English language.
A few Guests showed interest to join the Club. Vice president of membership.....you have work to do!
The Johor Bahru Toastmasters club meets every 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month . Fellowship 6.30pm. Meeting starts at 7.oopm. Attendence by invitation only. Email any of the Exco members to get invited to our club meetings.
This blog was created by DTM E T Lee when he was the Vice President of Public Relations for the term 2009/2010. He can be contacted at jbetlee @gmail.com
Text and Photo by Michael Chu, CC
