Feb 10, 2010

After a long, really long break, we resumed our meeting.

As usual, most of the arrangements were done by the president, Sunday. Hats of to him. I also wonder why our club meeting have become one man show!

This time, we had new guest, a speaker who I respect, Mr Dunstan Chan. And of course, Mr Leslie Chai, our ever willing Area governor. A good support. Unfortunately internal support is diminishing. Sad. Well...I better reserve my comments.

The audience turn out was also relatively low. Reasons? No need, I think. Why doesn't matter.

We were three speakers, including me. Sunday's speech was on Red Bull, the drink. It was rather technical. He is one of the few students' who speak excellent English.

Habibat spoke on Positive thinking. Indeed, it was positive, completely calm and confident. She needs to work on expression more.

Last was mine. Mine was on Motivational speech entitled Life is beautiful. Visit my blog for the details of my speech.

At the end, it was a good feeling to attend meetings such as this. It refreshes the mind in many ways.

I wish to this club achieving its goals....at least for the work and commitment of the present ex-cos..

Speech Evaluators..(Mr Leslie Chai, Mr Dunstan Chan and Darren Sim)

Break..

Our club is taking a short break due to exams. We will resume our meetings as usual with new theme next week.

We will keep you posted.

Taking a break sometimes helps us. Short break. Short break makes you miss something that you love doing. And you are always wanting to come back to it. But, if you are into long break, I am sorry you may loose the momentum. And momentum helps us to maintain the spirit and keeps us going.

So, don't chill too much.

See you all soon, of course, I miss speaking and our meetings.

Good luck to your exams. :)

Toastmasters Meeting at INTI ... A new leaf...

Last evening, indeed, was a new beginning for Students Toastmasters club.

Sunday, Usman and Sadiq came out with a good idea of having the meeting in an open space for public view. It worked very well. Good response from students.

The highlights of the events,  are few things:
1. The venue - its our Debate place. Since Debate is been off for a while, it seemed a strategic place to get students attention. The purpose was met.
2. Guests - New faces have a high say. Our guests created a good impact and added value to the meeting.
3. Table Topics  - Very realistic. Topics varied from Culture, Discipline, Smoking, Goals and Flexibility.
4. Table topic speakers- Interesting. People have different perspective of life, totally.

• Discipline - Ika was the first one to speak - I am sure She would have thought I was the one who mentioned her name. But No Ika. She said that she did not follow discipline and she defined the term discipline(very debate, I know you can't get away with it). But the speech was good. She said that different people follow different level of Discipline. One area to improve- a lot of ah..mm..ah..gap fillers...(why don't you join toastmasters?)
• Culture - Sobere( Am I saying it correctly? ) said Culture is the most important trait one must have than money and ???? ( are you sure?) Fluent speech. Right mixture of delivery, volume, body language. Just nice. 
• Goals- one of the girls was suggested to speak but she declined out of fear. (You should join!) But another girl volunteered. It was a good speech- having short term and long term goal.
• Flexibility - Mohd said that being flexible makes one surviver. He was slightly nervous. He said he is joining. 
• Smoking - Our Mo. Easy style. There is no difference between smoking a cigar and smoking some leaves.(????) He defended that a smoker shouldn't be called a fool but his action of smoking.(Verbatim - a smoker is not a fool but the act of smoking itself is foolishness.Wow! - any smokers, don't be angry with Mo, its just a speech.) Natural speaker. 
• The weather was stuffy and hot. Suddenly I saw Jeromy brining fans and I was wondering many things in my mind. But the moment I saw Mr Tan, I knew it was him who arranged for fans. (Thank you Mr Tan!) 
• Mr Tan was satisfied with the effort. He is helping us in establishing the club. 
• Yusuf - English is a crazy language- it was entertaining. Why do we say a hot cup of coffee..shouldn''t it be a cup of hot coffee? Fun. 

Did I miss anything? Overall there was a positive vibes. The effort paid off. The Trio needs a good round of(Yusuf's style) applause.

Keep up the good job! Let us do something new in the next meeting.

I can't forget the days that I had struggled with every single thing for this club.(Dr Julie, Mr Alex, and very very few of my friends know)  Perhaps, it needed its own time?!

Our (Usman, Steven and I) speeches at Azam.....

Azam Toastmasters Club is my favorite club in Kuching. I have  been missing the club meetings at Azam for sometime.

This morning I received a call from one of the Azam members, a respectful lady who I admire, for her courage, confidence and straight to the point- directness. I like her speech evaluation. Very analytical, she wouldn't care to roast you in front of a group of people. She said she missed me. (sounds nice) And I myself felt that I should get out to get fresh air. So I went. I wasn't intending to do any speech or any role, it was just a sudden plan.

When  I entered, Usman, our MBA student was giving his speech. I observed that Usman has improved overall, in specific, in his delivery. Delivery in a speech includes- volume, pitch, intonation and modulation. There is a significant improvement in him. Good job! Keep it up. He was speaking on Changes, I guess(i was late). At the end of the speech, he called for an action from every individual. Thats a nice way of ending the speech.

After his speech was the break followed by table topic session. Sue was the table topic master, so I expected a nice session. It was, at the end.

Steven was given a topic on Solar Eclipse. He has a unique way of approaching table topics. He could be so imaginary beyond anyone's expectation. He started the story  with Sun, moon and ended up  with moon cake festival. It was really entertaining. The  purpose of table topic is to make people to speak something and if possible to make people laugh. And he did both.

Next was mine. Who is the light in my life? I took few seconds to figure out. My  mind was working on two things:1. Trying to figure out who is the light and trying to wake up from the evening nap. (golden rule: don't take a nap before any meeting for that matter- Zombie-dangerous) I managed.

Who is the light in  my life? I can't pinpoint one or two who could possibly be the lights in my life.  My dad -mom, obviously. Also, some of my friends. They left an unforgettable mark in my life. There are traces of them in me. I am glad and I am fortunate to have some very very good, genuine friends in life. At every stage, I met one or two. And they mean a lot to me.

My lights? They - Plural.

Communication is .... Blog for INTI College Sarawak Students Toastmasters Club

Hi there,

Here you go!  Finally there is a blog exclusively for you.

Toastmasters is all about communication - saying the right things at the right time and at the right context -a truth which needs to be highlighted. Effective communication leads to - Leadership. A Leader is the one, who co ordinates, pulls everyone together in spite of differences( mind you, every individual is different) who acts as a facilitator in a group or team.  To do so, a leader needs the so called, critical skill - Listening.  And we want some action in response to our speech which is entirely based on listening.

So, enhance your communication skills and its 360 dimension. Good Luck! See you all later with more postings...