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!