A Winsome Smile

Whoa! What a week it has been!! I've got loads of updates for you guys.. But first..

26 May 2009

Word of the Evening: WINSOME (sweetly or innocently charming, engaging, lovely, fascinating)

The nights event kickstarted with a sumptious dinner that had everyone displaying their winsome smile while tucking in. The SAA, Mr Michael Chan (Hilton TMC) calls the meeting to order at 6.45 p.m. Then, the charming President, Lim Sze Yue ;P, standing in on behalf of Mr Joshua George welcomes all present and delivers his presidential report. Ms Gina was at the helm of the meeting, assuming the role of Toastmaster of the Evening. She led all present to a brief introduction of the Toastmasters International club and also introduced her team for the night. Muthu Kumar as Timer, Allan Ma as Ah Counter, Deborah Hoe as Table Topics Master, Amy Choo as Table Topics Evaluator, Lucas Ng as Grammarian, and the General Evaluator is none other than Mr Joshua George.

Table topics time! In my whole journey with Toastmasters, I have never seen such an interesting table topics session. Seriously!! Think I'm bragging? Well, read on and find out for yourselves. Ms Deborah Hoe led the session with a winsome twist. We usually have to volunteer ourselves to take up the challenge of impromptu speaking right? Today, we don't have to. We usually sit at our own places as the session was conducted right? Today, we all sat in a circle. We Never had a music playing along the session right? Today, we had YMCA song blasting from the laptop! "I said young man,....." And a gift at the very end? Wow.

So, what exactly happened was..something like a musical chair. A parcel was passed along the circle as the music is being played. When the music stops, the person who is holding the parcel automatically "volunteers" to be the speaker. The topic will be unwrapped from the yellow parcel. Lucky number one was Bushra who looked "stunned" when the music came to a halt. However, the student from Yamen did an excellent job in speaking on My Dream Career. The music continues.. And it hits Muthu Kumar next! What Do You Enjoy Doing?? Mark his word, you all. He says he enjoys not listening to his friend's advice and loves going against the odds. It got me thinking, a winsome attitude or a foolish choice? Hmm.. Lady luck then decided to smile upon Gajendran, a handsome gentleman from Help University TMC. He took on his given speech title, Where Do You See Yourself in 2 Years Time? in the most steady manner I've ever seen. In 2 years, the man hopes to be a graduate lawyer, coming back and taking a plunge in the local politics scene, aspiring to sort out the mess we have here. Music plays..music stops. And Michael Chan speaks. He told us that he wants to be financially free and be able to retire in Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years? Yes, you can do it, Mr Michael!! The play button was hit and the parcel moved around once more. As fate would have it, the most talkative person in the club got the honour to speak. And that is our club's president, Mr Joshua George!! XD "In 10 years time, I would love to see my wife and I running a self-sustaining orphanage. It has been our dream to help the kids..." 5 speakers and you thought the session would wrap up? Nope. The music continues..and in fact, the session was so enjoyable that nobody objected to a 6th speaker.. Until it came to my hands..then Lucas'. Stop. Ms Deborah came to him and said all good things must come to an end, and as she unwraps the parcel..this book is for you, Lucas! *Ish..wasted lah, I silently whispered* :D Excellent, excellent session. We definitely experienced a whole new meaning towards table topics. Great job there, Ms Deborah and thank you very much!! XD XD

Aiks, much has been said of the table topics. So, I'm gonna keep it short on the evaluation. Amy Choo took the stage with her ever adorable evaluation of the 5 speakers. Then, humour was..erm awkwardly humourous! With Sam Fo and Muthu Kumar making their presence felt. And off we go to a short break...

Assignment speeches time! We had TM VITHIYA, a young, energetic, young, smart, young lady who amazed us with her Ice Breaker speech entitled, Me, Myself and I. For the record, this girl is fondly known as Maya among her friends. So, what did we found out about Maya? She is a Stamford student pursuing a Diploma in Mass Communication (correct me if I am wrong..) and can you belief this.. She is in the midst of penning down her life in a book, soon to be published! And she's only 18!

GAJENDRAN was next with his 9th project from the C&L Manual. Objective - Persuade With Power. The man brought the audience to the world of smokers with his speech entitled, Recipe For Disaster. Mix nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide concentration, put it in your mouth and there you go! A simple recipe for your disaster! That was the opening to his speech..very catchy isn't it? He went on to persuade the audience to stay away from smoking and for us to encourage our loved ones to stop smoking, if any.

LIM SZE YUE then took centrestage with his 3rd project from the Specialty Speeches Manual. Objective - Sell A Product. He had the audience listening to his sales talk on a seminar workshop known as 50 of Your Communication Problems Answered! The "product" was tailored for fellow toatmasters or anyone who would like to improve their communication skills.

General Evaluator, Mr JOSHUA GEORGE was then invited to the floor to lead the session. Assignment speech evaluators were Samuel Fo for Maya, Amy Choo for Gajendran, and Deborah Hoe for Sze Yue. All three gave encouraging feedbacks to the speakers as well as points to strengthen on. The roleplayers then delivered their reports followed by the general evaluation by Mr Joshua, ACB.

President, Sze Yue, took over and gave his closing remarks. Among others, he persuaded the members to attend a District 51 event, The Great Debate to be held the following day and received tremendous support from them. All 5 tickets we had were sold! We were even short of one... Hee~

That's a wrap from me! Thank you all for coming as well as for following up with this update.

Next winsome meeting: 9 June 2009. Same time, same venue.
Looking forward to your presence.

Up next, the SCTMC Annual General Meeting..who's the incoming EXCO Committee members??

Have a great week ahead! Cheers!!


Prepared by,
LIM SZE YUE
VPPR

Quote of the Evening: COMING HERE TODAY IS TRULY AN EYE-OPENING EVENT!