Anchorvale TMC 91st Chapter Meeting on 9th July 2016

A new term, a new beginning but many new unknowns…

That had been the ethos for preceding weeks before our 91^st Chapter meeting. With a dearth of project speeches and appointment holders, a few questions lingered ominously over us. “Will we be able to still hold our next meeting? Will we have a good turnout?” 

Did we know if our meeting could still proceed? Probably not. 

But that did not deter us from taking the chance, planning ahead and hoping for the best!

That was my message in my first opening address as President and as it turned out, our fears were completely unfounded as our 91^st Chapter meeting fired off for an amazing ride, filled with brilliant speakers, new and old and many fresh new guests and friends!

Our designated captain, Toastmasters-of-the-Day Thomas Lee, CC wasted no time energizing the crowd with his quick witted commentaries and hilarious opening lines. Despite the initial hiccup in the venue, he kept a firm grip on the helm and guided our ship past any rough maelstroms. Supported by the wonderful Debbie from MDIS Toastmasters, first-time Ah Counter Choon Lian and the profoundly-meticulous Hareesh, CC as LE, our voyage ..ahem.. meeting was off to a great and exciting start!

 

For the prepared speeches, Prasad took to the stage first in his Project 1 Ice-Breaking speech about his three greatest ‘Gifts’ in life. Having helped with his preparation, I was really heartened to see Prasad confidently narrate his life story without any notes or pauses. 

This was followed by a very insightful Advanced Project 2 –Resources for Entertainment by Benjamin, CC who spoke about not judging people by their appearances, reinforcing the time-tested rule that one should never judge a book by its cover. 

Next came big, bad Alice CC (Advanced Project 1 – The Folk Tale), who gave us a chilling retelling of the classic ‘Three Little Pigs’. After that speech, I promised never to look at cheeseburgers the same way again. 

Lastly, our newly minted Dad Senthil shared with us how to Master the Art of Parenting as part of his Project 8 – Getting Comfortable with Visual Aids. A very informative speech! (Note to self: to re-visit again for future use)

After a short break, we resumed with our Project Evaluations, helmed by Owen, our two awesome guest evaluators Rachie Lanked CC and Mike Woon, DTM/ALS and yours truly. Each evaluator had his own distinctive style, some opting to use emojis while others relied on hilarious yet useful lines. I myself chose to evaluate Alice from the perspective of a police inspector and it was truly a great experience watching all these great evaluators.

Just like how the Titanic had a thrilling climax, our Chapter meeting had a thrilling table topics, conducted by our very own Leonardo DiCaprio, Benjamin with his gravity-defying hair and fake microphone props. 

With his crowd-sourced topics (Note: everyone agreed that it was a resourceful and time-saving move), Benjamin hauled 7 speakers onstage, namely Choon Lian, Huan Ling, Jack, Yuan Yuan, Kuan How, Adil, Renji. With a vast range of questions such as “How old is Benjamin” to “What would you do during the Standard Chartered robbery”, each of them gave hilarious and wacky answers that attest to their creativity and quick thinking.

After that, we had a spritely Ah-counter report from Choon Lian and a very detailed language evaluation by Hareesh, who had been keenly taking notes. He also elaborated on the correct use of grammar, vocabulary and rhetorical devices. Great analysis Hareesh! It was a great journey and we’ve finally arrived at our eventual destination, the end of the meeting. 

If today’s meeting was any indication of the coming term, it is that our upcoming year is definitely going to be really interesting! If you wish to experience more, do join us for our next meeting on 23rd July 2016 at Anchorvale CC, 3rd Floor Conference Room (Falcon) from 2pm to 5.30pm. 

It’ll be our Humourous and Evaluation contest, where the best and the brightest of Anchorvale will clash to vie for Toastmasters glory! Its really an event not to be missed. Stay tuned!

Again, congratulations to all the Award winners!

Best Speaker: Benjamin

Best Evaluator: Norman "d'Chairman"

Best Table Topics: Kuan How

Written By: Norman Tan

Anchorvale's Annual General Meeting & EXCO Installation of Toastmasters Mightiest Heroes!

I remember my first day visiting Anchorvale Toastmasters – unprepared, uncertain and unsure, I listened to the brilliant speeches prepared by the members then and thought to myself: “Today, I shall just sit in silence and watch in awe”. Boy, was I wrong – a few minutes later, during my first Table Topics session, Jenny, one of our Club Mentors, urged me to step up and try my hand at doing a speech. With the strong support from the audience, I took that step up and started my Toastmasters journey.

Anchorvale Toastmasters is all about stepping up – with or without support from the audience; it is about snatching the mantle when the odds are against us or grabbing at the opportunities presented to us with gusto and pride. On 25 June 2016, another group of Anchorvale Toastmasters members showed us what it means to step up.

On 25 June 2016, Anchorvale Toastmasters gathered together for the final meeting of the term for 2015-16 and celebrate the conclusion of yet another fun and eventful term. For the special occasion, we decided to go with a refreshing programme for the Meeting – moving away from the usual Chapter Meeting format and adding three vibrant segments for the day’s session.

The meeting started out with a members-only Annual General Meeting with the goal of updating the Club members on the events of the term that went by as well as the developments and future events to look forward to.

With the ‘serious’, heavy stuff out of the way, we adjourned to enjoy the wonderful set prepared for lunch – tasty, filling vegetarian pasta from our very own VPE – Salma Begum, ACB, CL, succulent delights from Old Chang Kee and of course, an impeccably-designed cake as dessert for everyone! (truly an unfortunate day to be fasting for me!).

 

yummm

Of course, before the new, incoming President delivers his Opening Address, I took the opportunity to thank our members, and particularly, the EXCO of 2015/16 for their brilliant work throughout the term and for being role models themselves in stepping up – with a special surprise in store for everyone present during the meeting! (You had to be there to know what it was!). At Anchorvale Toastmasters, we are also always on the look-out for members who deserve our recognition for their contributions to the Club. This year, instead of 1 Toastmaster of the Year – we recognised 6 different Members for their unique contributions to the Club:

·         Totally-Transformed Toastmasters – Sridhar

·         Creative Czar – Alvin

·         Pro-Active Prince – Sridhar

·         Out-standingly Out-Going – Chee Sian

·         Table Topics Titan – Benjamin

·         Master Mentee – Sindu

·         EXCO’s Pet – Alice

Sridhar & Zul

Alvin & Zul

Benjamin & Zul

Chee Sian & Zul

Sindu & Zul

Congratulations again to all the Anchorvale Awards winners!

The honour roll continued as well as we had our past-Division ‘A’ Director and also a dear friend of Anchorvale Toastmasters, Carolyn Street-Johns. DTM to install our incoming EXCO for the term 2016-17. Each out-going EXCO member was invited to share tips and advice for his/her successor for the up-coming term. The powerful Anchorvaler ‘Avengers’ Team consists of:

•      President – Norman ‘Iron Man’ Tan

•      VPE 1 – Salma ‘Loud Mouth’ Begum

•      VPE 2 – Wee Chee Sian (the Ladies’ Man)

•      VPM – Sridhar ‘Spiderman’ Maroju

•      VPPR – Owen ‘Not Wilson’ Lorena

•      SAA – Ram ‘the Newcomer’ Kumaresan

•      Secretary – Alice ‘In Wonderland’ Ow

•      Treasurer – Hemant ‘the He-Man’ Singhal

•      IPP – Zulhafni ‘ORD Loh’ Zulkeflee

2016-17 Toastmasters Mightiest Heroes

With various refreshing, new talents coming on board as part of the EXCO – the 2016/17 Term will definitely be an exciting one for the Club!

The day, however, was far from over – with the tight schedule we had in mind, we decided to have not one, but two impromptu speech games – our very own Anchorvale ‘Improv’ Afternoon! It was safe to say that everyone in the room had the opportunity to participate and take up the challenge of speaking on the fly.

The first game was the Situation Speaker where speakers had to deliver a special speech while acting out a weird quirk! The twist of this challenge was – the audience will have no idea what the weird quirk is and will be expected to guess from the speaker’s presentation. With topics such as the new Singapore ‘Ghost-Busters’ team and quirks such as a speaker who simply enjoys inviting volunteers up for his/her speeches – each challenger stepped forward with great trepidation but eventually delivered their speeches with doubtless confidence – kudos to everyone who stepped up for the challenge!

The second game was a team-based improve game – Scenes From a Bag where teams of three speakers took turns to continue and complete a one-liner story and deliver their secret dialogue. The twist (there is always a twist) is that the speaker delivering the secret dialogue will not know the line that he/she has to say! Hilarity of course ensued as a grim kidnapping session suddenly turned into a romantic quest to find Salma Begum’s boyfriend – a gripping story from the start to the end as each team went out of their way to bring the story to even greater heights.

In yet another Anchorvale ‘twist’, the winner was decided based on the speaker/team with the loudest cheers and the audience certainly did not hold back with the support – it was near impossible deciding the winner of the games but finally a consensus was reached. Congratulations to the ribbon-winners for the afternoon:

·         Situation Speaker – Benjamin

·         Scenes From a Bag – Salma, Carolyn, Jenny, Sathiya

As the meeting drew to a close, our incoming, dashing and young Club President, Norman Tan, CC stepped forward to deliver his first Opening Address – ensuring that the meeting ended on an inspirational and motivational note. Norman shared his goals of 3 ‘M’s with us and his direction for the Club.

With that, another wonderful meeting concluded on a high and contented note. On a personal note, I would like to offer my thanks and appreciation again for everyone who has contributed to the ease of my journey as Club President – while the journey was not always smooth-sailing, the value I received from seeing our Members shine and grow at Anchorvale Toastmasters contributed to the very rewards of the role itself. I would also like to take the opportunity to welcome the incoming EXCO – you have all taken up a challenge that will give you the best challenges and yet, the best rewards; know that at the end of the day, if no one had stepped up, if every single one of you decided to take the easy way out and remain sitting, this Club would not go on. And the only reason why Anchorvale Toastmasters continue to grow and move forward is because of the passion, enthusiasm and talent of every single one of you – so keep stepping up!

Published by the versatile: Zulhafni Zulkeflee