2018 Christmas Special Chapter meeting!!!!

Just as you thought Christmas Chapter meetings tend to have the lowest attendance, Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club defied all expectations to conduct one of our most successful Chapter Meetings in 2018! With a special Christmas buffet feast, Christmas Lucky Draw and the attendance of past Club Presidents all the way from 2013 to 2017, guests and members alike were treated to a grand party of friendship and celebration that is likely to be remembered for time to come!

Past Club President 2014-2015 Sathya kicked off the meeting with a thoughtful question to all on how we would like to give back during the year-end festivities. Interesting food for thought, especially given how easily we tend to forget that Christmas is also the season for giving.

This broke the ice between members (*the room was really cold inside) and Chief Elf aka Toastmaster of the Day, Norman next introduced Club President Chee Sian, who literally took up the role of Santa Clause to give out not ONE, but THREE books on public speaking by Dale Carnegie to Club members! Looking forward to your book reviews soon guys :D

Appreciation can make a day and it can even change a life, but today it can be used as the Word of the Day as our Language Evaluator John Tan encouraged us all to embrace and appreciate the people all around us. I myself, appreciated the Christmas buffet lunch very much.

On that note, food seems to be a rather pertinent topic for today as even Jerry Lim, ACB, ALB shared his exploits of cooking for his Advanced Project 5 ‘The Motivational Speech’. The other project speeches covered a plethora of topics, ranging from managing employee expectations (Andy, TM – Pathways Level 1 P2), riding the wave of emotions from happy (Rama, TM – Pathways Level 2, P5) to sadness and regret (Raymond, VC5, EC5 – Pathways Level 1, P2). We also covered inspirational life stories (Jeff, TM – Pathways Level 2 P5) and even had time for a mock interview session with IT Pang and his family (In Tiam, CC – Advanced Project 2 The Interview Show)

After voting, it was time to dive back into our favourite – FOOD. As guests enjoyed the refreshment break, it was also an opportune time to celebrate my (ahem!) our members’ birthdays for December. Special shoutout to the CC Managers, BiÉn and Gabriel who took time off their busy schedules to join us for the celebration.

CC and RC Managers, Gabriel and Bi En with our Club’s birthday boy and girl, Norman and Zhaomin

 After binge-eating, we settled nicely into a food coma and enjoyed the project evaluations that ensued. Jenny, our club mentor delivered a positive and encouraging evaluation for Jerry while Pallavi performed a detailed, surgical analysis of what worked or did not work for Andy. Mithun and Annabelle both delivered concise and insightful evaluations for their respective speakers while Roger gave a tour de force of his evaluation prowess that left us in awe.

Salma took to the stage next and brought an uplifting change in her turn as table topics master. Literally, the topic would change as speakers were on stage, meaning they had to be even more quick-footed to connect their story to the image flashed on screen. Kudos to the brave souls who persevered undeterred!

 Salma introduced a unique set of Christmas themed Table Topics

 Next up was Zulhafni, severely underutilised in his role as Ah-Counter today but he delivered by gaving an in-depth analysis of everyone’s speech patterns and use of pause fillers. If only we had the chance to hear him speak in another role, LE next time perhaps?

Speaking of LE, John Tan was back to show his appreciation to speakers who used the Word of the Day. He also pointed our several ‘’Wow’’ words, good use of the English language and gently encouraged us all to improve. Spoken like a true English teacher.

Finally before the meeting came to a close, Chee Sian in his closing address delivered what everyone was waiting for – the Lucky Draw prizes! Congrats again to the 8 lucky winners of our Christmas giveaway, sponsored none other than our beloved club mentor, Jenny!

What a memorable meeting it was indeed!

 Best Speaker: Raymond Zhong, VC5, EC5

Best Evaluator: Roger Yap, CC, CL

Best Table Topics: Yu Kang (Jeff’s son)

Best Speaker award goes to Raymond Zhong, VC5, EC5

Best Evaluator award goes to Roger Yap, CC, CL

Best Table Topics award goes to Yu Kang (Jeff’s son)

Written by: Norman Tan, ACB, CL

131st Chapter Meeting Recap

Valliappan Selvamani, Sergeant-At-Arms and Toastmaster of the Day, began the 131st Chapter Meeting by asking each one of us about the goal we had set for 2018, how successful we were in accomplishing it, as well as about the goal for year 2019. Year 2018 has been a terrible year for me, and I had not set any goal for myself. I have been attending lectures and seminars by academic professors. I found their talks dry and sleepy, therefore I have set my goal in improving my public speaking skill. I am doing historical research in my free time; therefore, I am sharing my research findings in my speeches in Toastmaster meetings. By taking feedback from my fellow toastmasters, I plan to make my speeches more lively and energetic.

The next session was “Prepared Speeches Session”. The first prepared speech was delivered by Anthony Lin, and the purpose was how to raise our financial awareness on current financial scams. He began his speech by sharing his own “scam” experience. We have learnt much financial terms from his speech.

Next Speaker, Sarah Ong’s speech was all about importance of sleep, and the key take away was we should sleep at least 7-9 hours per day. Rama Krishna delivered a message showcasing importance of communication.

Third speaker, Rusman spoke about qualities of a good leader as it happened so did our fifth speaker Jeff. I picked up some important leadership skills from bth of their speeches.

Being the fourth speaker, I shared many of my memorable experience during my primary school which was the Griffiths Primary School. Helena’s prepared speech was about the horrible effects of diabetes, the pictures in her PowerPoint slides further emphasized her message.

After the refreshment, our distinguished guests from Choa Chu Kang Toastmasters Club, George Chew, Lee Chin Teck, Aaron Ting, as well as our members, Nareesh BN,  Muthu Ganesh, Wee Chee Sian, last but not least, Jenny Au gave constructive and wonderful suggestions to all our speakers.

As Table Topics Master, Narayana Rao picked a number topics regarding “Singapore”, many participants came forward to speak and overall enthusiasm added colour and delight to the session.

Special thanks to Audrey Lim to her timer’s report, Muthu Ganesh’s Language Evaluator’s report, Freeya’s An Counter’s report, and Chee Sian’s thank you note and Award Presentation. Best speaker ribbon was handed over to Rusman, Best Evaluator Ribbon was handed over to Aaron and the best Table topic speaker award was received by George Chew.

I had a wonderful afternoon with Anchorvale Toastmaster’s Chapter Meeting, wherein I learnt a lot of tips and skills on public speaking and leadership, which are useful and precious to me. I am looking forward to the next Christmas Special Chapter Meeting on 8th December.

-Written by Lucas Lui

(More of my speeches could be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/luikinfai84/detail/recent-activity/posts/ )

130th Chapter Meeting Recap

"Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work”

- Vince Lombardi

Kanagavelu Ganesan, Sergeant-At-Arms of the evening, began the 130^th Chapter Meeting by asking everyone how we contribute to saving the environment. While most shared that they use recycled bags while grocery shopping, bring our own bottles, cups etc., there was one unique response that intrigued me. Lucas shared that he would clean and collate Styrofoam boxes after using them, and eventually send them to one of the recycling companies in Hong Kong to do the job. And I thought the extent to which Lucas has gone to, deserves praise and commendation, and will encourage more people to contribute in saving the environment.

Next on the list, we have the Language Evaluator, Zulhafni Zulkeflee, introducing the word of the day ‘obfuscate’. Then, we went on to the five prepared speeches by Andy Ang, Wee Chee Sian, Rama Krishna, Helena Lim and Robert Chen respectively. Andy shared with us the magical recipe (healthy real food) of losing weight. Chee Sian took us back in time and told about history of his hometown. Rama Krishna spoke about how he started reading novels and how that became one of his favorite hobby now. Helena shared about different types of Diabetes. Robert, guest from NUSS Toastmasters Club, tried to sell a toaster! It was a wonderful presentation on sales technique.  

After short refreshment break (Thanks to Jenny for Yummy corn and boiled potatoes!!), the evaluation session started with Jeff Lin, Zulhafni Zulkeflee, Valliappan Selvamani, Hu Richen and finally, Jenny Au. And If have successfully reached this point, and read my “detailed report on the evaluation session” I probably have fulfilled my goal of explaining the word of the day, ‘obfuscate’.

Yes, I meant to confuse the readers in my previous paragraph with the sole reason to explain ‘obfuscate’. The meaning of this word is to make something less clear and harder to understand, especially with an intention. By doing so, I hope readers are able to remember the meaning of this word through experiential learning. However, if you are not bewildered by the brief report in the third paragraph, please pardon me for my obfuscating attempt.

Nevertheless, let me take you through the snippets of last major segment of the Chapter Meeting the Table Topics. Lucas Lui, the Table Topic Master, introduced a refreshing theme on how we would react in the case of an (extreme) emergency. An example of a question is: “Given a situation where you are in the lift with two other passengers descending from the 40^th floor. Halfway through the journey, the lift plunges down in high speed, what will you do?” Even though the nature of these questions tends to instigate a type of answer, the questions still stimulate our brain to think of how we ought to respond in such absurd situations.

Certainly, the evening would not have been possible if not for the coordination and communication between the President, the Executive Committee and some committed members. For instance, the intended member who volunteered to be the Toastmaster of the Day fell sick the last minute and could not make it for the meeting. However, Muthu Ganesh immediately volunteered himself to take up this role at the eleventh hour and even did a great job in spicing up the session for the guests and members. 

All our chapter meetings make me feel:

Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes 
our Anchorvale Toastmasters Club Work.

-by Zhaomin Wang

My Experience being an Emcee! Thanks to TM!- by TM Dinesh

I joined the Anchorvale Toastmasters club with one objective in my mind

“To develop confidence good enough to be able to walk onto a stage anytime, and to be able to speak as well engross the crowd.”

I attended a few toastmaster’s meetings and presented few speeches, however I always wanted to try hosting the meeting or an event. I was always eager to take up the ‘Toastmaster of the day’ (TMOD) role, but before I could do that, a better opportunity shook my door.

One day our Club’s President Chee Sian during his opening address, announced that Sengkang West Zone L Resident Committee (RC) needs an Emcee for their Halloween event. I did not blink my eyes and raised my hands of the opportunity at hand.

It was as if half of the battle was won, however varied thoughts started running in my mind and I started having doubts and fear about my decision of agreeing to be the Emcee. The event date was 27^th October and President told me that RC would contact me. Few weeks passed by, however no one contacted me, so I thought I was out of the event. But to my surprise on 22^nd October, I got an email from Mr. Ivan telling that the event was on and I would be required to host the event.

I got only few days to prepare however, I told myself not to take that as an excuse to opt out. I called Chee Sian and asked him for few tips. He referred me to one of our Senior Members of the club Muthu Ganesh. I spoke with Muthu and he gave me some valuable tips. I prepared the script for the event and sent to RC for review.

I asked my son to accompany me for moral support during the event. I dressed up comfortably with an aim to be decently formal at the same time have a hint of party look. I reached the venue one hour early, had a good discussion with the organizer about the setup, games and overall timings for each event, which really helped me to be prepared. At sharp 6:30 PM, I took over the mic and started welcoming the guests. I welcomed the Guest of Honor (GOH) with gusto. I started quite well, voice was clear and I could see a good response from the audience and noticed that they were able to follow my instructions.

I felt that my involvement with the crowd was appreciable and I could manage the crowd well during the games. I felt my lessons from toastmasters coming alive at the event.

My son’s presence helped me a lot. He was encouraging me, helping me as and when needed and took pictures for me.

After the event I felt satisfied with my accomplishment, however there were few areas which I felt could have been better. I felt I could have rehearsed a bit more and I could have been more engaging by asking more questions and cracking more jokes.  I do realize that it was my first emceeing experience and I can use this experience and learnings from toastmasters to do even better next time.

All in all, it was a great experience, a baby step towards the big milestone of becoming a great speaker. I am thankful to our Anchorvale toastmasters club and RC for the wonderful opportunity and here is my small piece of advice for all the club members:

“Whenever you get an opportunity to implement and showcase lessons from toastmasters’ meetings, do grab the opportunity, it will indeed be a very enriching experience for sure!”

-TM Dinesh Aggrawal

129th Chapter Meeting - Sapid Spices for Your Speech With Visual Aids: Special Guest-Fernando Young

“Well-designed visuals do more than provide information; they bring order to the conversation.”

-       Dale Ludwig and Greg Owen-Boger

129^th Chapter meeting was all about visual aids. Mr. Fernando Young the prominent member of Toastmasters International District 80, who is also known to be highly humorous, apprised Anchorvale TM’s chapter meeting with a session on “Sapid Spices of Your Speech, with Visual Aids. “

The meeting started with Sergeant at Arms, Salma, posing a question to everyone “If you were to be a vegetable, which vegetable you would like to be, and why?” People came up with funny and informative answers. The President Chee Sian in his Address announced that our Club received the “Select Distinguished Club” title for the Term 2017-2018. The Ribbon was handed over to Immediate Past President, Salma. The Toastmaster of the Day, Valli, read out the Agenda for the session and handed over the session to the enthusiastic guest for the day Fernando.

Fernando through is colourful slides and colourful ideas took us through his fun session. He mainly focussed on how to make the right use of Power Point Slides and shared with us few Do’s and Don’ts. We understood, how videos, audios and gifs make our message more impactful. He not only gave us tips on power point slides, but also shared his real-life experiences and stories which made the session even more interesting. In between, he posed questions to audience and distributed chocolates for the correct answers. The 90 minutes session was a visual treat to everyone present.

After a short and delicious (special Red Bean Soup by Jenny!!) break, prepared speeches session began! The speakers had volunteered to do their projects using visual aid for this special meeting. For a change, this time prepared speeches brought us back, the memories of schools!! Yes! It was Lucas’s turn first and he talked about Samurais: William I, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Japanese Bakuhan Taisei. He shared about the battles fought by them and shared anecdotes about them. After the history class, came the maths teacher! Deepthi spoke about the Fibonacci series, its significance and its relation to God. It was all about numbers, multiplications and divisions. After that we got some dose of Biology! Helena talked about the most dreaded disease, Dementia. She shared with us causes of dementia and some precautions and remedies. It was indeed an informative speech.

The “Visual Aids” expert Fernando evaluated all the speakers and gave his valuable feedback. The speech evaluators Muthu, Zul and our guest DTM John Liew evaluated the speeches by highlighting good points and pointing out improvement areas. Debbie and Thomas were keeping check on time and “ah-counts” diligently throughout the session. The awards were handed over in the end. Best evaluator ribbon was received by Zul. All the speakers were given small gift of appreciation brought by Jenny. The special guest of the day, Fernando, was also given a token of gratitude by our club mentor Jenny.  Everyone gathered together to take a fun snap and then all departed to their home.

128th Chapter meeting Recap

128^th chapter meeting held on 14th of October, was an amalgamation of learning and relish.

The sergeant at arms Richen Hu asked everyone “Given a chance, what is it that you would like to relearn?” Some shared their aspirations of relearning mathematics and certain languages, while a few shared their desire to relearn dancing and singing. The podium was then handed over to Muthu Ganesh, the toastmaster for the day. He read out the meeting proceedings for the benefit of guests and new members. With his euphonic voice Muthu invited the President Chee Sian for his address. Soon after that, language evaluator shared the word of the day “ Scintillating “ (synonyms: sparkling, shining, bright, brilliant, gleaming, glittering, twinkling, coruscating, flashing, shimmering). The first speech in the prepared speech session was given by Zhaomin Wang wherein she talked about the meaning of her name. It was her icebreaker speech and she broke the ice with confidence. Next turn to break the ice was of the husband-wife duo, Clarie and Joseph. Both of them gave the introductory speech with zest and zeal. After three “project 1” speech, Lucas gave his Pathway level 1 project 3 speech. Next one in line, Audrey spoke about “cookies” (No, No, No not the tasty crispy cookies, but internet cookies). Satya in his speech spoke about reasons for High blood pressure and also demonstrated how to make a healthy avocado sandwich!! Rusman then came in to rescue all those members who were not clear about the pathways program. He spoke about how to use Pathways toastmaster website.

After a quick “yummy” break, evaluation session began. Evaluators Hemant, Jeff, Haresh, Andy, Frank and Zul appraised the speeches and highlighted some improvement points. The table topic speech session was conducted by Sajith, wherein he brought interesting and witty quotations as topics. Few guests and members participated in the session. Language evaluator, Deepthi, shared the “hits and misses” in the language usage done throughout the session by all speakers. Valliappan and Valliappan’s daughter Rathi were diligently keeping check on the “ah counts” and time, respectively. Jenny did the general evaluation of the session and shared her insights & suggestions. In the end, awards were handed over. The best speaker tag was received by Joseph, and the best evaluator and table topic speaker award was received by Zulhafni. Ribbons were also give to First time speakers and Guests. It was then time to say good bye, but before that a sweet snap was captured. 

It was indeed a scintillating session!

Recap: Inaugural Humorous Speech & Tall Tales Contests - 22 September 2018

There is a famous saying quoted by Will Rogers, American stage and motion picture actor,

"Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else." 

However, on 22nd September, every speech was funny and every speaker awakened the "hidden comedian" inside them. Last Saturday, members of Anchorvale toastmasters club witnessed the inaugural humorous speech and tall tale contest.

The ever bubbly and cheerful Salma was the contest chair. She started the session with great gusto. The contestants and appointment holders were briefed, and speaking order was decided.  As it happened, President Chee Sian got the lot to be the first speaker. He cracked clever puns on looking younger. Then came the 'first time participant of humorous speech contest' Anthony, he spoke about his experience being a 'weird kid'. Next speech was by Deepthi, she poked fun at "toastmasters" itself. Next speaker was Valliappan, he spoke about his funny hair therapy experience. Next speaker Thomas spoke about the F word (do not misunderstand!); he entered the stage holding an umbrella and holding everyone's attention! Last speaker Helena, spoke about her dog Simba and her funny experiences with him.

Audience indeed had a hearty laughing moments during the first session. Then came the time to fill in the tummies. Mouthwatering dishes were offered to everyone which also included refreshing shorba. September babies cut the birthday cakes and every sang birthday wishes for them.

It was then time for lies and unbelievable stories! Time for tall tale contest. First one to come and "lie" was Sathya, he spoke about how things went wrong when he send wrong messages to wrong people! Then came Chee Sian to speak about his "organic; out of scratch" burger!! Muthu spoke on length about the lucky doll and the shepherd Muthu Ganesh!! Zul came in and spoke about The great Egyptian, he himself. The last one to come and tell a tall tale was Francis. He shared how he lost his lush hair (breaking hearts of his girlfriend"S") and how he planned to grow back his hair (by winning them back!). All the speakers did a great job, they confused the audience! they met the objective!!

It was then the time for Awards!

Humorous Speech Contest

1st Position: Deepthi 

2nd Position : Valliappan

3rd Position: Thomas

Tall Tale Contest 

1st Position: Francis

2nd Position: Muthu

3rd Position: Chee Sian

Trophies were handed over to the winners by Club Mentor, Jenny. The appointment holders and the Judges were also given mementos. The organizing committee chair Richen and his team were praised for being a the backbone of the entire show. President Chee Sian in his closing address, marked the end of the session wherein,he presented vote of thanks to everyone who had a part in making the event a BIG SUCCESS!    

127th Chapter meeting Recap

The meeting kick started with the SAA Jeff Lin asking everyone about their views on global warming and recent calamities that had happened in Japan and Indonesia. Mixed opinions were shared and ideas/solutions were exchanged. The SAA then handed over the session to toastmaster of the day (TMOD) Sajith Kumar. TMOD welcomed Chee Sian for the presidential address. Chee Sian mentioned that “there is always a first time for anything” and encouraged all to participate in the upcoming humorous speech and tall tale contest. Soon after that language evaluator Jenny shared the ‘word of the day’ Magnanimous (meaning generous, charitable, benevolent, beneficent, open-handed).

In the prepared speeches session first speech was given by Dinesh; he spoke about Tiger Woods and his Life Journey. The second speaker was Sarah who spoke about her passion for running. The third speaker Francis spoke about, how our thinking directly impacts our action. 4^th speaker Rusman shared talked on the topic of stress management. The prepared speeches session was entertaining and informational.

Soon after that we had a small break in which everyone enjoyed the sumptuous food including pizzas and tasty lontong/sayor lodeh prepared by Jenny.

During the evaluation session evaluators gave assessment and valuable feedback to the speakers. First speech was evaluated by Lucas, second speech by Valli, third by Deepthi and fourth by Valliappan. For the table topic session Hemant brought very witty and thought-provoking topics e.g. “Who would you haunt when you are gone?”, “Who would you want to invite in next chapter meeting and how would you convince him/her to come?” and many more. Guests and members participated in the session enthusiastically. Language evaluation was then performed by Jenny and it was indeed one of the best evaluation which was beneficial for all the members.

In the end, awards were handed over. The best speaker ribbon was handed over to Francis for is wonderful speech on “Our Thoughts, Our Action” and the best evaluator as well as the best table topic speaker award was handed over to Valliappan. The meeting then concluded and everyone dispersed after taking few mirthful photos!!

Recap: 126th Chapter Meeting

Doesn’t 126 remind you of the delicious dim sum place from Geylang? Besides Geylang 126, I know I can always find good food and great company in Achorvale Toastmaster club. It is also a great place to learn public speaking, especially as we are growing together with a group of experienced, warm and supportive community. As a member, I truly feel fortunate to be part of this family, being able to grow and learn together amidst all the fun and laughter.

126^th chapter meeting, was started by SAA Sathiyamoorthi asking us a very practical question that we encounter in our everyday lives, “What do you do when you face setback?” There were many interesting answers from our club members and guests, some look past the negativity of the situation, some distract themselves by doing things that they enjoy, while others will keep encouraging themselves.

Today TMD is Jeff Lin, he has a very clear voice and a very calm energy which made him a very compose host. Following which, he introduced the club president Chee Sian for the opening address. President Chee Sian started with a very smooth transition by connecting back to the topic SAA Sathiyamoorthi mentioned on setbacks. He used the example of placing in Olympics swimming heats and mentioned that even if the current situation is not very hopeful, things may change for the better.

Followed by LE Muthurama introduced an interesting word of the day for all the prepared speakers, which is “Blind Spot.” A good example would be, “The speaker has a blind spot to the ethical issue.”

TMD Jeff Lin introduced Desmond Chong for the first prepared speech speaker, who was very confident and spoke about his experience in NPCC and concluded that he has gained more having gone through this experience.

The second prepared speech speaker Pratik Pandya spoke about the different experiences he has and concluded why we should break the ice before the ice melt because doing is better than regret. He was very comfortable sharing his anecdote and we enjoyed his speech.

The third prepared speech speaker Anthony Lin spoke about an experience from officer cadet school called the confidence jump and concluded that it is better to just take a small step forward rather than to worry about it.

The last prepared speech speaker Sajith Kumar Dara, shared on an interesting topic about tattoos.  He shared about the different tools and reasons why people would put a tattoo. We can see from his presentation that he is very experienced and was well prepared for this speech.

For the evaluation, we have Audrey Lim, Helena Lim, Owen and Rusman Hadijanto. They were all very encouraging and gave very good advice to each speaker. It is not easy to be a good and encouraging evaluator, and they have shared their opinion objectively instead of being subjective. Some of their advice includes; to use good English, keep eye contact with everyone, and share 3 points or less.

It is time for tabletop master Thomas Lee and his favorite subject on quotes, and as usual, Hermant started the ball rolling. In fact, many guests and toastmaster participated that our tabletop master ran out of quotes. To me, this is a good problem to have. It was a great sharing of many motivational ideas from the quotes that Thomas has prepared.  

Ah, Counter Lucas was meticulous and did a fabulous job in ensuring that he has captured all the filler words for everyone who presented that day. Timekeeper Freya has also diligently timed and explained what was the required timing for the speakers.

LE Muthurama shared on his observation for the prepared speakers that day. Some of the points he mentioned were to use the same tense throughout the sentence, paragraph, and story. This is to ensure that the audience is able to follow the story. Another point he shared was to use triage so the ideas shared will stick with the audience.

GE Aaron Koh gave a very wholesome review. He shared his observation from the beginning when he entered the door until the moment he stands in front of the pulpit not forgetting our blog. As a guest, he noticed that the strength of Achorvale Toastmaster club is that we are very warm and welcoming like a family, and yet the quality of learning and education is as good as other toastmaster clubs if not better.

As usual, the day ended with our President Chee Sian giving out awards to speakers who have done their icebreaker speech, best-prepared speech, best evaluator, and best tabletop speech! Of course, we did not forget to take pictures before leaving, it was truly a beautiful day for all of us.

Thank you everyone, for making it possible.

-Penned by TM Anthony

124th Chapter Meeting Recap

In today's blog I would be sharing my thoughts on "TOASTMASTERS" and "ANCHORVALE CLUB".

We join toastmaster’s with purpose to become better communicators and leaders. Clubs, that are open and friendly, is best place to unravel your communication skills by delivering projects and getting evaluated. Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club is one such club. In today chapter meeting Jenny, our club mentor said "we do not have “agenda”, but a "program" at our chapter meeting. Our Club Mentor Jenny, is a person, you won't be able to miss, when you attend the meetings. She will walk up to you, with a genuine smile and gets you engaged. 

The club is a stepping stone for you, to make mistakes, try new communication styles and get valuable feedback, so that you go back wanting to improve and do a better job on your next speech. So folks, for a weekend that is entrusted with speeches prepared diligently, that provides opportunity to learn new thoughts and  to spend time in the company of friendly folks, Anchorvale is the place to be. 

The evaluators, specifically Narayana Rao, Liz Chua, Sathiya, Aaron and Zul, did an awesome job in evaluating the speeches. Key to evaluations is to encourage, share areas for improvement and validate an awesome effort taken by the speaker. We all learn from one another. So fret not and just prepare for the next chapter meeting in the company of good folks. 'Be audacious', (Audacious was the word of the day for the last chapter meeting.)

Today's meeting Highlights :-

Best Speaker : Ebnu

Best Evaluator : Zullhanfi

Best Table Topic Speaker:  Aaron Ting (CCK TMC)

-Penned By TM Ebnuarabi Etheris.

123 Chapter Meeting : 14th July 2018

It was a scintillating Saturday afternoon where the members of Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club headed to RC after a long time for our 123^rd Chapter Meeting. This meeting marked the beginning of another exhilarating year of freshly talented and enthusiastic team of EXCO of Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club.

 

Our SAA Audrey kick started the meeting with her icebreaker question: which the most memorable trip in your life was was ever and why did it turn out to be so. All our members shared their own experiences.

Our Toastmaster of the Day Valliappan with his very natural and smooth flow of delivery introduced all the appointment holders and highlighted the changes in the agenda. He then went on to invite Wee Chee Sian our vibrant and energetic new president to deliver his first opening address as President.

As soon as he was invited Chee Sian showed us a bag of clips which he collected from his HDB. I was wondering what he was waiting to tell us. He meant that all of us must create our own goals in our Toastmaster’s journey and work towards achieving it.

Then, Chee Sian came up with the idea of having Humorous Speech and Tall Tales contest within our club, as District is not going to have any contest in the first half of this year. All our members instantly approved his idea with a BIG YES!

Chee Sian further mentioned that this Tall Tales Contest was most popular in the U.S. As he read out the contest rules, it said the speech must be of a highly exaggerated, improbable nature and have a theme or a plot. Humor and props may be used to illustrate the speech.

Next, we began with the prepared speeches session. Our first speaker Lucas spoke about Archive. Dinesh Aggarwal shared a story of how three person who escaped from Andaman jail suffered and died from starvation. He further supported his speech with some statistics. In the end he concluded his speech with an alarming question where does the food that we all waste go into? He made a humble request to us not to waste any food. Rusman started his speech titled “Career Booster” with three questions back to back engaging the audience completely. He shared with us his own experience of waiting for his job for more than a year. We can imagine the amount of frustration he must have faced. Finally he concluded that his decision to join Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club was indeed a very good one for him. He persuaded each one of us to join Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club. Jeff Lin shared with us his learning about leadership. He shared with us three qualities a leader should have

·         Democratic

·         Supportive

·         Trust

Helena Lim started off her speech with a small song of how every move you make matters a lot. She further enacted the correct postures, gestures, body movements expressions and eye contact one must have in his/her speech in a vivid manner. Tan Wei Xiang a visitor from NTU Toastmasters Club represented himself as a student union member contesting for election. He explained to us what are the good deeds he would do if he is voted for and elected as a student union representative. Last, but definitely not the least, we have our winner of prepared speeches session Thomas Lee who likes to play with politics at home and at work place. He explained to us his traumatic experience between his wife and mom as to who will he save when they are swimming? His wife kept on bombarding him with questions giving situations and asking who he would save between the two.

 We moved on to the project evaluations which turned out to be a POWER PACKED ONE! Firstly Narayana evaluated Lucas, where  in he felt since it was an ice breaker speech it would have been better for the audience if Lucas introduced himself to all of us. Sathiamoorthy evaluated Dinesh’s speech. In his evaluation, he advised Dinesh that his opening could have been more catchy! Roger Yap, who emerged as the winner amongst evaluators evaluated Rusman’s speech. He advised Rusman to have more energy and power in his voice while giving his speech.

Raymond Zhang also a visiting TM from NTU Toastmaster’s Club evaluated Jeff’s speech. He suggested that Jeff could have demonstrated us to how a good leader shouldn’t be commanding his teammates to do work all the time. Instead he himself should support his team by extending a helping hand. Muthu Ganesh evaluated Helena’s speech whereby he advised her to have more open hand gestures, which tells the audience that she appears confident rather than limiting herself with limited hand gestures which may have a negative impact on audience. Chee Sian evaluated Wee Xiang, where in he put forth the point that he didn’t ask for vote from the audience.Benjamin Leow evaluated Thomas Lee.

Our Table Topics Master Rusman was kind enough to give us choices between a set of motivational quotes and funny quotes. It was surprising to see most of our speakers chose only motivational quotes. Benjamin Leow emerged to be the winner of Table Topics Session. His quote was “DREAM BIG! NEVER DARE TO FAIL!”. He asked the audience “Is there anyone who has never failed? Cannot be!” He said every failure is a stepping stone for success.

The session was a indeed a blend of fun and learning.

-penned by Valli Kasinathan, CC

AGM + EXCO Installation + Teambuilding Meeting

The scent of fresh rain in the air and the tranquil ambience at the Cherry loft resort, were perfect ingredient to set fire to yet another wonderful Chalet retreat of Anchorvale CC toastmasters club.

On 30^th of June, 18, exactly 8 years after the installation of the Club, the members of the club gathered together to witness the AGM and EXCO installation.

The fun session began with Annual general meeting in which our dearest President (Now Immediate Past President) gave a brief on the annual report and the financial status of the club. She further expressed some of her concerns and struggles for the upcoming executive committee and opened the forum for everyone to express their opinion. Members gave some feedback and solutions especially on the Pathway programs.

The annual general meeting was followed by new executive committee installation which was done by Division Director

Every officer took the gavel in their hands with great vigor and took the oath to serve the club with the best of their ability.

The new executive committee members:-

President - Chee Sian

VPE1 - Rusman

VPE2 - Valliappan

VPM1 - Narayana Rao

VPM2 - Audrey Lim

VPPR - Deepthi

Secretary - Mano

Treasurer - Alice Ow

SAA - Sajith Kumar

IPP - Salma

The new office bearers where handed over a beautiful lapel pin, leadership manual and also surprise gifts by Jenny.

Soon after the EXCO installation the members had a quick refreshment break and recharged themselves for the most awaited fun games.The first game was organized by Muthu. The game was called Bingo and the purpose of the game was to mingle with each other and get to know each member’s unique character. Valli was the winner for this segment.

Next game was organized by Jenny and it was as a “fruit hunt”. There were two teams: - MIT and Harvard. Each team had few “blind players”, few “guiding players”, a timer and a distracter. The game taught us the importance of giving correct direction and how to work together as a team. Both the teams got presents for taking part with good sportsman spirit. 

The next segment was all about unusual table topics and the again members were divided into two teams. One team was supposed to be pessimistic about the topic while the other team was supposed to speak optimistically about the topic. Members spoke with lot of gusto, especially everyone was awestruck to hear Jeff’s son speaking with lot of confidence and energy.

After this segment, Salma gave her signing off speech and thanked the Past EXCO for their commendable work. She handed over small token of appreciation to the team. Chee Sian handed over a beautiful token of thanks to Salma for being the “soul of the club” and for taking the club to great heights.

Finally it was time for grilling! Members headed towards the barbeque pit to fill their tummies and warm their hearts with yummy food. Few members with their art of barbecuing set the air with the incense of grill. Members enjoyed the delicious BBQ and felt rejuvenated with the delicacies and ambience of celebration.

The chalet retreat was indeed a nostalgic experience.

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