Recap: 227th Chapter Meeting – 13 April 2024

 The 227^th Chapter Meeting commenced by Toastmaster of the day Venkat Voleti (PM3). He shared that regardless of the frequency that we encountering failure in lives, the important thing is that we always can come back stronger. He extended a warm welcome to all toastmasters including the guests and introduced appointment holders who were going to support the chapter meeting.

Club President, Adeline Yeo (PM5, EC5, PI1) did the opening address by sharing her humble childhood during which she grew up in a 30 sqm HDB flat with the family size of 11 where she had to fight for space in the house to study on the floor and sleep together with other siblings. Yet, she still managed to be a top student during her primary and secondary school years. She also shared her daughter’s experience in the journey of getting her first job offer from a top financial institution after countless job applications since her graduation last year in overseas. Both Adeline and her daughter’s experiences reminded us that perseverance and positivity are very essential for us to emerge stronger in the face of adversity.

The 2^nd segment of the meeting was the Prepared Speeches Segment delivered by three speakers, Srinivasan Kumar (LD2), Sarah Ong (IP2) and Dr Clinton Lee (DTM).

Srinivasan’s speech was titled “Planning and Implementing”. He started off by sharing the 5 typical stages for any project implementations which include Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Closure. He narrated that exit criteria for each of the stages need to be in place to ensure project success. As simple as the process appears on the paper though, there are complications when implementing a project in reality, especially when there are a lot of people involved.  Issues may arise everywhere along the process which can be the contributing factors for the project unable to meet the set timelines. For example, product team had no knowledge in completing certain task, campaign analyst was unable to support the project due to conflicting priorities, test data was not available to testers etc. Based on his experience, the secret sauce to ensure project success was through 3 changes. i) Formation of a collaborative team to hold accountable on the open issues, ii) Daily call as a platform for resolving issues in timely manner and iii) Enforcing SLA in resolving issues. He concluded his speech by emphasizing that Team, Project Updates, and SLA were very important in project implementations.

In Sarah Ong’s speech titled “The Journey to Redemptions”. She started off by sharing that life hadn’t been smooth sailing for her 10 years back, and she was on the brink of developing depression when was facing weight gain after 2 childbirths. It was an extremely challenging phase of life for her when she suffered from self-pitying, anger and emotional rollercoaster for an extended period of time. Till a point that she realized enough is enough! She enrolled herself to the weight management program at Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s Sports Clinic. At the clinic she was coached to exercise for losing weight through various gym equipment and exercises. She started to see results after taking the advice from the sports coach by performing interval running on treadmill, lunges, squats, following diet plan, along with brisk walking sessions during weekends. This was so that she could condition her body to run given the obesity issue that she faced back then.  After 4 months, she finally attempted her first run. She narrated that she was unable to keep up with an old man in the park when she first ran, but she continued to run for the next 3 months plus until she completed a 10KM run with the timing of 1 hours and 23 minutes.  With that, she also achieved her goal of living a healthy life by losing more than 20 kg. She became a happy and confident person since then, and running had also become the essential morning routine in her life regardless of weather and locations, even during her overseas vacationsin overseas. Whilst running able to help Sarah to lose weight, it also prepared her for tougher sport such as dragon boating where she was still able to persevere and press on with long distance rowing. She concluded her speech by quoting “There is always light at the end of the tunnel, so long as we persevere”.

In Dr Lee’s speech titled “Create a Podcast”, he started his speech by asking the audience “Why Podcast”. He narrated that our grandfathers would listen to radio in their generation, while we watched TV and videos as we grew up. However, new generation wanted information accessible via TV and cellphones. Dr Lee called podcast as Edu-tainment since it was about education and entertainment. His advice in doing podcast was to “Be prepared, be fearless, and expect the unexpected”.  He then shared the interview through podcast with Sarah Heller on The Artistry Within Wine channel. Dr Lee started the podcast by asking Sarah about her background to gradually making her comfortable and open up for later questions to capture “The meat, bone, and soul of the individual” as Dr Lee phrased it. Dr Lee then moved on to ask Sarah the “thrust to the onion” questions to get a good understanding on her leadership view as the youngest Master of Wine in 2017. Dr Lee concluded the speech by emphasizing to the audience that you had to bring the message from the heart and believe in the message that you were talking and asking in order to get the message from the person who was being interviewed.

Table topic segment was presented by Rusman Lee (CC, CL, DL5 PI5) and the table topic questions were related to the meeting theme on Overcoming Adversity and Celebrating Victory. Some of the participants gave insights through their valuable life experiences where they had overcome various obstacles and setbacks. Having positive outlook and staying steadfast in the face of adversity are the common values shared amongst us. Bravo to our new guest, HongYu who had also attempted the table topic!

New Guest, Hongyu attempting Table Topic Challenge

Long time club member, Alice, attempting the Table Topic challenge. 

In the evaluation segment, Eileen Quek (PM1), Jason Thong (PM5), and Marc Wong (DL5, PM1) presented constructive feedbacks and recommendations to the Project Speakers.

Last segment of the meeting was a Workshop on “5 Moments of Truth to be a Leader” conducted by our Club Mentor, Jenny Au (DTM). Jenny conducted an enriching workshop on cultivating leadership. She concluded that “To be a leader, do not be afraid to take risk. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Important is to have trust in yourself”. 

The awards were presented to the following winners:

Best speakers: Sarah Ong (IP2)

Best Project Evaluator: Marc Wong (DL5, PM1)

Best Table Topics: Jason Thong (PM5)

We sincerely appreciated all appointment holders for preparing and making this Chapter meeting a success and were grateful to all guests and members who took time to attend this online Zoom meeting.

Do stay tune for our next chapter meeting and we welcome you to join us as guest.

Together We Shine!

Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club

Written by Danny Chng, TM.

Anchorvale CC TMC and Braddell Heights II TMC Joint Meeting on 23th March 2024

 It was a warm, sunny, and lovely Saturday afternoon. Seargent-at-arms (SAA) Sarah Ong (IP2) gave a warm welcome to everyone.

Our SAA Sarah Ong (IP2) broke the ice by opening the meeting with the meeting theme “Embrace Change and Grow Together”. Members had the chance to share their thoughts about this theme, and many of us drew the conclusion that change is a norm although it’s not comfortable, however we need to embrace it and grow together with it.

Our Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club President Adeline Yeo (PM5 EC5 PI) started the President’s Opening Address. She shared that many years ago her daughter went to London for studies, and Adeline felt sad and depressed being separated from her daughter. Faced with this situation, her family needed to adapt with this new change, and they were able to move on with this change together as a family. Time went by quickly, 3 years later, her daughter managed to find a new job in London and the family need to accept the fact that she would not be able to return and stay with them. 

Adeline also shared that Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club has again achieved the DCP (Distinguish Club Program, which is the highest achievements for the club in Toastmasters, and she mentioned that we had gotten this achievement as our members had embraced changes and had been working together closely.

Richard Sng (DTM) introduced the Words of the Day “EXCISE”. The meaning of this word is to cut, remove and dispose.

The first segment which was Prepared speeches started with:

1^st Speaker, Keith Perriloux, with speech title “The lessons learned”.

Keith has lived in 3 different countries although he is a Singapore citizen. He recently enlisted in the Singapore army. He learned about: Discipline (being on time), Respect (tolerance to other people, culture, religion), Teamwork (together to achieve the common goals). Keith has always embraced change all the while when he was living other countries, He has to quickly learn the rope to adapt to the requirements of serving national service in Singapore.

2^nd Speaker was Japinder Singh (PM2). Title of the speech was “My cycling journey”. 

His earlier bike had thick tires to handle the off-road type of journey. However, when he went for a longer journey, he found out that a lighter type of bicycle with a thinner tire and certain type of handle and gear, could help him travel around in longer distance such as 50 to 150 km. Japinder also shared with us that anyone between the age of 18-88 years old is capable of biking for 100km. And strongly urge all to try biking. 

3^rd Speaker was Michael Spencer Go (DL1) and the title of his speech was “Superhero Story”.

Michael is an indoor life person. However, his grandfather insisted him to try out the outdoor challenges such as a bicycle riding activity. His grandpa also tirelessly drove Michael to his school every day. Michael learned the real Superhero attitudes such as: Companionship, Service, and Passion from his beloved grandpa.

4^th Speaker was Chong Wee Kim. Her speech title was “Down and Up”. There was a  sudden and tragic change happened to Wee Kim family when she was still a child. Her father, the only breadwinner of the family, sadly passed away. Wee Kim managed to help her family get some money by participating and winning the great lucky draws from supermarkets, which had brought tremendous and joy and comfort to her mom during the difficult times.

From the life hardship that she had experienced, she learned three things that kept her going:

1. Believe in yourself.

2. Be grateful and contribute to society.

3. Connect with people. 

1. The 5^th Speaker was Uppli Srinivasan (DL5, PM2). Title of his speech was “Coronary Heart Disease”.

He shared about his recent bad experience of suffering from heart disease. From what he has learned, fatigue, cholesterol, family history might have contributed to his coronary heart disease. He shared some prevention tips such as doing exercise, having adequate rest, and seeking earlier treatment, could help someone to avoid the heart disease.

6^th Speaker was Srinivasan Kumar (LD1). Title of his speech was “Introduce Mentoring”.

Srini shared a quote that “A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you than you see in yourself and helps bring it out of you”. He shared on how his mentor, Mark Wong has helped him to be more courageous in his Toastmasters Public speaking journey.

Srini also shared on how Generative AI tools also help in mentorship. He introduced one of the tools names “Yoodli”, which can play the role of Virtual AI mentor in  public speaking.

Next segment was Table Topic led by our Table Topic Master Manikandan Chidambaram (DL1).

1^st topic “What you will do if somehow you are left in an island with nobody for sometimes” was attempted by by a young boy, Vishwa. He shared that he would utilize the coconuts fruits there, and he would do the hand waving with the hope of being spotted and recused by passing helicopter.

2^nd topic attempted by another young boy named, Jayrius was about what was his best childhood memory. He shared that the best memory was watching movie and play games with his brother.

3^rd topic, “The most life defining memory” was attempted by Danny.

Danny shared about going overseas to study with the feeling of excitement. He tried to adapt with the new culture, the new environment, and he worked as part timer. One day he had a serious accident, whereby he accidentally cracked some of his bones, that incident forced him to embrace and adapt change quickly.

4^th topic,  “What would be the piece of advice you would like to share with others” was attempted by Varshini.  He has learnt to slow down, and understood that life was not just to get by but to find the reason of living.

5^th topic, “If the Doctor mentioned you can only live for another 5 years, what would you like to accomplish?” was attempted by Nagarajan. Nagarajan would be more involved in humanity, do proper exercise, embrace changes, nurture the nature, help people that are in the poverty.

6^th topic “How to live happily” was attempted by Uppli. Uppli shared about starting  thing small and be simple so as to avoid disappointment due to poor outcome.

Last topic, “What message you would convey if you needed to speak for the entire world” was attempted by Michael Spencer. With the wars going on, Michael encouraged the audience to be kind, and to think of other people.

Anchorvale CC and Braddell Heights II Toastmasters members posed for a great phot together before headed for snack break. 

The next segment was Project Evaluation.

1^st Evaluation by We Chee Sian (VC2), evaluating the speech of Keith Perilloux.

Some good advice shared by Chee Sian, were the usage of short sentence, and the use of note effectively. If Keith was too engrossed with his note, this might cause him to have many pause fillers in the speech delivery.

2^nd Evaluation by S.S Cheng (ATMG, CL), evaluating the speech of Japinder Singh (PM2). Japinder had good audience engagement with his interesting topic. One advice was to improve the speech presentation by keeping good eye contact with all the audiences in the room.

3^rd Evaluation by Adeline Yeo (PM5 EC5 PI1) evaluating the speech of Michael Spencer. Adeline advised Spencer to emphasise on how the change had brought about improvement. And not only to share on how great was his grandpa.

4^th Evaluation by Santhi Perilloux (DTM) for Chong Wee Kim’s speech. Wee Kim had used dialogue, vocal variety and tone. She engaged the audience by asking questions and usage of body language. Santhi advised Wee Kim to improve on the share of take away messages to encourage audience as the key objective of the speech is to inspire the audience.

5^th Evaluation by Marc Wong (DL5 PM1) on Uppli Srinivasan’s speech. Marc has observed the usage of good opening dialogue, good usage of personal story, speech organization and sharing of good take a way message of taking care of our hearts. Some suggestions of improvement include to change the title to a more interesting one like “1 in 5 in America has this” rather than the dull title “Coronary Heart disease”, limit to 3 main points to allow audience to digest the messages, try to have eye contact with audience while presenting from slides.

6^th Evaluation by Li Li Lim (ATMS, CL) on Srinivasan Kumar’s speech. Good thing observed was that Srinivasan was calm and cool as he has delivered his speech smoothly, sharing his good mentorship experience with his mentor, Marc Wong. Li Li suggested some areas of improvement such as choosing a more interesting title such as “Mentee and Mentorship” rather than the simple and bland title of “Introduction to mentoring”. And sharing the compare and contrast between earlier stage without mentor and after mentorship.

Next Segment was the Language Evaluator by Richard Sng (DTM) whereby he shared some improvements for the usage of words.

1.     1. For all plural words to always pronounce the ending ‘s’.

2.    2. Avoid usage of abbreviations, as some guests and new members might not be familiar with the toastmasters’ terms.

3.     3. Simply say “younger” instead of “more younger” as “more
is redundant. Say “fall” and no need to say “fall down”.

4.     4. Say the “last speaker”, instead of “final speaker”.

5.     5. Say “so much things” instead of “so many things”.

6.    6.  Use the phrase “at the highest level” instead of “In the highest level”.

7. 7. Instead of using “Good afternoon”, we can use “Splendid afternoon” or  “Wonderful afternoon”, as the word “Good” had been over-used.

8.    8. Language Evaluator in programme sheet should be changed to Language Evaluation.

9.    9. Accent is very important, hence we need to speak with the correct accent.

Next segment after Language evaluation, was Ah counter’s report whereby Mark Tan  shared on the Ah-counter report for everyone who had the chance to speak. 

In conclusion, during the speech presentation when pausing, we just needed to stop and think, and resist the urgent to say pause fillers words such as “Ah, Uh, Er, Um, Okay, And, So, You Know”.

Final segment was Award Presentation by Adeline and Uppli.

Winner of Table Topic: Michael Spencer Go (DL1)

Winner of Evaluator: Santhi Perilloux (DTM)

Winner of Prepared Speeches: Michael Spencer Go (DL1)

President’s Closing Address by Uppli Srinivasan (DL5, PM2) where Uppli shared his joy of re-visiting Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club and having this joint meeting between the Anchorvale CC Toastmasters and Braddell Heights II Toastmasters.

Do stay tune for our next chapter meeting and we welcome you to join us as guest.

Together We Shine!

Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club

Blogs written by Rusman Hadijanto (CTM, CC, CL, DL5, PI5).