End of the term for EXCO team 2011-2012

It has been an 'annus mirabilis' for our club that serves to remind us of greater goals to aim for next year.   With a pinch of reluctance and reminiscence, we are drawing the curtain to a close on a fun-filled year running the Anchorvale Toastmasters Club.  While we pull the veil off our brand new team, featuring new enthusiasts who will carry the club to a higher altitude.    

I will like to take this opportunity to thank our old guards who had held the fort though the past 12months;  President- May Lee,  VPE- Bernard Ng,  VPM- Sathiya Chinnasammy, VPPR- Roger Yap,  SAA- Thomas Selveraj & Enya Tan, Treasurer- Jenny Aw & Teo Kian Keong, Secretary- Sandeep.

Our next VPPRs- Sanjay and Zulhaini will take over the responsibilities of maintaining our blog for next term,  please continue to lend your unrelenting support to our new pair of post-masters. Meanwhile, lets congratulate our winners from last chapter meeting;

Winner of ribbon for best prepared speech-  Wei Long

 Joint winner of ribbon for best table topic speaker- Norman Tan

   Joint winner of ribbon for best table topic speaker- Carolyn Street Johns

Winner of ribbon for best project evaluator- Norman Tan

Do make time to join us during our next chapter on Saturday, 28th July 2012.  We will be conducting the installation ceremony of our new EXCO team.  See you then, cheers!


Yours Truly,
Roger Yap  - VPPR

Extra! Extra! ...... Check out Anchorvale TMC's latest highlight!

On Saturday 31March2012, Zulhafni Muhammad, our representative to compete in the Area A2 contest for the 'Table Topics Segment', emerged as champion amidst a horde of competitors.  

22th Chapter Meeting - 24th March 2012

This chapter meeting saw the return of many old faces (all young-at-heart still nonetheless!) such as Steven and Norman, both having been away for quite a while – welcome back! Everyone was, once again, eager to begin the meeting and enthral everyone else with their repertoire of speech topics that they had prepared.

We were entertained with a wide range of speeches from Project 1 all the way to Project 8:  Congratulations Leng Leng for completing your first project and letting all of us know more about you! It was an enriching experience indeed - Sreeman taught us about the need to watch our health, heart and body; Steven imparted some of his hosting prowess in teaching us about how to effectively use our body language; Norman reminded the guys about our old, abandoned army boots (and discipline) and Roger shared his love of photography with his photographs of his experience (many of which left us wondering whether it was possible to capture such vivid and gorgeous images)

Bernard tested our limits as Table Topics Master, churning out a list of 65+ topics to choose from, some of which were topics from Advanced Club Meetings and Competition. Our members one-by-one stepped up to the mantle, took up his challenge and definitely did not disappoint.

We also had the privilege of having our Club President, May Lee (also the resident word-smith and a stern grammarian) assess our language as the Language Evaluator – reminding us of the difference between “compliment” and “complement” and kept her eagle-eyes trained on each one of us to make sure our language and grammar was up to speed.

The day reluctantly came to an end and here are the ribbon winners for this meeting:

Best Prepared Speech.. Steven Lee! How can one not be attracted to his infectious humour and enthusiasm – he never fails to light up the stage when he steps up!

Best Table Topics.. Roger Yap! This busy man managed to free up a slot for us for this meeting and definitely did not fail to impress us once more with his quick-thinking wit and creativity!

Congratulations to all the winners and I hope the meeting turned out to be as enjoyable for everyone else as it was for me!  Do join us for next chapter meeting!

Zulhafni Muhammad
Toastmaster of Anchorvale TMC

Drums rolling.... and here are our WINNERS!

Fellow Toastmasters, ladies & gentlemen,

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all our friends who came to support us and helped to handle the logistic matters during our recent event. DTM Jenny Au was the Contest-Chair of the day.  But being camera-shy as usual, we couldn't snap a picture of her.

Area A2 Governor, Chan Ah Cheng and Chief Judge, DTM Andrew Kuan.
(The 30cm tall, miniature girl at the side is Enya Tan.  :P)

Our tally-counters;  Ng Luan Eng,  DTM Christine Lim and Yong Chuk Ping

Timers;  Edwin & Guo Min

Sergeants-at-Arms;  Sardinah Jabar,  Enya Tan and Juilet Ng 

After a grueling fight for the championship, the following toastmasters had emerged winners in our club contest held on 10th March 2012.

International Speech

Champion:         Sanjeev Gathani

1st Runner-up:   Zulhafni Muhd

2nd Runner-up:  Bernard Ng

Sanjeev Gathani

Zulhafni Muhd

Bernard Ng

Table Topics

Champion :        Zulhafni Muhd

1st Runner-up:   Roger Yap

2nd Runner-up:  Sandeev Gathani

Congratulations and a round of applause to the following members for taking the plunge and participated in our club contest held on 10th March 2012. 

International Speech Contestants:  (All participants completed their 6th project)

May

Thomas

Zulhafni

Sangeev

Bernard

Table Topics Speech Contestants:

(Back row from left):  Zulhafni, Bernard, Thomas, Sanjeev, Norman and Sathiya

Front row:  May, Roger, Yvonne and Leng Leng.

Bernard Ng

VP Education

Preview of competition- "International Speech and Table Topics Contest"

Hi, Anchorvale Toastmasters and friends.

There's been a slight change of plans for this Saturday.  We are going ahead with the formal contests after all.  At our last EXCO meeting on 25 Feb, the consensus then was to hold a dual-purpose chapter meeting, with the added objective of selecting a representative each for International Speech and Table Topics Speech contests.  As such, we has originally planned for enthusiastic P1 and P2 speakers to be included in the prepared speech segments.  They will, however, not qualify to be the representative for the International Speech Contests at the subsequent Area, Division and District levels.  This is in line with Toastmasters International rules which stipulate that International Speech contestants must have completed up to their Project 6 to qualify as a contestant.

As a relatively new club, I honestly thought that we lack the networking reach to invite the required external judges, SAAs and other appointment-holders necessary to make the event a success.  My misgivings proved to be unfounded when more than 10 high-calibre external Toastmasters responded positively to the SOS signals trumpeted by Distinguished Toastmasters Jenny Au and Fernando Young.  It goes to show that all problems melt away when you approach the right people for the job.  I had forgotten to factor in the impressive network of Toastmasters friends and pristine credibility both Jenny and Fernando possess in abundance.  They have always been so helpful that past recipients of their help were jostling tooth and claw to return that favour whenever an opportunity arises.  It is to their credit that Anchorvale Toastmasters will hold its contests this Saturday after all.

The programme is being worked out by our club VPE Bernard Ng even as we speak.  Do check your mailbox again to get the details.  For now, the information that I have stands as such:

International Speech Contestants (must have completed at least Project 6 speech):

Bernard

May (VPE Bernard is breathing down my neck, urging me to take part...  and I'm breaking out in cold sweat!  Still no speech material as of now!!!)

Thomas

Zulhafni

Sangeev

Table Topics Speech Contestants:
Bernard

May

Thomas

Zulhafni

Sanjay

Yvonne

Leng Leng
Sathiyamoorthi
Sangeev
Roger

May Lee

Club President

21th Chapter meeting at the Rooftop! 25 February 2012

It made us worried for a while, would the picturesque backdrop steal all the limelight?

In the end, it couldn't.  The band of eloquent speakers at our club was the main highlight, and few if anyone even noticed the great view we had right before us.

7 of our club members delivered their prepared speeches, of which 4 of them were ICE BREAKERS.
Bravo... Yvonne, Sanjay, Sumarlin and Sandeep! We know you guys better now.  Our seasoned presenters; Sathiya, Enya and Thomas also entertained us with their respective projects.

The program of the day was so well planned by Bernard and May, we could complete all the speaking engagements, the subsequent project evaluations, an intensive round of Table Topic challenge and still had time for a birthday celebration for our dear Treasurer, Kian Keong.   The only regret was that time seems to have flew by, how we hope the good time could slow its pace and let us relish the moment a little longer.  Especially when we had new friends who joined us for the first time;  Evelyn, Ryan (Enya's friend), Vereen and Tony, who graced our event.

The winner for the Prepared Speech segment went to .......... Enya Tan!  It was a close call, but Enya managed to impress the audiences more with her highly animated performance.  It was P5- 'Your body speaks'.  Her meticulously-choreographed and scripted speech certainly spoke volume.

The "Star-player" of Anchorvale Toastmasters Club - Zulhafni, won the best evaluator's award with flying colors.  My gosh, this young law-undergraduate is only 22 this year.   We are keeping our fingers crossed wishing that when he eventually becomes a lawyer one day, he would not be a devil's advocate but be an angel's savior.

Do join us during the next chapter meeting on Saturday, 10th March 2012.   Cheers!


Roger Yap
VPPR

Speechcraft Workshop on Saturday 10 Dec 2011- “Speaking with Confidence”

An inspirational speech is a highly emotional speech that serves to urge and stimulate a group to pursue significant personal and corporate goals, choose right corporate strategy, correct mistakes, etc. Additionally, an inspirational speech arms the audience with tools and awareness they should possess to succeed in their personal lives and in the modern globally competitive marketplace.

As far as inspirational speeches serve to inspire different kinds of people including professionals, an inspirational speech can combine components as diverse as valid business principles, real life situations and memorable stories. An inspirational l speech is a variety of a persuasive speech and it is pragmatically oriented: a recipient of an inspirational speech should experience a certain impact, i.e. change his/her behavior, act in this or that way, agree with something. To this end, an imperative mood should be used in inspirational speeches. Energetic phrases starting with "do", "donate", "join", "create", "buy" are most likely to reinforce the effect of an inspirational speech.

An inspirational speaker should very well realize what are positions, or actions he/she is going to popularize. Besides, a thorough preparatory research is required to take into account numerous factors that can influence the process of listening and further decision-making. These are as follows:

1)   Social factors: status, education, values of the audience;

2)   Pragmatic factors: requirements, needs and interests of the audience.


Sanjeev also introduced contest for audience members.The theme was,”Talk about yourself. Furthermore, we received pointers on the areas of speech development and how to make a humorous speech.

Thomas Selveraj

Sergeant At Arms