Recap: 169th Chapter Meeting - 12th December 2020

It's Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's last Chapter Meeting of the year. Members and guests joined in the Zoom meeting adorned with Christmas colors and cheers. The sheer presence of many enthusiastic participants already filled the festive mood to the brim before the start of the meeting.

Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's Facebook cover photo during the festive season

Sergeant at Arms of the Day, Valli Kasinathan, CC, asked the ice breaker question. How would you celebrate the coming Christmas and New Year?

Freeya Gwee: "Go on a cruise!"
Venkat Voleti: "Visit temple and pray for a better year. 🙏"
Siew Foong: "Meals with friends who are celebrating."
Sarah Ong: "Staycation at Mandarin Orchard Hotel."
Angela Cai: "Meeting friends."
Nirmala Arifin: "Spend time with family."
Bharati: "Celebrate with extended family in India via Zoom."
Ng Kin Foong: "Christmas dinner."
Marc Wong: "Pay visits within COVID-19 restrictions."

😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

The pandemic obviously did not make a dent on our participants' grandiose plans for merry making.... 🎉🎊

Toastmaster of the Day, Durga Prasad, DL1, invited our Club President, Rusman Hadijanto, DL5, to give the meeting's opening address. Rusman delivered to us three valuable messages of Christmas spirit:

Faith. Quoting from renown novelist, Paulo Coelho, best known for his novel The Alchemist. "Not knowing what will happen next, we still move on with our trust and faith."

Expectation of good. Everything happens for a reason. Greatest good comes from hardest times of our life, taking a leaf from Roy T Burnett.

Love is passion and kind. From the Bible.

Much needed encouragement from our Club President. Then signed off with <<Santa Rusman Claus>>. 🎅

Faith, expect good and love given by Santa Rusman Claus 

Invited visiting Toastmaster and Language Evaluator Ng Kin Foong, DTM, from Tampines Changkat Toastmasters Club, introduced the Word of the Day, "Precious".

Language Evaluator Ng Kin Foong shows multitude use of the word "Precious"

The prepared speech segment revealed the many beneficial "how". Siew Foong, TM, a counsellor, engaged the audience with how to keep ourselves healthy and happy in life. Good relationship. Social connection. Family, friends and community. Salma Begum, ACB, ALB, while doing a rehearsal for the coming Division A Humorous Speech Contest, provided us with how to ride a bike and how to get pregnant with inputs from YouTube. At the same time, Salma received constructive feedbacks for her speech contest preparation. Angela Cai, TM, gave us tips on how to work from home effectively. To avoid distractions, set up house rules following strict time schedules. Time management is key. Define the start and end time. Use a calendar to plan. Have intervals of breaks for recharge. 💪

Prepared speech speakers clockwise from top left: Siew Foong, Salma and Angela

Table Topics Master, Santwana Shrivastava, LD1, presented to all of us "The only limit is your imagination."

It turns out that you can talk to cats but can't tell anyone about it. How do you use this newfound skill? Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL, shared his imagination:

Cats found at the HDB void decks were the only friends when he first came to Singapore. He connected better with people from this skill as cats from each household told him about secrets from each family. 

If you could be a real Santa for a day, who would be the first person you would want to make happy? Angela Cai's imagination:

She would choose to make patients infected with COVID-19 happy, and go on to make their wishes come true, bringing hope to them.

You've been given a pub to run, what do you name it and why? Guest Marie Ong's imagination:

She will name it 'Chatty'. This is to create an atmosphere of happiness.

Your in-laws are coming over and it's an important first meal with them and you've managed to burn the chicken. How do you salvage the situation? Guest Ong Jia Cheng's imagination:

He would engage the delivery service and buy time with preparation of other dishes.

If time and money were no limit, what would your ideal life be? Kok Siong's, TM, imagination:

Be of service and help to others.

Taking on the Project Evaluator role improves active listening, critical thinking and positive feedback skills. Evaluation is the heart of the Toastmasters educational program. You observe the speeches of your fellow club members and offer evaluations of their efforts. In the same spirit, Santwana suggested adding hand gestures to Siew Foong's speech. Bharati would love to have quotes and additional visual aids in Angela's. Valliappan commended Salma for her good use of twist, modulation of the voice and connection with the audience. He gave areas of improvement for consideration; the introduction of pauses with reduction of contents, for the audience to receive the important message of the speech in a more relaxed pace.

Invited guest speaker and visiting Toastmaster, Kelvin Leong, DTM, from Henderson Toastmasters Club brought all of us into the world of rate, volume, pitch, pauses, articulation, pronunciation, enunciation, fluency and non-verbal communication: paralanguage, in his Vocal Delivery workshop. He reiterated it is the energy in your voice, which in turn depends upon your breathing, that makes a difference in your speech delivery. He went on to teach breathing using diaphragm techniques through demonstration and asking for participation. Hilarious attempts by the participants I would say.

Vocal Delivery workshop poster

Language Evaluator Ng Kin Foong applauded those who had included the Word of the Day, "precious" in their speech before going on further on good and correct usage of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, enunciation, idioms and compare and contrast.

And the ribbon award winners of our 169th Chapter Meeting are:
Best Speaker - Salma Begum, ACB, ALB
Best Evaluator - Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL
Best Table Topics Speaker - Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL

Woohoo! Double winner Valliappan!

Members and guests joined in the Zoom meeting adorned with Christmas colors 🎄🎁❄️

Written by Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB