Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club, Singapore (Sengkang): Recap: 227th Chapter Meeting

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.