Sarah Ong, IP2, our Sergeant at Arms / Toastmaster of the Day, nicely opened the meeting with the theme “Stronger Together” as we have just celebrated the National Day 2022 of Singapore's 57th Birthday.
Our Club President Venkat Voleti, PM3, he shared about how Singapore has handled the Covid situation diligently. Venkat also mentioned how our Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club can achieve the President Distinguished Club awards for many consecutive years. He believes these all can be achieved as the team is working cohesively and embracing the spirit of Stronger Together in every activity we are doing as a club.
Lynda Neo, ALS, ACS, our Language Evaluator, introduced the word of the day as “SPORADIC”, she was also emphasizing our today's meeting theme “Stronger Together” is aligned with one of the African quotes that she likes whereby “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Prepared Speech Segment
His "Follow ABC" method stands for Always Be Careful whereby represents his speech tips: 1) Use of pause fillers; 2) Good use of vocabulary, and 3) Good use of accent adjusted to the local environment.
2nd speech by Lai Kok Fook, IP5, DL5, VC5, TC1. He was a Computer Technician before, and a Body Builder coach as well.
He learned to be a good Mentor and a Good Leader it shouldn’t be passive rather it should be an active action, thus he took the liberty of becoming a Mentor at his Body Building Club as well he took Leadership experience by enrolling an Executive Committee Leadership roles in Toastmasters Club.
Table Topics Segment
The next segment was Table Topics by Jun Tay, PM5. Outside her work, Jun is enjoying yoga, running, and hiking.There were a lot of great topics on this Table Topics (the Impromptu speech), and of course, this Table Topics is just for fun, thus please do not take it too seriously 😊
The first topic was Flight or Fight and Rusman shared that in terms of problems in life when we fight and not fly (run away) from it, although it’s tough however we will be able to build up more muscle to overcome many problems in life.
Next topic, Alvin chooses Gorilla as his friend because by having a gorilla as a friend he believes he can be a famous guy, and he also believes Gorilla can protect him from any bad guy.
Aishwarya chooses to be sneaky as a snake, as she can be escaping many things by becoming as sneaky as a snake.
Mihika the last jaw-dropping moment, she watches Superman and Batman movie and she loves it because it runs her wild imagination of this super wonderful hero who can do a lot of amazing things.
Yenny chooses a grizzly bear friend, whereby she believes as a parent she needs to be a parent who can helps and supports each other. After Covid situation gets better she hopes that she will have more friends who are supportive like the grizzly bear friend to keep encouraging and supporting each other.
Varun chooses the topic of to be enormous as an elephant. He likes to be an elephant because the elephant is big and strong however he is also worried as an elephant is slow, and he might be the tiger’s meal of the day.
Marc's topic about what inspired him last week. He mentioned Elon Musk's movie whereby he learned to fail, whereby failure shouldn’t be a dead end, but rather a great way to keep learning and getting better at what someone wants to be good at.
Daniel got to choose the last topic as stubborn as an ox, whereby in his real experience in the past he doesn’t like people to object to his opinion, however along the way he learned sometimes he need to learn to listen to other people opinions, and this makes his life better.
Venkat Voleti, PM3 brought a workshop about Meditate.
Meditation is a technique for controlling the mind to increase focus to have a better life.
There are many benefits we can get from meditation such as more focus, more calm, and better sleep.
Project Evaluation Segment
1st Evaluator is Alvin Kuek, TM. He is an inspiring Toastmaster, and this is his first speech evaluation. He shared about using the good use of quality and not just quantity of speech, and good use of abbreviation ABC as it’s easier to remember by others.
3rd Evaluator Thomas Chen, CC, CL. He started public speaking when he was studying at Nanyang University. He liked Audrey's speech with the real example of people who encountered an accident by wrongly living a Yolo life. Thomas encourages Audrey to use a personal story to elevate her speech even to have a better persuasion.
4th Evaluator Jenny Au, DTM, evaluating Alvin’s evaluation. Jenny emphasizes a good Alvin way of evaluation and also the well-elevated abbreviation of ABC instead of Always Be Careful, extended into Always be Creative, Always Be Confident, Always Be Charming.
Next, Language Evaluation segment by Lynda Neo, ALS, ACS. Lynda founds various good use of words such as:
- Work cohesively,
- Happened in tandem
- Seamlessly together
- Accomplishment and Pride
- Training Vigorously
- Told me specifically
- Die for narcissistic reason
- Prudent and Cautious
- Fight or Flight
- Sneaky as a snake
- Jaw-dropping
- Drop dead gorgeous
- Catapult to stardom
- Regardless and there are no words ‘Irregardless’
- Idiosyncrasy
Ah-Counter by Julie Tay, PM1 found some pause fillers use such as: am, so, ah, I I (repeated words), and remind Toastmasters to be more cautious to reduce pause fillers in the future.
Meeting closed by Club President with the awards presentation for:
Best Speaker
Best Table Topic
Best Evaluator
Written by Rusman H Lee, CTM, CL, DL5, IP4
