New
years are all about fresh starts and new beginnings, however it’s also a great
time to take stock of the year behind before looking ahead. Our
Sergeant-At-Arms, Narayana, kicked off the 1st chapter meeting of
the year by asking us to state our 2018 New Year’s Resolutions, whether we’ve
followed through with them, and our new New Year’s Resolutions for 2019.
While
many of our club members shared their wish to be more physically active and to
improve in their public speaking skills, some were understandably reluctant to
make new resolutions for this year given their struggles to stick with their
last year’s resolutions.
Nevertheless, with hard work and determination, I’m
sure we’ll follow through on all our resolutions this year! #famouslastwords
Instead
of some fancy speech telling us how great the New Year is and to make this our
best year yet, our Club President Chee Sian decided that actions speaks louder
than words—he used the President’s Opening Address to list down the many
exciting events open to members to partake in in the coming weeks! Some are
listed below (you may contact him for more details/to sign up if you’re
interested):
- Master-of-Ceremony position for Education Awards (19th/20th Jan)
- Toastmasters International Speech, Evaluation and Table Topics Contest (23rd Feb)
Next
came the prepared speeches. Hilda gave her icebreaker where she spoke fondly of
her encounter with a handsome blue-eyed Irish boy in Halong Bay, and how he gave
her an unexpected lesson on trying new things, even if it scares her. Zhaomin
regaled us with travelogues of her perilous trekking adventures in Nepal and
farm stay in New Zealand. She also urged us to be open to new experiences
instead of merely creating strict New Year Resolutions & plans. Andy (this
meeting’s Best Speaker!) shared about his unique AirBnB experience in Osaka
where he happened to stay, unknowingly, in the slums and red-light district of
Japan! O.o He lived to tell the tale, and convinced us to give both Japan and
AirBnB a try this year.
From
the Advanced Manuals, In Tiam let us in on Project Skyrocket. He gave us an
in-depth and very informative sharing on how to skyrocket to the top of our
field using Steve Job’s style of presentation and persuasion. Last but not
least, Chee Sian got us laughing with his topic on ‘Reputation Management’,
where he recounted how he kindly advised a schoolmate with the same name as him
to change his song choice for the school talentime, leading that schoolmate to
win runner-up in that contest and thus giving Chee Sians a good name in that
school.
After
the break, our experienced and competent evaluators Deepthi, Rama, Valliappan, Norman
and Salma (this meeting’s Best Evaluator!) gave the prepared speech speakers
(and the rest of us) many helpful and invaluable tips on how to better our
presentations. Their suggestions on how to improve speech content, speaking
style and presentation slides were both enlightening and constructive!
Next
was the most exciting segment of the day—Table Topics! Facilitated by none
other than our Table Topics master Valli, who gave us a range of new year-themed
table topics to choose from.
The co-winners for
Table Topics were Sakinah—a young first time guest to Anchorvale CC
Toastmasters Club, and Hemant—our resident Table-Topics-first-speaker! Sakinah
recounted the times when she lent a helping hand to others in the past year,
and Hemant expounded on the benefits of having New Year resolutions, even if we
break them.
Special
thanks to CP Yuen—new member and first-time Timer, and Sarah Ong—first-time Ah
Counter for their wonderful Timer and Ah Counter’ report! And of course not
forgetting our trusty Toastmaster of the Day, Rusman, who facilitated and held
the whole meeting together!
#Happy133
-Written
by Audrey Lim
