At about 2 pm our Sergeant at Arms (SAA) Valliappan Selvamani who was also doing double role as Toastmaster of the Day (TMD) started the meeting on time. Our SAA introduced the theme of the meeting: Making mind matter. Valliappan started the ice breaker session, by asking the attendees to introduce themselves as well to share, what was previously in their thoughts which now has become reality.
After finishing the ice breaker segment, Valliapan continued with the introduction and invited the club president Marc Wong to deliver his opening address. Our President, Marc Wong, shared that he was shocked with the recent tragic incident whereby a student was allegedly killed on the grounds at River Valley High School. He was shocked that this incident happened in our safe and peaceful Singapore. He shared the importance of the power of the mind which can turn the negative mind into the positive mind.
After President Marc Wong, finished his opening address, our Language Evaluator Gerald Yong shared the Word of the day “Revere” and explained the usage of that.
Once the word of the day was shared, our first Speaker Shweta Mittal started the very first speech of the day. Shweta mentioned the importance of finding out our feeling, this is called Emotional Intelligence. She mentioned the first and foremost ingredient of Dynamic Leadership Pathways is Emotional Intelligence. She shared Zig Ziglar quote “Your life is a result of the choices you have made. If you don’t like your life, start making better choices.
Our second Speaker Kok Siong Cheng, delivered his prepared speech titled “Start your own Business”. He shared some valuable steps before we start our own business:
1. Conduct self-assessment
Assessment: a. why do I want to start a business? Eg Freedom, money, etc
b. what are my skills? Passion alone may not be enough, but knowing strengths and weaknesses will help us to understand better ourselves.
2. Refine the idea and do research
What are the products, who are my competitors, google search it.
3. Write up a business plan (sales, marketing, financial)
4. Register and fund the business
Our third speaker was Rusman Hadijanto Lee, he shared his experience on having one of his best friend Otty, to coach and guide him to get a better job in his earlier career. Having an Internationally recognizable IT Certificate from a big company such as Microsoft has helped him to elevate his career. When he worked in Singapore, he found out Toastmasters club has the best mentorship program, which has helped him later to be a better speaker and a better leader.
Our fourth speaker Doreen Neo shared her experience of becoming a protégé as well her experience of having a mentor. Her boss who was also her coach mentioned that if she is not taking care of herself, the company won’t be taking care of her, although her family will. Health is above all. She was promoted to be System Customer Service Manager to supervise 30 people, she felt furious, however, her Manager convinced Doreen Neo that she can do it. After starting this new role, Doreen felt overwhelmed with her works. Fortunately, another friend of her ‘Margaret’ who eventually became her great mentor reminded her to delegate the works, otherwise, she always felt overwhelming. She mentioned that delegation will help her to prioritize the works, hence she can start to focus on the most important tasks rather than taking care of everything. Through Margaret's constant guidance, Doreen was finally able to manage her job well. Till today Margaret is still the true friend and Mentor of Doreen.
Once the prepared speech session finished, we moved into the Table Topics session led by our Table Topic Master, Sarah Ong. Before the table topic began, she shared very valuable tips for table topics.
Samuel attempted his first table topic on “Make yourself a priority”. He mentioned a quote from Bill Gates “Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world, if you do so, you are insulting yourself. Daphne table topic was on “The way you speak to yourself matters”. Sienna Arenas shared her Table topic on “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you”. She believes she can’t give what she doesn’t have. By taking the balance of everything like work, with enough sleep and rest, as well feeding mind and soul like attending Toastmasters. She shared a nice quote of “Be the change you do want to see in this world” by Mahatma Gandhi. Kavin on Table Topic “It’s okay if the only thing you did today is breath” said, If we have so many things we need to do over and over, but without breathing we wouldn’t be able to do all these things. Shin Tan did her table topic on “Happiness is not the absence of problems, It is the ability to deal with them. Shweta Mittal on Learn to set boundaries to learn to say no. Bridget’s table topic was on “Train your mind to see the good in every situation”. She learned about humility to serve, capacity to love, ability to inspire.
After our refreshment break, we started back our meeting. It was time for Project Evaluation, by our Toastmasters experts.
John Tan did his first energetic and enthusiastic Project Evaluation to evaluate Shweta's speech. Our second Project Evaluator Bridget Lee was evaluating Kok Siong Cheng’s speech. She shared good feedback on Kok Siong’s good gestures and good robust content. Some improvement suggested was, by the end of a speech to put a call to action, to encourage the audience to take the action after. Our third Project Evaluator Peter Roth was evaluating Rusman Lee. He mentioned about great real life sharing experience of Rusman, whereby having a mentor has helped Rusman to get faster and greater results during his earlier career, and by having the good mentorship in Toastmasters, especially if we are willing to expand ourselves to visit other clubs, we will gain much more of experience we can learn from the various mentors in Toastmasters. The fourth Project Evaluator was Samantha Kwan, she was evaluating Doreen Neo’s speech. She mentioned Doreen has used good use of body language and Doreen is very expressive. A good share example of dialog between Boss and Doreen. To make it even better she suggests using different use of the voice of different bosses, and when representing ‘stand up, stand out and stand tall’ this will even be more impactful if Doreen can show real action of stand up, and stand out and stand tall.
Once Project Evaluator finished their evaluation, Gerald Yong was invited to present his Language Evaluation. As Language Evaluator Gerald Yong shared:
Kick me in the down mode -> just mention kick me down
Instead of I will end my speech, just say, “Back to you Toastmasters”, to end the speech.
“Whereby no pressure from the top”, just mention, “no pressure from the top” to reduce the wordings. Power of right emphasises, “How much money, we need to get the business started”, instead, we say “how much money we need, in order to get the business started”
Back then in 1998, just say in the year 1998.
Bill Gates was like a Mark Zuckerberg of that time, instead, Bill Gates was like a Mark Zuckerberg of today.
Learn something of it, instead learn something from it.
Some Gems observed during the meeting:
Trigger our mind
Shocked, and couldn’t make sense of it
News spread far and fast
Some nice Contrast used:
Am I doing too much? Instead, am I doing enough
Guilt can haunt you
Freedom of no pressure from the top
Have a good idea and run with it
Register the fund, and fund the business
Triads used:
Great job, great life, and a great salary
Stand up, stand out and stand tall
Very very tough, with very very little time
We can’t give what we do not have
Wake every day and every day is a new day
Speak slowly and pause frequently
Inspiration, Motivation, and Aspiration.
After the Language Evaluation, we moved into the last session which was General Evaluation by William Lim. He mentioned that “The Zoom link in the program sheet was incorrect” and hence we need to ensure to provide the correct link for the next session. For timers when there is no bell, they can improvise using a can or some other thing to simulate like a bell, to ensure when the speaker is out of time, to simulate the bell ring. William excellently closes his evaluation with a nice quote “To start we don’t need to be good, but to be good we need to start”. He showed us a metaphor of a coin at the bottom of the light match, and he kept tapping the top part of the light match, and somehow the coin secretly moved from the bottom to the top. It leaves me with the inspirational thought and ideas “If we haven’t see what we want to see yet, don’t stop, keep on trying, and somehow magically we will start to see what we would like to see”
Last but not least, our Ah Counter Jenny Au, shared her excellent and fun review of the Ah Counters. We normally feel bad about how many pause fillers we have made, however this time around, Jenny made it so fun and full of laughter, as she always used to be, she is indeed a truly great mentor in our club, we are so grateful to have her, indeed.
The meeting came towards the end with our President’s Closing address. Our President Marc Wong, announced our champion of the day
For our Champion of today, here we go (drum roll…..)
Best Speaker: Doreen Neo and Rusman Hadijanto Lee
Best Evaluator: Peter Roth
Best Table Topic Speaker: Sienna Arenas
The next meeting will be held on 14th Aug, it’s a joint meeting together with Braddell Heights Toastmasters Club.
Class dismissed….☺ and have a great day.
Blog written by: Rusman H Lee, CTM, CL, DL5
