Anchorvale's Annual General Meeting & EXCO Installation of Toastmasters Mightiest Heroes!

I remember my first day visiting Anchorvale Toastmasters – unprepared, uncertain and unsure, I listened to the brilliant speeches prepared by the members then and thought to myself: “Today, I shall just sit in silence and watch in awe”. Boy, was I wrong – a few minutes later, during my first Table Topics session, Jenny, one of our Club Mentors, urged me to step up and try my hand at doing a speech. With the strong support from the audience, I took that step up and started my Toastmasters journey.

Anchorvale Toastmasters is all about stepping up – with or without support from the audience; it is about snatching the mantle when the odds are against us or grabbing at the opportunities presented to us with gusto and pride. On 25 June 2016, another group of Anchorvale Toastmasters members showed us what it means to step up.

On 25 June 2016, Anchorvale Toastmasters gathered together for the final meeting of the term for 2015-16 and celebrate the conclusion of yet another fun and eventful term. For the special occasion, we decided to go with a refreshing programme for the Meeting – moving away from the usual Chapter Meeting format and adding three vibrant segments for the day’s session.

The meeting started out with a members-only Annual General Meeting with the goal of updating the Club members on the events of the term that went by as well as the developments and future events to look forward to.

With the ‘serious’, heavy stuff out of the way, we adjourned to enjoy the wonderful set prepared for lunch – tasty, filling vegetarian pasta from our very own VPE – Salma Begum, ACB, CL, succulent delights from Old Chang Kee and of course, an impeccably-designed cake as dessert for everyone! (truly an unfortunate day to be fasting for me!).

 

yummm

Of course, before the new, incoming President delivers his Opening Address, I took the opportunity to thank our members, and particularly, the EXCO of 2015/16 for their brilliant work throughout the term and for being role models themselves in stepping up – with a special surprise in store for everyone present during the meeting! (You had to be there to know what it was!). At Anchorvale Toastmasters, we are also always on the look-out for members who deserve our recognition for their contributions to the Club. This year, instead of 1 Toastmaster of the Year – we recognised 6 different Members for their unique contributions to the Club:

·         Totally-Transformed Toastmasters – Sridhar

·         Creative Czar – Alvin

·         Pro-Active Prince – Sridhar

·         Out-standingly Out-Going – Chee Sian

·         Table Topics Titan – Benjamin

·         Master Mentee – Sindu

·         EXCO’s Pet – Alice

Sridhar & Zul

Alvin & Zul

Benjamin & Zul

Chee Sian & Zul

Sindu & Zul

Congratulations again to all the Anchorvale Awards winners!

The honour roll continued as well as we had our past-Division ‘A’ Director and also a dear friend of Anchorvale Toastmasters, Carolyn Street-Johns. DTM to install our incoming EXCO for the term 2016-17. Each out-going EXCO member was invited to share tips and advice for his/her successor for the up-coming term. The powerful Anchorvaler ‘Avengers’ Team consists of:

•      President – Norman ‘Iron Man’ Tan

•      VPE 1 – Salma ‘Loud Mouth’ Begum

•      VPE 2 – Wee Chee Sian (the Ladies’ Man)

•      VPM – Sridhar ‘Spiderman’ Maroju

•      VPPR – Owen ‘Not Wilson’ Lorena

•      SAA – Ram ‘the Newcomer’ Kumaresan

•      Secretary – Alice ‘In Wonderland’ Ow

•      Treasurer – Hemant ‘the He-Man’ Singhal

•      IPP – Zulhafni ‘ORD Loh’ Zulkeflee

2016-17 Toastmasters Mightiest Heroes

With various refreshing, new talents coming on board as part of the EXCO – the 2016/17 Term will definitely be an exciting one for the Club!

The day, however, was far from over – with the tight schedule we had in mind, we decided to have not one, but two impromptu speech games – our very own Anchorvale ‘Improv’ Afternoon! It was safe to say that everyone in the room had the opportunity to participate and take up the challenge of speaking on the fly.

The first game was the Situation Speaker where speakers had to deliver a special speech while acting out a weird quirk! The twist of this challenge was – the audience will have no idea what the weird quirk is and will be expected to guess from the speaker’s presentation. With topics such as the new Singapore ‘Ghost-Busters’ team and quirks such as a speaker who simply enjoys inviting volunteers up for his/her speeches – each challenger stepped forward with great trepidation but eventually delivered their speeches with doubtless confidence – kudos to everyone who stepped up for the challenge!

The second game was a team-based improve game – Scenes From a Bag where teams of three speakers took turns to continue and complete a one-liner story and deliver their secret dialogue. The twist (there is always a twist) is that the speaker delivering the secret dialogue will not know the line that he/she has to say! Hilarity of course ensued as a grim kidnapping session suddenly turned into a romantic quest to find Salma Begum’s boyfriend – a gripping story from the start to the end as each team went out of their way to bring the story to even greater heights.

In yet another Anchorvale ‘twist’, the winner was decided based on the speaker/team with the loudest cheers and the audience certainly did not hold back with the support – it was near impossible deciding the winner of the games but finally a consensus was reached. Congratulations to the ribbon-winners for the afternoon:

·         Situation Speaker – Benjamin

·         Scenes From a Bag – Salma, Carolyn, Jenny, Sathiya

As the meeting drew to a close, our incoming, dashing and young Club President, Norman Tan, CC stepped forward to deliver his first Opening Address – ensuring that the meeting ended on an inspirational and motivational note. Norman shared his goals of 3 ‘M’s with us and his direction for the Club.

With that, another wonderful meeting concluded on a high and contented note. On a personal note, I would like to offer my thanks and appreciation again for everyone who has contributed to the ease of my journey as Club President – while the journey was not always smooth-sailing, the value I received from seeing our Members shine and grow at Anchorvale Toastmasters contributed to the very rewards of the role itself. I would also like to take the opportunity to welcome the incoming EXCO – you have all taken up a challenge that will give you the best challenges and yet, the best rewards; know that at the end of the day, if no one had stepped up, if every single one of you decided to take the easy way out and remain sitting, this Club would not go on. And the only reason why Anchorvale Toastmasters continue to grow and move forward is because of the passion, enthusiasm and talent of every single one of you – so keep stepping up!

Published by the versatile: Zulhafni Zulkeflee

Anchorvale's Special Chapter Meeting - An Epic Learning Bonanza on 28th May 2016

Magnificent greetings!

An extraordinary afternoon meeting for Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club as we gathered for our remarkable 90^th Chapter Meeting with a special guest, motivational speaker, Kevin Cottam! Kevin’s presentation on “Your Body Talks” is not only entertaining, it literally engaged all of our senses. 

Walking around in anger, sadness, happiness….. and imagining ourselves like a tree staying rooted to the ground, members participated in the workshop with lots of fun, laughter and learnings.

Next, our club president, Zulhafni, took on an unusual session explaining the roles and responsibilities of Executive Committee (EXCO) members of our club. He opened the invitation for nominees and volunteers to take up the fulfilling challenge of EXCO roles for the next term. Zulhafni took the time to share about the roles, responsibilities and REWARDS of each EXCO position. 

Provided below is a summary of the EXCO Positions:

• President - the Club president sets the tone and direction for the Club and has both the macro and micro view of the progress and development of the Club. By tradition and as part of succession planning, Anchorvale TMC usually elects the next Club President from the Vice-Presidents of Education as the latter provides the President with key experience in preparation for the President role.
• Vice-President (Education) ("VPE") - Has an intimate knowledge and oversight of the members' educational progress and goals. The VPE also works closely with other Clubs, forming a network to rely on for appointment-holders and speech slots
• Vice-President (Membership) ("VPM") - Promote the Club, initiating new guests, recruit new members, assist with Club renewal
• Vice-President (Public Relations) ("VPPR") - Club Web-master, recording videos and taking photographs of the Club meetings. The VPPR also manages the Club Facebook page and has the creative space to design the Club's branding
• Secretary - Maintaining of Club records, managing Club files, taking of Meeting Minutes. We are also considering adding the role of liaison as part of the scope of secretarial duties.
• Treasurer - Club’s accountant – will hold the bank account and process claims, keep detailed records of Club transactions and funds. There is no need to be fantastic at mathematics or statistics but should be meticulous and thorough 
• Sergeant-at-Arms ("SAA") - Has oversight over the Club supplies, stores and property and alos handles the logistical aspects of the Club. The SAA also coordinates the planning of the Club meetings (e.g. food purchase) and briefs the SAA of the meeting.

Before Zulhafni ended the session, came the “AHA” moment when our club mentor Jenny Au mentioned to the club members the decision to buy all eight of Kevin’s books “AHA” by both our club mentors (Jenny herself and Richard Tay) to be given to the incoming EXCO members. Added incentive, cheers!

Our VPE, Salma also took on another unusual session by giving pointers on how to complete the Competent Leadership manual. She urged all those present not to neglect the Leadership Track in our Toastmasters journey, an important part of the whole Toastmasters experience as it focuses on key areas of improvement such as our listening, thinking and leadership skills; aspects that are absolutely crucial in other areas of our personal and professional lives. She gave examples of how non EXCO members like Sridhar, Alice, Vinay, Owen and Karthik did projects in the manual by exhibiting their competency in organizing our club contests, as encouragement to members to come forward for such opportunities in the future. 

Salma ended by making a passionate call to all members to continuously pursue roles like project / language / general evaluations, toastmaster of the day, timer, ah counter and other roles. Members are also most welcome to suggest other events and volunteer themselves as organizers.

We started our prepared speech segment with a reminder from Saravanan that looking forward propels us to act instead of staying put on the past. Owen showed us the five commandments of alienating friends as an anti example to what not to do with his newly acquired body language skills from Kevin. Followed by Kevin himself, the blend of old and modern Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, was read to everyone on a comfortable circle seating arrangement.

Hareesh, Chye Bei’an, our gracious visitor from Money Mastery Toastmasters and Zulhafni’s evaluation of them proved to be great take aways not just for the speakers but for the members as well.

The already unique Chapter Meeting did not stop churning out surprises. Table Topic Master Chee Sian invited us all to attempt assuming the position of people in the pictures shown, who showed passion and competency in what they do through their body language. From an extreme photographer, high rise building window cleaner, skilled fork lifter, brave safari game keeper who mingled with a lion, barbeque welder, multiple servings bartender, mountain top ironing to traffic police perching themselves on top of traffic lights…..members had a challenging time taking on different extreme work roles. 

Special kudos should be given to Sridhar who did not do an “over the counter” Ah Counter report. Sridhar gave useful suggestions on how to avoid pause fillers, and paid attention to the most commonly repeated ones, instead of the usual reading out of the number of pause fillers used by each speaker. A very useful approach.

Drumroll….. and the awards go to……….

Best Prepared Speech: Owen Roma, TM

Best Table Topics Speaker: Sindu, TM

Looking forward to seeing all of you on 25th June 2016, our 91^st Chapter Meeting at Anchorvale CC 3rd Floor Conference Room from 2pm to 5pm. It will be a special occasion as it will be our AGM, EXCO Installation and Anchorvale Awards Bonanza!! It promises to be a feast as we end the term.

Written by: Wee Chee Sian CC,CL

Anchorvale TMC 89th Chapter Meeting on 14th May 2016

The 89^th chapter meeting of Anchorvale CC concluded last Saturday in a rather peculiar manner. Most in attendance, probably took away two main dishes. One, maid uniforms. The other, the admiration for inspirational people rather than speeches.

The chapter meeting held at the Sengkang West Zone ‘A’ RC Center was its usual cosy self. Nowhere near the typical formalities that one would witness in similar Toastmaster settings. 

On the contrary, doing away with the formalities allowed me, the Toastmaster of the Day, to welcome guests and club members in an unorthodox yet a heart-warming way.

Background music was played with familiar tunes from the past and present.

 

Owen, the Sergeant-At-Arms, called the meeting to order by greeting club members and guests with his ever-so charming bright smile. We could also say that other than his bright smile, second to that could be his forehead. Back on track, Owen asked everyone to introduce themselves.

To finish their introductions proper, Owen challenged the great minds of the club members and guests by getting them to answer on who they will like to emulate by being in someone else’s shoes.

Once the introductions were finished, it was evident that the visiting Toastmasters and maiden visitors were easing into the chapter meeting.

Benjamin took over the limelight from Owen by performing his role as the Toastmaster of the Day. With his experiences already being as a professional emcee, he knew he had to make the chapter meeting a memorable one.

 

And so, he asked the guests to guess his age.

To his inevitable disappointment, no one came close. Still, one visiting Toastmaster had the closest call with the answer of 26.  For a quick trivia, Benjamin is only 23 this year!

Moving on from there, the usual club members knew how different their introduction would be with Benjamin helming the role of Toastmaster of the Day. Each speaker had a powerful introduction! No disappointment at all!

For this 89^th chapter meeting, those in attendance were very fortunate to be listening to Leena Santore give her speech that made her Division Z’s International Speech Champion! What a delight it was, having to hear such a beautiful speech that spoke about her passion for dancing and the strong will she had in her to never succumb to failure!

 

On the note of speeches, there were a total of three Project Speeches and two Special Presentations.

Sindu embarking on her Project 2

Hemant doing his first project

 

Thomas doing his best to persuade us with his project 9

An evaluator is very crucial in helping to shape a Toastmaster in crafting their public speaking skills to the best that they can achieve. The evaluator points out the goods and those parts where improvements can be done to help sharpen their public speaking skills. 

We were very fortunate to be able to listen to five different evaluators who held different titles, which only meant that we were able to hear various styles of evaluating that each one grew accustomed to. The best part of hearing the Project Evaluations is that anyone can also pick up the pointers to help improve themselves too!

So once all the projects and evaluations were done, it was high time for Table Topics! Some love it. Some dread it. Some fear it. Some hate it. Some adore it. Some ‘sabo’ others for it. 

Vinay, the Table Topics Master, came up with a hilarious way of conducting the Table Topics. He brought back a little nostalgic moment within those present by presenting the Yellow Pages.

Yes, an actual book. Yes, with physical pages. Yes, you have to manually flip the pages too.

He prepared some slips of papers with page numbers on them. So participants will come up and draw a slip which will determine what page number they will be speaking on. The idea is that, the page number represents a certain advertisement and participants are to act out as representatives of that organisation/company.

 

As always, the first one up is always one that is ‘sabo’ for it. Participants drew out maid agency, security work, cleaning services to pest removal services. 

It is also, at this point of time, our maiden guests participated and gave their best despite having no experience whatsoever! A very commendable effort indeed!

Though, out of all the participants, those present would have vividly remember Zul for he drew a slip of paper that got him to represent a maid agency. In which, he said his maids will be able to cook for you. Clean for you. Take care of you. And, shower with you. No doubt that those who heard it, burst in a synchronised laughter!

It was an absolutely delightful meeting! If you want to experience more, do join us for our next chapter meeting on the 28^th of May 2016 at Anchorvale CC, 3^rd Floor Conference Room (Falcon) from 2pm to 5.30pm. 

We will be having another amazing array of prepared speeches, two important briefings about the EXCO roles and Competent Leadership Manual as well a fun pack of Table Topics.

Congratulations to all award winners!

Congratulations for completing your Ice Breaker Hemant

Best Table Topics: Benjamin Leow, CC

 

Best Project Evaluator: Muthu Rama Ganesh, CC/CL

Written By: Benjamin Leow