It is drizzling on a cool and cloudy Saturday and I am looking forward to the warm welcome of our Chapter Meeting hosted by Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club.
Tik Tok - Tik Tok - Tik Tok and just slightly before 2pm, I “Zoom” into our Chapter Meeting. There were about 22 participants and we were very honored to have several guests including Vidya from Bangalore.
Freya Gwee, TM, our Sergeant-At-Arms, break the ice with this opening question for us. “How did Toastmasters benefit you?”
Several members shared their thoughts and indeed, Toastmasters journey has benefited us one way or another.
Our Toastmaster of the Day (TMD), Durga Prasad, TM, kick started our 165th Chapter Meeting, welcoming members and guest, running through our meeting sessions and introducing our appointment holders.
Our Club President, Rusman Hadijanto, CTM, CL, DL5 shared in his opening speech about his challenges due to pandemic crisis and encouraged everyone to be positive, focus on things that we have in control and embraced challenges/surprises in our lives Next, our distinguished guest, John Tan, ACG, CL, was very kind to serve as our Language Evaluator; he introduced to us to the Word of the Day which is so commonly used this year.
The Prepared Speeches segment started and our first speaker Santwana Shrivastava, TM, talks about Procrastination is Good or Bad. As she was approaching to the end of her speech, we came face to face with an unprecedented situation, her screen freeze and we lost her due to network issue.
Our next speaker then told over the air time, Valliapan Selvanmani, CC, CL, who have not been doing his project speech for the past 17 months due to his role as our Club President (now Immediate Past President) is starting his Pathway journey. He shared with us about his beginning from school to how he arrives in the garden city Singapore and finally how his Toastmasters journey begins.
After the Prepared Speeches segment, we had our usual virtual tea break before moving on to the Project Evaluations segment.
Desmond Chong, TM, praised Santwana for her great speech. She was able to engage the audience with questions and demonstrated confidence during the speech. To challenge herself, Desmond recommended adding more vocal varieties in her story and to use (screen space anchoring) aka stage anchoring for more engaging speech.
Helena Lim, CC, started her evaluation of Valliappan‘s project speech, told this is one of the best ice breaker speech she has heard. The opening is intriguing, speech was well structured and the humor bought laughter to the audience. Overall it was a very good speech and to further challenge himself, he can warm up his throat for a wider range of pitch and also to smile more. We then move into a “Cooking Workshop” conducted by our distinguished guest John Tan. In fact, it was a workshop to help members to spice up their speeches with many sizzling tips. I personally have captured many useful literary devices and gain a lot of very insightful tips. Below are some highlights of the workshop.
Next come the most exciting segment, Table Topics, where speakers will speak for 1 to 2 minutes on any given topics without any preparation. Our Table Topics Master, Kok Siong, TM, hosted this segment with very meaningful questions that stimulate our creative thinking. Great Job to Kok Siong and all Table Topics Speakers.
Following the Table Topics segment, we were presented with the Ah Counter’s Report by Siew Foong, TM, who diligently listened and took down all our pause fillers that we use throughout the day.
Next, we called upon our Language Evaluator, John Tan, ACG, CL, who shared with us on the good use of language and also the improper use for attention.
Last but not the least, our Club President gives the drum rolls on the award presentation and closing address.
Congratulations to all winners.
Best Speaker – Valliappan Selvamanni, CC, CL
Best Evaluator – Desmond Chong, TM
Best Table Topics - Thomas Chen, EC3
Written by Marc Wong, TM
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