Hong Kong Toastmasters Club

Keys to Success

2012-01-27T16:38:00.002+08:00

There are many keys to success. Some people believe that positive attitude to life is one of the keys. In the prepared speech section of our regular meeting on 16 Jan 12, Amy shared her method of managing changes in her road to success and Ben, our “Marriage Advisor” in the evening, highlighted some keys to a successful marriage. Andrew, the best prepared speech speaker, inspired the audience by telling the story of Sir Ed (Edmund Percival Hillary) who was the first mountaineer conquered the summit of Mount Everest. In the table topic section, Ben demonstrated the “What’s up” and reminded us about a key to a successful speech - eliminating unnecessary words. Arthur, the best evaluator, evaluated the “Catwalk” of the best prepared speech speaker who was our “Gorgeous Model” at the night.

At the moment of welcoming the Year of Dragon, our club received two good news – our Andrew Yeung and Paul Wong achieved Competent Leader and Competent Communicator respectively. We congratulated on their accomplishments and wished them a cheerful voyage towards further goals in toastmastering.

The best prepared speech speaker : Andrew Yeung
The best table topic speaker : Ben Fung
The best evaluator : Arthur Ting

Clement Wong
President of Hong Kong Toastmasters Club 2011-12

The Year-end Delight

2011-12-29T21:41:00.008+08:00

The meeting on 19 Dec 11 was our last regular meeting in 2011. In the evening, we celebrated Christmas by decorating the meeting with a party right after our speakers' deliveries. At the middle of the term 2011-12, we also conducted an induction ceremony for our new members. We believed the foundation maintained by our seasoned members and the energy poured by our new blood would extend the strength of our club through the year transition. The venue was rife with joy and everyone was immersed in the speeches, foods, wine and music.

In the prepared speech section, Vincent, our ice breaker, shared his study-alone experience in UK and demonstrated how to kill butterflies in the stomach. Alice, who delivered her CC Manual Project 2, advised us on a prudent way of travel. Ai Ai, the best prepared speech speaker, taught us about “Second Wind”, which was a human phenomenon we might not be aware of but enjoyed sometimes in the fights during our lives. The “Second Wind” was further elevated by Edwin, the best evaluator, in his humorous evaluation in the evaluation section. In the table topic session, Michael, the best table topic speaker who was named “The Sophisticated”, told us about his gift obsession and travel obsession in the festival. At the night, it was our pleasure to invite Yingdan Liu, the District 85 Governor last year, to be our General Evaluator.

In the induction ceremony for our new members, the process affirmed not only their membership but also their importance in our club. People are always the most valuable assets in our family. Amid the cheerful atmosphere, we wished all of our members who were unable to join us on the date a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to enjoying public speeches with you in 2012.

The best prepared speech speaker: Ai Ai Ong
The best table topic speaker: Michael Boynton
The best evaluator: Edwin Lui

Clement Wong
President of Hong Kong Toastmasters Club 2011-12

Sharing in front of Fire

2011-12-27T23:13:00.010+08:00

Our very enterprising VPPR, Donald (aka "Organizer of Winners", "Bringer of Pleasant Surprises") organized a BBQ that was held on Sunday evening, December 18th, as a club Fall/Winter/pre-Xmas celebration. The event was well attended by members and we had a couple of special guests as well, in the persons of Liu Yingdan, last year's District 85 Governor, all the way from Shanghai, and Molly Yip, Assistant Division H Governor, all the way from Central. It was staged at the Whitehead Club in Ma On Shan (http://www.whiteheadclub.com/eng/index.html). The ample food offering included delicious scallops and a suckling pig. The evening was a bit chilly but the BBQ fires and the camaraderie warmed everyone. A great time was had by all who attended. In addition to a huge BBQ site, the venue has a golf driving range-- perhaps an opportunity for a future HKTMC outing?

Summary of Dec 5th Meeting

2011-12-10T13:54:00.001+08:00

The holiday season is already upon us, judging from the several empty seats in our meeting room, a rare occurence. We had a lively meeting nonetheless, thanks, in large part, to several first time role-takers: Vivien, in the TME role; Sergio, as Table Topics Master; Alice, as Timekeeper; and Martin, as Ah Counter.

The meeting theme was furry companions.

In the prepared speech session, Vanessa told us everything about healthy eating. Ling entertained us with a funny, but also scary, remembering of her experience having eye surgery. Eng Wah educated us on the topic of poverty in HK.

In the table topics session, Ai Ai told us about how satisfying it can be to adopt a dog from Hong Kong Dog Rescue (HKDR). Michael opined that he doesn't think HK apartments are a healthy environment in which to keep dogs. Marcus revealed that he thinks having a dog as a pet is good way to meet girls. Max, a Toastmaster visiting from Australia, informed us that the fish tank in his dentist office really helps to set patients at ease.

Awards for the evening:

Best Prepared Speech Speaker: Ling
Best Table Topics Speaker: Max
Best Evaluator: Rita

From 20111205 - HKTMC - Furry Companions

Summary of Nov 21st Meeting

2011-12-02T20:16:00.001+08:00

We had an exciting meeting with lots of laughs.

Ben did a masterful job as replacement TME, on very short notice.

In her Icebreaker speech, Alice informed us that she likes to read and watch movies. She also told us that Toastmasters fills her with good feelings-- in part because there are no exams, lol. In a humourous and lively performance, Peter argued that willpower is the key to success. And Amy informed us that we need not always fear strangers; they can sometimes be kind and helpful.

In the table topics session, Philip showed he knows how to tell a tall tale. He fooled several in the audience with his story about just arriving back from the U.S., where he led the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Thanks to Claire Lo, a travelling Toasmaster from New York, for taking on the role of General Evaluator. We enjoyed sharing with her at dinner after the meeting.

Award winners on the night were:

Best Prepared Speech Speaker: Amy
Best Table Topic Speaker: Alan
Best Evaluator: Rita

We also gave (long overdue) recognition to some club members for their recent Toastmaster Education Program achievements:

Rita - CL
Ben - CC and AS1
Joanne - CC

From 20111121 - HKTMC - Tall Tales

Summary of Nov 7th Meeting

2011-11-20T16:57:00.000+08:00

Our club Speakathon was a great success! We managed to squeeze in eight speeches and oral evaluations in the alotted time (almost). Thanks to everyone who contributed.

All the speeches were of high quality and several of the evaluations were outstanding. Michael told us a humourous story about his past tendency to lose interest in his pursuits. Marcus explained to us the importance of personal branding. Vivien told us about her close relationship with her brother. We learned that Jenny has an interest in Journalism. Sergio warned us about the dangers of being overweight. Steven schooled us on the subject of Statistics. Ernest informed us that growing up isn't all good. And Nat regailed us with another story about how "crime doesn't pay".

Award winners were:

For best Prepared Speech: Steven Wong
For best Evaluation: Arthur Ting

From 20111107 - HKTMC - Speakathon

Summary of October 31st Meeting

2011-11-06T18:52:00.001+08:00

The meeting theme was "Biggest Fears". The word of the evening, courtesy of our Grammarian, William, was "paranoia".

We were blessed with an external GE, Molly Yip, Assistant Division H Governor. She provided some good humour and expert feedback in her evaluation session, and presented the Best Table Topic Speaker of the evening, Ben, with a TI ring. Thanks again to Molly for helping out despite her busy schedule.

In his CC#2 prepared speech, Alan presented us with the ABCDEs of maintaining a positive outlook and overcoming the challenges life throws at us. In his CC#4 speech, Jonathan educated us with his story of "three apples that changed the world" and left us to ponder over the question of what the fourth apple might be. In a well delivered and entertaining CC#9 speech, Aaron made a powerful case for providing the youth of Hong Kong opportunities to fend for themselves.

In the Table Topics session, Ben related to us his first table topic experience, Donald told us how to overcome our biggest fears, Peter argued that fear can be motivating in a positive way, and Jonathan revealed that he is most afraid of himself, lol.

Awards for the evening went to:

Best Prepared Speech : Aaron
Best Table Topic Speech : Ben
Best Evaluator: Rita

Share The Happiness

2011-11-02T23:24:00.004+08:00

Dear Members,

Our Matthew Lee would like to invite us to his wedding ceremony on 12 Nov 2011 to share the happiness. Let's participate and congratulate the Lee's. Cheers.

Results of the Division G Evaluation Contest

2011-10-22T20:39:00.007+08:00

Congratulations to Asta! She gave yet another sterling contest performance and was First Runner-up.

From 20111022 - Division G Evaluation Contest

Summary of October 17 Meeting

2011-10-22T13:16:00.003+08:00

We had a great joint meeting with the TGIT club during which we were treated to some impressive performances by very experienced and accomplished Toastmasters.

The prepared speeches were informative and entertaining. Vanessa gave us a very comprehensive roadmap to health, without notes. Nat informed us that we can accomplish anything so long as we can vividly picture ourselves doing it. Irene explained why she competes. And Andrew related the touching and somewhat sad story of the oft abandoned Ng Meow.

Ernest conducted the Table Topics session in an inventive fashion, passing out numbered topics to the audience randomly before selecting speakers by thinking of a number.

Prepared Speech evaluators Vanessa Li and Terence Ip (TGIT), and Asta Lee (HKTMC), put on an evaluation clinic. Not surprising, as both Asta and Vanessa have made it all the way to the Division G English Evaluation Speech Contest, to be held this coming weekend.

The GE of the evening, Hameed Jalal (TGIT), a long-time Toastmaster and former HKTMC President (several times), regaled us with stories of how things used to be in the HK Toastmaster community.

The theme of the evening was quotes. Our TME, Joanne, diligently collected and related the favourites of our role players:

“God helps those who help themselves."

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” (Albert Einstein)

"Play what's in front of you."

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance"

"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing" (Oscar Wilde)

“Do what you say & never say what you won't do.”

“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.” (Plato)

"Impossible is nothing." (Adidas)

“It is better to ask forgiveness than it to ask for permission.”

“We live to learn well, and learn to live well.”

"Go the last mile, and enjoy the victory."

"Every road leads to Rome.”

"Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial, everything is permissible but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others" (1 Corinthians 10:23-24)

'Life is like a story, it doesn't have to be long, it just has to be good'

"Love many, trust few, and do harm to no one" (TV show Survivor).

"Pain is temporary, but quitting lasts forever" (Lance Armstrong).

“No beginning, no end, just the journey...enjoy.” (Mark Young)

“Do something everyday that you don’t want to do....” (Samuel Clemens)

****

Award winners of the evening (presented by TGIT President, Mark Young) were:

Best Prepared Speech: Andrew Yeung

Best Table Topic: Nat Hix

Best Evaluation: Vanessa Li (TGIT)

From 20111017 - HKTMC - Quotes

My first summit attempt - Mt. Kinabalu, Sabah

2011-09-19T14:02:00.005+08:00

Sabah, a beautiful state consists by numbers of islands in South China Ocean, the marvelous mountain Kinabalu situated at the middle of the peaceful mainland of Sabah, it is so respectful that cherish several of legends for those inhabitant.

This August, My friends and I were there for a special hike on the Low's peak of the Mountain Kinabalu. It is 4095.2 meter above sea-level. It really was a challenge for us because we have never been on any land in that height and freezing temp, even we have had been started training to strengthen our body from a year before, but still we ere exhausted after the hike.

We took 2 days for the trail attempt, the first day climb from mountain HQ at 1800 m to base camp at 3200m, and then stayed in the base camp overnight. The second morning climbed the rest of 1000m at 3 a.m, we finally reached the Low’s peak (The highest peak of the mountain) at 7 a.m., and descend to mountain HQ at the rest of second day.

It was luck for us because we have awesome weather during the hike. Although some team members had suffered symptoms of AMS “High attitude sickness”. But we finally made it at the time the sunshine started to warm the land.

I felt very excited because of the achievement of ambitious goal, the target makes us stay very focus even how hard it would be. I think the summit attempt is similar to toastmaster, where people could follow road map travel from the starting point to the peak (likewise awards of the program).

I am posting some pictures here to share my happiness to you. I wish you enjoy it.

Never give up guys.
Thomas

Winners in Area Contests

2011-09-16T21:21:00.000+08:00

Let's congratulate Asta and San!

In the Area G1 Contests conducted on 10 Sep 2011, Asta won the 1st Place Winner in the Evaluation Contest and advanced to the Division G Contest to be organized in Oct 2011. In the Humorous Speech Contest, San shared her My Crazy Ideas with the audience and was awarded the 3rd Place Winner.

Evaluation Contest
1st Place Winner : Asta Lee(Hong Kong Toastmasters Club)

Humorous Speech Contest
3rd Place Winner : San Kong(Hong Kong Toastmasters Club)

Matthew was invited to be the Test Speaker in the Evaluation Contest.

Humorous Speech Contest
1st Place Winner : Sophia Wong(GAP-Graduates & Professionals-Toastmasters Club)

Humorous Speech Contest
2nd Place Winner : Edison Tsui(GAP-Graduates & Professionals-Toastmasters Club)

Evaluation Contest
2nd Place Winner : Louis Lam(GAP - Graduates & Professionals Toastmasters Club)

Evaluation Contest
3rd Place Winner : Flora Ng(GAP - Graduates & Professionals Toastmasters Club)

The Judge Team.

The Contestants.

The Facilitator Team.

Humorous Speech Contest

1st Place Winner : Sophia Wong(GAP-Graduates & Professionals-Toastmasters Club)
2nd Place Winner : Edison Tsui(GAP-Graduates & Professionals-Toastmasters Club)
3rd Place Winner : San Kong(Hong Kong Toastmasters Club)

Evaluation Contest

1st Place Winner : Asta Lee(Hong Kong Toastmasters Club)
2nd Place Winner : Louis Lam(GAP - Graduates & Professionals Toastmasters Club)
3rd Place Winner : Flora Ng(GAP - Graduates & Professionals Toastmasters Club)

Clement Wong
President of Hong Kong Toastmasters Club 2011-12

Summary of Sep 5 In-house Contests

2011-09-06T17:20:00.002+08:00

We held the in-house Humourous and Evaluation Speech Contests on September 5th. In the Humourous Speech Contest, we were entertained by Nat, Vanessa, Amy, San, Edwin, Donald, and Ai Ai. Our test speaker for the Evaluation Contest, Ling Ong, was evaluated by contestants Edwin, Asta, Ai Ai and Nat.

The first and second place winners in each contest were eligible to compete in the Area contests on September 10th. In the the Humourous Speech Contest, San, Ai Ai, and Donald place first, second, and third, respectively; in the Evaluation contest, Asta and Ai Ai placed first and second.

From 20110905 - HKTMC - H/E Contests

Bauhinia "2011 SpeechCraft"

2011-09-04T16:02:00.022+08:00

You may recall that the President of Bauhinia Mandarin Toastmasters Club, Eva Tang, visited us at our regular meeting on August 15, 2011 to promote the Bauhinia "2011 SpeechCraft" lecture series. According to a recent email from Eva:

"...
1) Bauhinia "2011 SpeechCraft" is the non-profit making "10-lecture public speaking course", to be held during Oct-Dec 2011.

2) The course is conducted in Putonghua by the 10 past presidents of Bauhinia Mandarin Toastmasters Club and its context is base on CC manual.

3) Prerequiste : Participants must be able to read Chinese and to communicate in Putonghua.

4) Course fee is HK$300.

5) Venue : Room 1101, Scout Centre, 8 Austin Road. Kowloon.

6) Enrollment and inquiry : Please contact Philip Ngan at mobile no. 9080-2329 or e-mail : ngan66@hotmail.com
..."

Smart Speakers

2011-08-22T00:00:00.003+08:00

In the regular meeting on 15 Aug 11, our Ice Breakers demonstrated smart ways of delivering Project 1 of the Competent Communication (CC) Manual. Alan, the first Ice Breaker in the evening, aroused our curiosity by dropping hints for the audience to guess his occupation. The IT Manager shared his experience of giving a 3-hour lecture and preventing his students from falling asleep concurrently. Sergio, the second Ice Breaker in the evening, told us his journey of carrying out an important mission assigned by his country was initiated by a lucky draw and his luck brought him to Hong Kong.

At the night, it was our pleasure to invite Ivy Chan, a seasoned Toastmaster who won a number of titles in different speech contests in different levels, to provide a humorous speech workshop to our club. Ivy not only explained several methods of constructing a humorous speech by comparing them with cooking skills in a simile smartly but also taught us how to decorate speeches with rhymes.

“A smart person is someone who is able to hire smart people.” In the table topic section, Ben, who was asked to suggest a smart way to work if he was elected as Miss Hong Kong, shared his view of being a smart person and brought laughter to the venue during the play of a pretty and wise Hong Kong representative.

The best table topic speaker: Ben Fung
The best evaluator: Andrew Yeung

Clement Wong
President 2011 - 12

Speak to Lead

2011-08-06T00:58:00.003+08:00

“A good speaker may not be a good leader, but a good leader must be a good speaker.” San, the table topic master, and Ling, the best table topic speaker, brought this point to every audience and connected us to our club motto “Speak to Lead!” on 1 Aug 11. Ling, who was the dual winner at the night, suggested leaders should adopt the approach of “Teaching someone to fish instead of feeding someone on fish.” to help the grassroots in the best-prepared-speech-speaker presentation. In the evaluation section, Ai Ai, the best evaluator, analyzed Amy’s speech with reference to the techniques highlighted in Project 1 to 5 of the Competent Communication Manual.

Leaders are also learners. Therefore, we invited two heavyweights to our meeting to demonstrate evaluation skills to the leaders and the to-be leaders. In the evening, it was our club’s honour to welcome Manfred Leung, our Division G Governor to be the general evaluator and Andrew Yeung, our Area G1 Governor to be the speaker of the evaluation workshop in which the speeches of the president of the states were evaluated (Wow!).

The best prepared speech speaker: Ling Ong
The best table topic speaker: Ling Ong
The best evaluator: Ai Ai Ong

Clement Wong
President 2011 - 12

Tips for Health

2011-07-31T22:41:00.003+08:00

Many foods, especially most of our favourite snacks, are chemically or biologically defined as junk foods because of the content of sugar, salt or cholesterol. However, they could be regarded as spiritually health foods owing to their mental functions. We agree that enjoying beloved chocolates, soft drinks or cakes etc. after working around the clock is a kind of relief and a way to re-energize our body, don’t you? In the regular meeting on 18 Jul 2011, our speakers shared their views on health and illness, not only of people, but also of the globe. Here are the highlights:-

Stage fright is unquestionably a disease from which many people suffer. In the first prepared speech, San advised us on the method of conquering the disease by playing a role model. She delivered her Project 1 – The Ice Breaker of the Competent Communication (CC) Manual in which she shared her journey of pursuing career goal from her first impromptu speech in the Club.

In the second prepared speech, Thomas reminded us about the consequences caused by the carbon emission from human’s excessive use of vehicles in his Project 3 – Get to the Point of the CC Manual. In order to deal with this global issue, he proposed several solutions, particularly some means by which Hong Kongers could contribute to the world, to the audience.

In the third prepared speech, we enjoyed a live version of An Inconvenient Truth. Ai Ai, who was the best prepared speech speaker in the evening, drew our attention to the impact induced by various ways of power production on the earth. In her Project 8 – Get Comfortable With Visual Aids of the CC Manual, she furnished us with a deep analysis of the energy crisis we currently encounter. Ai Ai also gave us comparison between our brisk planet at previous stage and the infected one at present by illustrating panoramic photos that demonstrated global transitions. At the end of the speech, we learnt more from her recommendations of certain sustainable energy alternatives.

In the table topic section, Donald, our table topic master, invited unrehearsed speakers by introducing few health-related topics. Michael shared the moments of enjoying the “super foods” elaborately prepared by his wife with us and disclosed his work-out plan. Emma suggested everybody to maintain positive attitude and keep taking fresh air in order to combat mental illness. Arthur advised that playing mah-jong, studying and, especially, participating Hong Kong Toastmasters Club’s events were good choices to nourish our brains. Eventually, Calvin told us his tips of being financially healthy. Since each of the table topic speakers earned equal number of ballots from the audience, we had to announce a tie in the selection of the best table topic speaker at the night.

In the evaluation section, Arthur, Amy and Edwin were the evaluators for the first, second and third prepared speeches respectively. Edwin’s suggestion of wearing T-shirt with “Against Nuke” on the chest as one of the visual aids for presentations of environmental-protection topics brought laughter thoughout the meeting room. Nat, who was the best evaluator, created another peak of the meeting by giving us a vivid and humorous evaluation.

Finally, Rita, our general evaluator, provided very useful comments on the meeting arrangement for our improvement.

The winners in the evening:-

The best prepared speech speaker: Ai Ai Ong
The best evaluator: Nat Hix

Clement Wong
President 2011-12

The New Chapter

2011-07-31T21:33:00.004+08:00

4 Jul 11 was the new chapter of the Club, because the first regular meeting and the Club Officer Installation Ceremony of the term 2011-12 were carried out on the date. It was grateful that we invited Andrew Yeung, our Area Governor, to be our Installing Officer. Thanks Andrew!

The theme of the evening was “My Favourite Book”. Nat, the best prepared speech speaker, brought a documentary about people mingling on the world to us in a vivid way. Ling, the best table topic speaker, told us about the enjoyment of being a book listener instead of being a book reader. Ben, the best evaluator, gave a comprehensive and detailed evaluation of Amy’s presentation of The Little Prince to the audience.

The Best Prepared Speech Speaker - Nat Hix

The Best Table Topic Speaker - Ling Ong

The Best Evaluator - Ben Fung

Clement Wong
President 2011-12

Handover

2011-07-31T20:30:00.010+08:00

On 24 Jun 11, the torch was handed over from Committee 2010-11 to Committee 2011-12 in a marvellous dinner at Wanchai. Fantastic Italian cuisine, pleasant red wine, cheerful impromptu speeches, sincere sharing......

Clement Wong
President 2011-12

Humourous Speech Workshop August 15 2011

2011-07-26T00:17:00.010+08:00

Ivy Chan of Island Toastmasters Club will present the following workshop at our August 15, 2011 regular club meeting:

Title: Make Audience Laugh

"Everyone’s sense of humor is different, but anyone can make anyone else laugh. Incorporating humor before or within your communication is the most effective way to connect with your audience".

Workshop outline (20 mins):

Demo Humorous speech (7 mins)
Share tips & techniques (12 mins)

by Ivy CHAN, ACS, CL

Island Toastmasters Club,

Hong Kong, Division H, District 85

Don't miss this opportunity to learn from a very experienced and accomplished Toastmaster:

Biography of Ivy CHAN

Member of Island Toastmasters Club since 1993

2^ndplace winner of Interclub Humorous Speech Contest, 1995, Hong Kong

3^rd place winner of Area V1 Humorous Speech Contest, 2003, Hong Kong

3^rd place winner of Area H5 Humorous Speech Contest, 2007, Hong Kong

2^nd place winner of Area H3 Humorous Speech Contest, 2010, Hong Kong

Champion of Division H Humorous Speech Contest, 2010, Hong Kong

3^rd place winner of District 85 Humorous Speech Contest, 2010, Beijing

Club President of Island Toastmasters Club, 2000/2001

Area H2 Governor, Division H, District 50, 2001/2002

Division H Governor, District 80, 2008/2009

Club Humourous Speech and Evaluation Contests - Sep 5 2011

2011-07-24T17:17:00.032+08:00

Our in-house Humorous and Evaluation Speech contests will be held on Monday, September 5, 2011, in place of our regular club meeting. If you wish to participate as a contestant, please register with our Contest Chair, Peter Ho (vpm@toastmasters.org.hk), or with Michael Boynton (vpe@toastmasters.org.hk).

Unlike the International Speech Contest where at least the first six speeches from the CC manual must have been completed in order to be eligible to compete, the Humourous Speech and Evaluation contests have no eligibility requirement other than that you be a member in good standing (have you paid your fees yet?). Everyone, new and experienced members alike, are therefore urged to grab this golden opportunity to improve their public speaking skills by competing.

I believe that this year two winners from each in-house contest will be eligible to compete in the Area level contests to be held on a Saturday between 10th to 30th of September.

Some Stuff You Should Know About the Contests

Speech Timings

Humourous Speeches: 5-7 minutes in length; less than 4.5 minutes or more than 7.5 minutes results in disqualification; green signal at 5 minutes, yellow signal at 6 minutes, red signal at 7 minutes; unlike at regular club meetings, the coloured timing signals will remain aloft until the next one is hoisted or the speech has ended.

Evaluations: 2-3 minutes in length; less than 1.5 minutes or more than 3.5 minutes results in disqualification; green signal at 2 minutes, yellow signal at 2.5 minutes, red signal at 3 minutes; unlike at regular club meetings, the coloured timing signals will remain aloft until the next one is hoisted or the speech has ended.

Contest Rules (from the TI Speech Contest Rulebook)

Humorous Speech Contest Rules

The Humorous Speech Contest follows all rules outlined in the General Rules section of this rulebook. In addition, the following additions and exceptions apply.
1. The subject for the humorous speech shall be selected by the contestant. The speaker shall avoid potentially objectionable language, anecdotes, and material.
2. The speech must be thematic in nature (opening, body, and close), not a monologue (series of one-liners).

Evaluation Speech Contest Rules

The Evaluation Speech Contest follows all rules outlined in the General Rules section of this rulebook. In addition, the following additions and exceptions apply.
1. At the beginning of this contest, a five- to seven-minute test speech will be presented.
   A. The test speech shall be either a contest-type speech, or taken from one of the assignments in the Competent Communication manual.
   B. Contestants are permitted to make preparatory notes during the test speech using materials of their choice.
   C. It is recommended that at all levels of the contest, the Toastmaster giving the test speech is not a member of the same club as any one of the contestants.
   D. The test speaker shall be introduced by announcing the speaker’s name, speech title, speech title, and the speaker’s name.
   E. Neither the manual project nor any objectives that the speaker may have shall be made known to the contestants, judges, or audience.
2. At the conclusion of the test speech, all contestants shall leave the room. They then have five minutes to prepare their evaluation using materials of their choice.
   A. Timing and preparation supervision shall be under the control of the contest sergeant at arms.
   B. Where it is not practical for contestants to leave the room, contestants will complete their five minute preparation in the same room under the control of the contest sergeant at arms.
3. After five minutes have elapsed, no further preparation shall be allowed and with the exception of the first contestant, who shall be called back as first evaluator, all others shall hand all written material to the contest sergeant at arms. Preparation material shall be handed back to contestants as they are introduced to present their evaluation.
4. Introduce each contestant by announcing the contestant’s name twice. Note that this differs from the standard name, speech title, speech title, name, because evaluation speeches do not have titles.

Summary of June 20 2011 Meeting

2011-07-06T12:08:00.004+08:00

Dear members,

“Thank You For the Music”. Why? Everyone loves listening to music as there is music that suits any mood or occasion or celebration. Even bird chirping is a form of music to the ears and a way for us to relax. That's what greeted our members and guests when they arrived at our club meeting Monday, June 20^th. It was a treat from our TME Philip Ngan.

Clement created melodious music with the words in his speech titled the Four Seasons. He stayed true to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons violin concertos where the music speaks to us about the changes of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. His speech evoked in us the emotional differences in the changing seasons.

Thomas and Matthew both delivered their 2nd project speech. Thomas shared with us how to keep a positive outlook in life. Matthew gave us good tips on how to beat inflation. He demonstrated how to cook a delicious roast pork meal for up to 8 friends for only HK$250. (after the meeting note – he forgot the gravy though.)

Rita based her table topic questions on MUSIC - memorable and unforgettable, inspirational. Ben even sang to us when relating how he had a memorable and unforgettable evening a decade ago (did we detect some sighs of regret?).

We had a visitor from Glasgow (Scotland) Toastmasters Club. He shared with us the trend in Glasgow for people to go to a Sing-Along version of the Sound of Music movie at the cinema. Apparently, some people are so into it that they even come dressed in the nun's habit. For our Gen Y members, please check out the Sound of Music in Youtube to know what some of the older generation club members were reminiscing about.

The winners of the evening:

Best Prepared Speech Speaker - Clement Wong

Best Evaluator - Diana Lee

Surprisingly, we did not have a clear winner for the Best Table Topic Speaker for the evening.

I announced that our club this year achieved the Select Distinguished Club award. This means we achieved up to 7 of the 10 goals set by Toastmasters International. Apart from just a number that our club achieved, it means that personal goals were realized by some of our members. These achievements also reassert the value that Toastmasters brings to people who wish to improve their communication and leadership skills. Both Joanne Chuk and Ben Fung attained the CC. Paul Breen and Rita Tsui completed the CL. Our club successfully renewed 36 members and recruited 14 new members. We also sent a total of 8 club officers to the COT (Club Officers Training).

I would like to thank all my committee members. You were tremendous to work with during the year and I have learnt such a lot from you.

Our incoming committee members for the term 2011-12 are as follows:

President: Clement Wong

VPE: Michael Boynton, Thomas Chung, San Kong

VPM: Amy Chan, Nat Hix, Peter Ho, Martin Wong

VPPR: Donald Wong

Secretary: Edwin Lui

Treasurer: Jonathan Mok

SAA: Yip Ka Wing

I wish them all success and fun next year.

Signing off:

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010-11

Mobile WiFi

2011-06-20T14:24:00.001+08:00

The club bought a mobile 3g/wifi router last year for two main reasons;

1. So that members who need to connect to the web during club meetings could do so.

and

2. So that the committee could access the web during meetings, if needed.

The router hasn't made it to many meetings but Diana tells me that she uses it a lot for club business outside meetings. I guess this is OK but I'd still like to see the router at meetings if possible.

Our contract for the router is with Three Hong Kong and the monthly charge is HK$192.00 I just checked with Three today and they told me the contract end date is 08 july 2012.

It's quite expensive to run so I'd like to see the club get more use of this router. I hope the router makes it to more meetings in the future.

The Very Important Date

2011-06-15T21:30:00.001+08:00

30 May 11 is not only my birthday, but also the very important date on which I was elected to be the President 2011-12. First of all, thanks for the ceaseless supports from all members.

As I shared in the presidential election speech, the variety of cultural backgrounds, professional qualifications and styles found in Hong Kong Toastmasters Club is unquestionably one of our strengths. I would strive to sustain this trademark and explore opportunities to further widen our diversity. At the moment, it is cheerful to announce that the Committee 2011-12 has been synthesized by a number of enthusiastic members. We do look forward to initiating the new chapter of the Club. Let’s open the floodgate of our passion.

Regards,

Clement
President 2011-12

Summary of May 30 2011 Meeting

2011-06-05T20:23:00.004+08:00

At this meeting, we were transported from a hospital in Hong Kong, onward to Xinjiang, and then to the Amazon rainforest. Ka Wing reminded us of the things we need to bring with us to the hospital to make one’s hospital stay more pleasant, if that is possible. Michael was so taken with his holiday in Xinjiang that he had to share the beautiful sights and the taste of the place. We even got to try the famous extra sugary raisins from Turpan. “Uncle Andrew”’s storytelling took us to the great Amazon jungle where we learned that one must expect the unexpected.

The theme of the evening was Good to Great. Encouragingly, the theme was repeated throughout the evening during speeches and by the facilitators. We also heard that our President wants to take our club from good to great; TME Nat said he wanted to take the meeting from good to great; our Table Topic Master Joanne asked us about the difference between a good and great speaker, a good and a great parent, a good and a great partner/lover/spouse, and finally, about whether one should try to change their partner in order to help them become great. In response to the latter, Jo Manning shared with us her strong view that no one should ever try to change another. Joanne finished off the session by giving us a surprise by rendition of Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” (“…Don’t Go Changing....ummmm...uuummmmm...I want you just the way you are…”).

We held our club’s Presidential election for 2011-12. We had 2 candidates: Nat Hix and Clement Wong. Both are fairly new members to our club. A total of 19 members attended and the vote was very close. I am pleased to announce that our new Club President will be Clement Wong, who will assume the role from 1 July. Clement will be forming his new committee shortly and for those who are interested to help and support him during his term to ensure our club continues on the road from good to great, please step forward and nominate yourself. We need to fill the roles VP Education, VP Membership, VP Public Relations, Treasurer and Secretary. Please contact Clement to express your interest. There will be a Club Officers Training (COT) on 11 June, so we would need to get this finalized soon.

The great speakers for the evening:

Great Prepared Speech Speaker Andrew Yeung

Great Table Topic Speaker Jo Manning

Great Evaluator Edwin Lui

Please note that there will be no meeting on 6 June due to the public holiday. Our next meeting will be on 20 June. And it being the last meeting of the 2010-11 year, we are planning to serve some light refreshment. Please do make time to attend this last meeting of the year.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President 2010-11

May 29th Hike to Nam Sang Wai

2011-06-05T17:40:00.002+08:00

We finally had our hike, or should I say walk, as there was not a single hill in sight in Nam Sang Wai (of course, it’s a wetland). A group of close to 20 people participated. Among the group, about 40% were Toastmasters, from our club and from HKUST MBA Alumni Club. The walk started from the Yuen Long West Rail Station and took us first to the village directly behind the station. After we went past the first cluster of village houses, our trail then took us to more widely spaced village houses. After nearly 1 hour of slow walk, we came upon an obstruction- some villagers had locked a gate to block the path. We had to make a U-turn to return to a forked road further back on the trail. We then went through a rather uninteresting stretch but we saw there were many cars backed up in a heavy congestion in this otherwise serene seeming backwater of Hong Kong. At this point, we came to the Tau Fu Fa (bean curd dessert) joint run by Donald’s friend. It was great to slurp down the sweet dessert as it restored our energy, which had been sapped by the hot weather.

To me, the scenery got better after our little stop, as the landscape became more lush and idyllic. It was covered by what seemed like reeds as far as the eye could see. Then there was an incredible vista consisting of some tall trees grown in two rows. It was eye catching and attractive and a number of to-be-married couples chose to do a photo-shoot in this area. We then wandered to some little houses that have been abandoned but are a stop for many visitors in this area. According to some members of our group, several movies have been shot in this area and the houses have been featured in the movies/documentaries. Being a wetland, there are supposedly lots of bird species in this area. Unfortunately, we rarely spotted any birds. Anyway, shortly after this stop, we came to a little estuary which we could only cross by getting on a boat. It was nearly an hour wait to get on the boat and the boat ride of less than 5 minutes cost HK$5. Each of the boats could only carry up to 8 people. However annoying, it was also quaint and definitely an experience. The boatmen must certainly be the very few of a rare breed in Hong Kong, still rowing a boat without the aid of an engine to ferry passengers across a river.

Of course a walk would not be complete without the mandatory sumptuous dinner at the end. And we were not disappointed in this aspect. Donald, being such an excellent organizer, took us to a famous roasted goose restaurant called Song Kee to have our feast. We had the goose and “Pun Choi” and other delicious treats and our bill only came to HK$75 each. We definitely will have to do this again. Some of us, who still had the energy to carry on, went on to some famous dessert in Yuen Long. As for me, I was ready to go home after a long walk and such a big dinner.

Until the next walk-hike.

Ai Ai

From HKTMC - 20110529 - Walk to Nam Sang Wai

Hiking to Nam Sang Wai May 29

2011-05-22T12:41:00.002+08:00

Donald is organising another hike to Nam Sang Wai, as the last one he planned did not take place due to rain.

Please find details as follows:

Time : 2.30PM.
Where : Nam Sang Wai near Yuen Long. Easy hike that takes about 2 hours (5km total) to complete.
Gather at : Yuen Long Station.
Side attraction : Early dinner at the famous Dai Wing Wah Restaurant OR Chung Kee Fried Goose Restaurant.

Donald's friend Anthony is offering to show us his house in Nam Sang Wai (where they shot parts of Infernal Affairs 2) and to show us around. His restaurant also offers some great sweet Tofu.

Please confirm if you will come. Donald's mobile is 61468860.

Ai Ai Ong

Calling for nominations for our club’s President for 2011-12

2011-05-22T12:15:00.000+08:00

At our next meeting, we will elect our club’s next President, as my term ends by 30 June 2011.

The are several benefits to being a Toastmaster Club President. It gives you the opportunity to practice your public speaking skills and lead people in a volunteering group outside of your work environment. It provides you a platform to volunteer your time towards the cause of helping other people improve their lives through better speaking and leadership skills. It also gives you the chance to network beyond your own circle of friends and colleagues in a Toastmaster community in Hong Kong that numbers in the thousands.

Do send in your nominations to me at ongaiai@hotmail.com by next Saturday, 28th of May.

As per the normal practice in our club’s President election process, if there is more than one candidate for the President’s post, an election speech of no more than 3 minutes duration will be required. The master of the election process will send you the instructions prior to the meeting to advise you the format and theme for your election speech.

Best regards,

Ai Ai

Summary of May 16 2011 Meeting

2011-05-21T21:31:00.001+08:00

According to Wikipedia, truthiness is a "truth" that a person claims to know intuitively "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. If our club had a prize for the best Word of the Day from a Grammarian, then it would be awarded to Nat for introducing us to this word at the meeting. It was after all the Word of the Year in 2005. It went down very well with attendees and it was used again and again during the evening.

For the first time this year, our club hosted a joint meeting in our home venue with the HKUST MBA Alumni Toastmasters Club. We had a rather packed room, what with the usual large number of curious visitors wanting to find out more about Toastmasters, the members from HKUST, Talis Wong, DTM, our General Evaluator for the meeting, and Irene Chen, DTM, who gave a presentation on the Toastmaster roadmap.

Irene talked about the Toastmaster journey, from the time a person attends a meeting as a guest to attainment of the DTM award. She explained to us that Toastmasters presents us with a number of wonderful opportunities for self improvement in addition to public speaking. I was particularly interested in her discussion of the many types of quotients i.e. IQ, EQ, SQ, FQ, HQ, PQ one can benefit by doing the many subjects provided by the Advanced Manual series.

Donald reminded us that we should do everything with a big P, for Passion. Clement gave us some tips on landing our dream job, which included signing off with a needle with 2 points and biting off a chunk of a thick dictionary. King from HKUST MBA Alumni TMC demonstrated really well how we should act out our feelings so that we do not bottle up our emotions until they explode.

The theme of the evening was on Office Politics and everyone was looking forward to learn something that they could then apply back in their office. Someone pointed out that as long as there are human beings, there is going to be politics. I learnt that if you are an IT person, office politics is not usually an issue, but if it was, it would be addressed with a diagram identifying the power players so that one could better align themselves with them. I heard that even for a young political science student, new to the workforce, there was nothing learned in school that prepared her for the harsh reality the betrayal and back-stabbing of office politics.

Bobby returned to us after leaving for Shanghai for a few months. It was good to have him back.

The night ended with the presentation of the awards to the best performers. And here are the results:

Best Prepared Speech Speaker : King Lee

Best Table Topic Speaker : San Kong

Best Evaluator : Andrew Yeung

I also announced that we will be conducting our club’s new President election in our next meeting on 30th May. We need nominations of candidates for the 2011/12 president’s election for the club.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President 2010/11

HKTMC

Hiking on 17th April (Sunday)

2011-04-06T00:48:00.004+08:00

When::: 2.30PM

Where::: Nam Sang Wai near Yuen Long

What::: Easy hike that takes about 2 hours (5km total)

Gather::: Yuen Long Station

Side attraction::: Early dinner at the famous Dai Wing Wah restaurant

If interested, please register with Donald Wong or Amy Chau. Please contact them via Easy Speak: My Communication (on left menu) -> Contact Other Members link...

Summary of Apr 4 2011 Meeting

2011-04-06T00:05:00.004+08:00

G’day mate! That’s how one of our new members, Matthew, who is as Aussie as they come, greeted us in delivering his ice breaker speech last night. A very well done speech peppered with lots of Australian slang. We learned a lot about him and what a fair dinkum Australian guy he is playing rugby.

Amy shared with us her experience getting a scuba diving certification. She said that she learned from this experience that the way to achieve is to conquer your fear, not to be afraid to fail, and to be determined to succeed.

Ben taught us how to handle an argument and to remember that the good communication skills that we learn in Toastmasters could help us avoid unpleasantness. He artfully showed us the unfolding of an argument between his friends Mickey and Minnie and what could be done to save them from misunderstanding. Let us all congratulate Ben for his achievement in completing the Competent Communication (CC) manual.

Clement conducted a very creative table topic session. The questions were really well thought out-- short and simple allowing a lot of room for the speakers to expand on. We heard from Aaron on innovative house, from Diana on innovative trip, Thomas on innovative meal, from Martin on innovative costume, and finally, from San on what she would do if she was Doraemon – the most creative cartoon. We had a lot of laughter during this session as all the answers were very creative and entertaining. Martin told us that he wants a costume that can make him invisible so that his mum can not find him during his day off at home. San told us that if she was Doraemon, she would create a 3D virtual audience that one could rehearse speeches in front of, overcoming stage fright. But then that would mean no need for Toastmaster meetings, yes? no?

From our evaluators, we learned about SMS, UFA and CRC. What are they? They are all techniques that we can employ when doing evaluations. Thanks especially to Andrew for encouraging us all to do General Evaluations and for demonstrating to us how to perform one using the CRC (Commend, Recommend, Commend) sandwich technique.

Our Toastmaster of the Evening, Paul, kept being referred to as the "Toastmaster". Referring to Paul as the Toastmaster was half correct because he is indeed a Toastmaster like all our members, but he should have been called the "Toastmaster of the Evening" or "TME".

The recipients of the ribbons for the evening were:

Best Prepared Speech – Martin Lee
Best Table Topic Speaker – San Sze
Best Evaluator – Joanne Chuk

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai
President
HKTMC 2010/11

PS. Please do remember that the Division Contests will be held on this Saturday, April 9th, from 2pm at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Please come and support Andrew and Benjamin as they represent our club at the contests. You will also get a chance to see how to further improve your public speaking skills.

2011 Toastmasters Spring Convention in Xiamen

2011-04-03T14:06:00.005+08:00

To: THE HONG KONG TOASTMASTERS CLUB

Dear All,

We can all further enhance our listening and speaking skills by hearing from one of the very best sources, The Toastmasters Club. Their upcoming 2011 Toastmasters Spring Convention in Xiamen, PRC, will give us a golden opportunity to experience these skills first-hand.

At the Convention, there will be a series of activites: workshops conducted by, Mr Rory Valden, Toastmaster 2007 Word Champion of Public Speaking, and Toastmasters International's Runner-up, Mr George Yen, 2nd Vice President (2010-2012). Contests will also be held on table topics and internatiol speeches. Please refer to the attached flyers for more information.

If you have not been to Xiamen before, I encourage you to come with us. Tina Wong, an experienced toastmaster, has offered to organise a sightseeing tour of Xiamen. Starting this month, will be a direct express train from Shenzhen to Xiamen.

The Convention officially opens on 14th May, and closes at noon on 15th May.

The price, excluding transportation and hotel accommodation, is HKD550 per person.

This is an exciting programme you can't afford to miss. Interested parties should send me an e-mail to:

(send Rita an email at the address listed in the email that was recently sent out to club members advertising the conference or see her at the next club meeting - MichaelB)

I look forward to seeing you all in Xiamen!

--------------------
Details:

Chinese Version:
http://www.benfung.hk/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Shine-Out-Loud-Conference-Overall-Introduction_Chinese.pdf

English Version:
http://www.benfung.hk/Blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Shine-Out-Loud-Conference-Overall-Introduction_ENv2.pdf

Regards,
Rita Tsui

Ben Fung Cheuk Luk

This email was sent to you by an officer of THE HONG KONG TOASTMASTERS CLUB.

If you wish to be removed from the mailing list please contact the following address:

vpe@toastmasters.org.hk

Summary of Mar 21 2011 Meeting

2011-03-25T22:21:00.006+08:00

We had a record-breaking number of guests at our meeting last Monday-- 23 of them. The large number of guests simply overwhelmed the few members that attended. There weren't enough of us members there to take care of all the guests during the break. I wish we had had better attendance from our members but I guess it was just a night where most had something else to do.

Ai Ai spoke about the price women have to pay for being beautiful and warned that they should be careful not to use beauty products that could harm them. Michael tried to calm all of us of the jitters caused by the risks associated with radiation from Japan. Andrew told us of the parents who took over all the limelight on their child's wedding day-- they were "Toastmonsters". He will be representing our Club and the Area with this speech at the Division Contest to be held on 9 April.

Clement was TME, his first time in the role. Also a first time for Thomas in the role of Grammarian and Ka Wing as Table Topic Master. Ben was both an IE and Table Topic Evaluator, definitely a first.

The winners for the evening were:

Best Speaker - Andrew Yeung

Best Table Topic Speaker - Tina Wong

Best Evaluator - Benjamin Fung

In our upcoming meeting on 4 April, it would be nice to have more members turn up to support the club and those speaking on that evening.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010/11

Area Contest 19 Mar 2011 - Result

2011-03-19T22:07:00.005+08:00

From 20110319-AreaIntSpeechContest

Congratulations to Andrew and Ben on their outstanding performances at the Area G1 contest today.

Andrew is the champion of the International Speech Contest. Ben is the runner-up in the Table Topic Contest. They will represent our Club and Area G1 in the Division Contest set to be held on April 9th at the Chinese University. Let’s see more of our members turning up at the Division Contest to support them in their battle to be the Division winners and to continue on to the District Level Contest.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010/11

Mar 13 2011 Hike to Dragon's Back

2011-03-15T18:21:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 13 March, 2011 was a beautiful sunny day and our club had the first outdoor event this year: hiking in Dragon's Back of Shek O. The hike idea originated from a speech delivered by Amy last month on how enjoyable hiking in HK can be. Besides speaking, this time we acted. Our president Ai Ai and 7 fellow members and friends joined in.

Dragon's Back is an easy trail with a rating of two out of five, in terms of difficulty. After walking steps up hill for about 30 minutes, the fabulous Shek O Bay scenery was in our sight. It took 4 hours to finish the hike of about 8km. In Big Water Bay, with sore legs and hearts filled with satisfaction, we enjoyed a HK style ham and egg instant noodle and Thai food as a late lunch.

With the good experience we had, hopefully we will go another time before summer comes. Below is a link to the photos taken by Donald, great photographer of the hiking team.

https://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=278250&id=503407851&l=d3ae9a72b7

Cheers,

Amy

Club Contest 7 March 2011 - Winners

2011-03-08T09:54:00.000+08:00

Results of the Club International Speech contest;
Winner - Andrew Y. - Toast Monsters
Runner up - Edwin L. - Be the top 3%

We only had three contestants for the international speech contest and they were all guys. I hope we can entice some of the lady members to enter the next round of club competitions.

Andrew (pictured above with Eng Wah, the chief judge) was in good form and spoke about overbearing speakers at weddings stealing the thunder from the bride. His suggestion: be sincere and low-key, if asked to speak at a wedding, and let the bride be the centre of attention. Good job Andrew.

Results of the Club Table Topics Contest;
Winner: Ben F.
Runner-up: Frances L.

The table topics question was: where will your HK$6000 end up. We had seven contestants and got lots of creative answers. Ben prevailed though and Frances was a close second.

Again, we had lots of guests - 13 this meeting.

Club Humorous and Evaluation contests will be held later in the year. Now is a good time to start getting ready for these. Good luck and see you at the next meeting.

Summary of Feb 28 2011 Meeting

2011-03-03T00:36:00.005+08:00

We had a good turn out for our meeting, compared to Valentine’s Day, at least. It was great to catch up with some of our members whom we had not seen for a while.

Donald’s Ice Breaker had a false start... walking off after the first 30 seconds. Well, he was just pulling all our legs, because he came back to give us a full introduction of himself in a clever way by explaining his title "Why I'm here" in three different ways: telling us why is he in our club, why he is in HK, and why he is in the world. Now, that’s deep.

In my speech, I shared about our trip to the Taj Mahal. The adventure that we had on our journey in getting there was actually better than the destination itself.

Andrew told us a story about when he was a New Zealand civil servant, went looking for emergency beacons, and faced the peril of getting bitten by ferocious dogs.

It was very encouraging to see a number of members take up roles for the first time: Peter took the role of Table Topic Evaluator for the first time and gave valuable feedback to the participants; Emma was the Time Keeper; Clement was the Grammarian and made “bountiful" the word-of-the-day. A number of us used the word “bountifully”.

And hats off to Daniel, who was our GE. He had us rolling in laughter during his 10 minutes evaluation of the 11 members who had not been previously evaluated. He just could not say anything wrong.

Perhaps it was the theme of the evening, "Rich and Famous", that prompted people to come out with spiritually rich sayings and quotes like “Treat each day as if it’s the last”, “Expect the unexpected”, “Nothing is more valuable than time”.

The winners for the night:

Best Speaker                                Andrew Yeung
Best Table Topic Speaker           Benjamin Wong
Best Evaluator                               Paul Breen

The club contest is on 7 March. Do step forward and join in the contest to sharpen your public speaking skills.

Remember that starting from March 2011, our club meetings are reverting back to being on the 1st, 3rd and 5th Mondays. So, our meetings in March will be on the 7th and 21st.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai
HKTMC President 2010/11

Hike to Dragon's Back

2011-03-02T22:12:00.006+08:00

This is a message for Amy Chan. After her speech on the beauty of hiking in Hong Kong, she was encouraged by members to organise a hike. She is indeed organising one for our club!

The hike will be at Dragon's Back on the 13th March 2011 (Sunday).

We will gather at the the ShauKeiWan MTR - Hang Seng Bank, at 10.30AM.

After the hike, you can look forward to lunch at Big Wave or Stanley.

Those interested please drop a line to Amy at amycyp@gmail.com.

Summary of Feb 14 2011 Meeting

2011-02-15T23:30:00.006+08:00

Toastmaster or Valentines? Well, on Feb 14, the choice is obvious. Valentine’s of course. As expected, most of our members and guests could not show up for our meeting. But a few of us diehard Toastmasters made sure the meeting went ahead anyway. As you can imagine, there was some multitasking that had to take place to ensure the meeting ran smoothly. However, we arrived to a nice surprise. Whitney Houston greeted us with The Greatest Love, our theme of the evening. Nice touch, Rita.

Our new member, Yip Ka Wing, you can call him Wing, told us that he is a building services engineer and introduced to us his two lovely daughters, passing around some beautiful photos. Welcome to the club, Wing.

Philippe is recruiting a salesman to sell for him a superb water-based cleaning agent from Europe that he demonstrated can clean all types of grease and stains. Anyone interested, please contact Philippe with your resume. But don’t bother if you cannot sell like the Kiwi (read New Zealander) super salesman in his story who succeeded in selling a customer who came to buy a fish hook, a yatch, a truck to tow it with, and a beach bungalow. Wow, what selling skill.

Paul Wong gave us some lessons about wine. His interest in the topic was prompted by his first experience purchasing a bottle of red wine at a shop. Did you know that in wine shops, there is no marking as to which are red and which are white wines? For the uninitiated, it is a daunting exercise to choose a wine to buy. If Paul had checked with our French member, Philippe, for the pronunciation of the names of the different grapes for making wine, we might have learned how to pronounce them more correctly but we would have missed out on Paul's creative and hilarious inventions, e.g., Sauvignon Blanc as Saw-vee-nyon Blah and PinotNoir as Pee-noe-nwahr.

Amy Chan was our Table Topic Master for the first time. It was amazing that she could prepare 4 questions, each with only 3 words max:

- Love and CNY

- Puppy Love

- What is Love

- Food representing Love

During Club Business, I announced the Judge’s Training organised by Division H,K and G at the Chinese University on this Saturday. I also reminded the meeting that our club contest will be held on 7 March and encouraged our members to register with Paul Breen, our Contest Chair, if they are interested to participate in the contest. In addition, we are also looking for volunteers to help with the contest as the Chief Judge, Judges, Ballot Counters and Timekeepers.

The winners for the evening:

Best Speaker – Philippe Grelon

Best Table Topic Speaker – Michael Boynton

Best Evaluator – Ong Ai Ai

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010/11

Club International Speech and Table Topic Contests

2011-02-15T22:31:00.005+08:00

Dear members,

Our club contests will be held on 7 March. For those of you interested to participate in either or both of the contests, please register with Paul Breen (powmarday@gmail.com), our Contest Chair.

In order to support the contest, we are looking for the Chief Judge, 2 more judges, 2 timekeepers and 2 ballot counters.

To qualify for the International Speech, you are required to have at least completed Project 6 of your CC manual. But there is no such requirement for the Table Topic Contest. Any members are eligible to join in the contest.

I would like to encourage our newer members to volunteer to be the timekeepers and ballot counters. Please also similarly register with Paul Breen for now until we have confirmed the Chief Judge, whom will be the same person for both the contests.

Best regards,

Ai Ai

Division H, K & G Judges Training & Workshop 2011

2011-02-15T22:27:00.002+08:00

Date: 19th February 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 2:30 pm – 6:00 pm (Registration starts at 2:00 pm)
Venue: Li Koon Tsun Hall (LKC LT1), 3/F, Sino Building, Chung Chi Campus, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, N.T. (5 minutes walk from University MTR Station Exit A/C)

Outline of the event:

Part 1:
Introduction to contest rules and briefing for judges – by Mr. Talis Wong, DTM

Part 2:
"Calgary, here I come!" – Contest experience sharing by Mr. Arthur Ting, CC CL

Part 3:
Briefing for contest chair – by Ms. Marie Wong

Fees: HK$30

For more details, please visit our Division H,K, G's website:
http://www.hongkong-toastmasters.org/

Ai Ai Ong

Summary of Jan 24 2011 Meeting

2011-01-26T22:41:00.015+08:00

Dear members,

We learnt something about how to be rich and prosperous (not the type of prosperity that Michael demonstrated to us) during the evening, thanks to the crafty questions of our TME, Andrew. He had asked participants with roles what would they do if they were given HK$1000 or HK$1,000,000. Fortune-ately for them, our wealthiest and most prosperous club members like Paul, Tina, and Daniel, who were not present, did not have to share with us their tips on how to become rich.

In keeping with our club tradition of respecting time, such as by starting and finishing our meetings on time, our Timekeeper, Arthur, used a metaphor that linked to our theme, reminding us of the sky high price of gold today and of how it is said that time is gold, encouraging us to use our time-gold carefully and assuring us that he would be watching our expenditures closely. And sure enough, we finished our meeting spot-on time.

Amy delivered her 2nd speech, soon after giving us her ice breaker speech. I totally agree with her that Hong Kong is one of the best places in the world to go hiking and about the benefits of hiking. The best benefit, for those who are about to propose, is that if you take your intended hiking they are captive, so you can propose them to marry you. So simple. If Amy takes her evaluator Paul's suggestion, we can all look forward to a hiking trip planned by her.

Jonathan, if given HK$1000 by Andrew, said he will pay his club membership fees. :). Nice. But if he gets HK$1,000,000 he is going to invest it and our club gets nothing ;). Also delivering his 2nd speech, Jonathan shared with us 7-pointers on effective communication, Regarding his "Easy To Remember" pointer, his evaluator, Edwin, thought that if he had danced and sung Nobody (of Korean fame) for us, his speech would have been even more memorable.

"What can you buy with HK$7?" Peter demonstrated to us with live example, and some acting and vocal variety, how much you can really get with HK$7. The answer: Dr Thomas and many other people's bright future.

Henry Kong, our area governor, paid our club a 2nd visit, as part of his tour of duty. He graciously accepted to be our Table Topic Master. Frances payed us a visit to our new meeting home and supported us as the IE. Hope to see you more often Frances.

Our new venue, after the first meeting minor hiccups, got better on last Monday, thanks to Rita, who had made sure that the few glitches were ironed out. Has anyone seen a "touchless" rubbish bin? If you have not, pay a visit to our club.

I announced during Club Business that our club contest for International Speech and Table Topics will be held on 7 March. To encourage more participation in the International Speech Contest, you can treat your contest speech as a completion of one of your projects in the CC manual. I hope this will provide the extra incentive for our members to take part in the contest. For our newer members, you need to know that to be eligible to take part in the contest, you must have completed the first 6 projects of your CC manual.

I also announced that starting from March, our club meetings will be changed back to the 1st, 3rd and 5th Mondays of the month. Hence, our first meeting in March will fall on 7 March.

The evening's winners:

Best Speaker: Peter Ho

Best Table Topic Speaker: Rita Tsui

Best Evaluator: Diana Lee

Here's wishing everyone a Wealthy and Prosperous Chinese New Year - Kung Hei Fatt Choi. Gong Xi Fa Cai.

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010-11

Summary of Jan 10 2011 Meeting

2011-01-19T23:59:00.007+08:00

Dear Members,

Since we had not had meetings at our last home venue for a while, and our 1st meeting of the new year was to be held in a new venue, I was rather worried that we would have poor attendance at this meeting. However, as it turned out, the meeting was well attended. The new venue, although not without some minor hitches, was accepted by all our members who were there. It's such a relief to know that we have a nice home secured for the whole of 2011, and at an affordable rate.

The theme of the meeting was “Laughter is the Best Medicine” and we certainly had a healthy dose of laughter during the evening. Even I shared a joke. It went something like this. "Last Christmas, the father of a family received an iPad for a present, the daughter received an iPod, the son received an iPhone, and the mother received... an iRon".

Clement, a new member, presented his Ice Breaker speech and through it we learned that he is a keen basketball player, perhaps partially explained by the fact that he is a tall man and that he jumped a lot when he was young. We also learned that he is an avid fisherman, with a photo of a very big fish (the size of himself) that he caught to prove it. He told us that, as an Engineer, he had vowed to join Toastmasters to improve his public presentation skills after attending a technical seminar where a prof put everyone to sleep with his talk, confused everyone with a miniscule font size presentation, and never once looked up from his notes or had any eye contact with the audience.

We were honoured to have Ying Dan, the District 85 Governor, visit our club and give a speech entitled “Everyone’s a DTM”. I hope that our members who attended now know that DTM stands for Distinguished Toastmaster and not Disappearing Toastmaster.

Ying Dan took only a short 7 years to achieve her DTM. Among the tips she shared with us is that when a member becomes a DTM, they never disappear from the Toastmaster organisation because, to quote from Les Miller, the Toastmaster International Speech Champion of 2005, when you are a DTM, you are like a kungfu master who, despite having attained the highest skill in martial arts, continues to practice often and to strive to improve. She advised us to create a vision of ourselves as a DTM, a vision that will help guide us towards achieving that goal. The vision includes how many you would serve in the process, by helping to improve their public speaking, and by the impact of good communication on the people around you, etc.

Peter Ho, after being absent from our club for a few months due to some personal commitments, came back with a bang in the role of the Table Topic Master. The participants in the session gave some ‘laughingly’ serious thoughts to his sometimes tough questions but, all in all, we got some funny answers from them.

I personally thought that both our IEs for the night, Eng Wah and Rita, gave the best evaluation performances that I had seen from them. Eng Wah was relaxed and gave very good suggestions to Clement. Rita did not hold back in her evaluation of Ying Dan, despite the DTM. She was so enthusiastic and caught up in her evaluation that she went on for a good 8 minutes and still had not finished. Whew!

Both Arthur and Andrew, as the TTE and GE respectively, masterfully delivered their evaluations. Andrew commended the team for updating our websites with clear instructions on the change of venue of our meeting. He also liked the fact that at last our club banner has a fixed position and was proudly displayed in the same spot without being moved throughout the meeting.

Although our Grammarian, Asta, did not provide a Word of the Day, we ended the night with one anyway. It was “Contagion” because we learned that laughter can be a contagion. So everyone beware. It's not only diseases that are contagious.

The Best Speaker of the night was Ying Dan but she graciously gave her award to Clement as she stated that he gave the best Ice Breaker speech that she had seen.

The Best Table Topic Speaker was Nat, a guest who has just moved to Hong Kong from the US. (p/s however, I believe his tale would be funnier translated into Cantonese)

The Best Evaluator was Rita.

I look forward to our upcoming meeting on 24 January.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010/11

Summary of Dec 15 2010 Meeting

2010-12-24T01:29:00.003+08:00

Dear Members,

During the joint meeting we had with Gammon, or should I say, party?, our generous Gammon Toastmaster friends put out a lot of food for us. With so much to eat, we were speaking with our mouths full most of the time. But according to Joanne, you are not what you eat, but you are what you read. Now, that’s some food for thought.

Our Diana added to the Christmas festivities by wearing reindeer horns. We also brought some party poppers. Unfortunately, they did not pop properly and were actually a bit of a nuisance as they created quite a lot of rubbish that at the end of the meeting that our poor hosts had to sweep up and then vacuum (now, whose great idea was it to have the party poppers – none other than your humble yours truly).

We played a game of Pictionary as a warm up game. We certainly got into the game rather quickly and everyone was participating in it.

Joanne delivered her CC speech and Amy her ice breaker speech. Congratulations to Joanne for completing her CC. And Amy, congratulations for successfully taking your first step into the Competent Communication Manual. Joanne shared with us the wonderful world of reading to inspire us to read more so that we can savour more of the joy you get from reading. If you have not watched or read “Eat, Pray, Love”, read the book as the movie is no match for it. If you were to associate a word to a place, e.g eat = Italy, pray = India, where do you think love is? And if sex = Rome, then I would say money = Hong Kong.

“Big Big Girl in a Big Big World” – the title of a song I liked a lot – well it seems that Amy can relate to it too as this was the title of her first speech. We learnt about Amy’s passions, the things she cares about and her career.

As it is not a tradition in Gammon Toastmasters Club meetings to announce a winner in each of the sessions, we did not have any recognition awards during the evening. However, to show our appreciation to our hosts, we presented them with the Traffic Light timekeeping machine.

Perhaps it was the change of venue and the fact that it was so close to Christmas, with everyone being busy, but our club member’s attendance was the lowest I have seen. I sincerely hope that in the new year, with our club venue stabilized, our members will come back. And since its the time of the year again when we start to make new year resolutions, I hope you will make a pledge to renew your interest in improving your public speaking and leadership skills and come to our club meetings to practice those skills.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

See you all on 10 Jan 2011 at 2 IFC Ground Floor Meeting Room.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010-11

Sat Dec 11 2010 HKTMC Christmas Dinner Party a Great Success

2010-12-14T23:34:00.005+08:00

There was great food and plenty of drinks at our Xmas party last Saturday night. And typical of us Hong Kong Toastmasters Club members, we just could not leave our natural habit at home even though we were out to party. We did a lot of "toasting" (hey, after all, we are Toastmasters right?) at our dinner, and from the advanced manual too. For many of us, it was our first time to make a toast, especially a very looong 2 - 3 minute toast. This was later followed by a guessing game that really teased our brains (some of us at least).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.

Ai Ai

From HKTMC Xmas Party - 20101211

Kenneth Sends his Regards

2010-12-14T22:14:00.005+08:00

Hi Ai Ai,

Well I'm back in US and what a strange feeling it is. I keep having these strange dreams of my job in HK. I think it's a withdrawal sort of thing.

Anyway I'd really like to keep in touch with the group. I put together a little Ken's Top 10 what I miss about HK TM. It would be nice if it could be added to the TM blog.

The Members
Paul's witty comments
KY's inspiring speeches
Arthur's evaluations
Edwin's sense of humor
Table topics
Gilbert's rise to the top
Phillip's accent
Joanne's enthusiasm
All the pretty girls

Take Care,

Cheers,

Ken

Liu Yingdan, DTM, District 85 Governor to deliver a motivational talk in our club on 10 January 2011

2010-12-13T22:46:00.004+08:00

Liu Yingdan, DTM our district governor will visit our club on 10 January 2011. We are very honoured to have her presence. Why is our club chosen? Its simply because we are the oldest club in Hong Kong and a strong club too.

She will be delivering a motivational speech from the fifth project of the Advanced Communicator manual: The Professional Speaker.

Time: 15-20 minutes

Speech objectives:

1. Understand the concept and nature of motivational speaking

2. Apply a four step motivational method with the purpose of persuading and inspiring

3. Deliver a motivational speech to persuade an audience to emotionally commit to an action

Do come and learn from this powerful and impressive speaker.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010-11

Summary of Nov 22 2010 Meeting

2010-11-29T22:21:00.009+08:00

The Word of the Day from our grammarian was rapport (meaning harmony, fellowship, understanding). In the context of our theme Generations X,Y,Z the word was successfully used many times during the night, emphasizing the importance of maintaining rapport among the different generations, even with the differences in their values and experiences.

We learned from Emma, with evidence to show, that she was able to trade up from the humble paper clip to a whole array of things, including speakers, a ladies purse, picture frames, and more. The secret of how this was achieved? Through passion in what you do, setting big goals, and having the commitment to succeed. In the US, someone successfully traded up from a paper clip to a house. Go figure.

Eng Wah was so absorbed in his delivery of the tragic and sad saga that unfolded in the HK tourist hostage episode in Manila that for the first time I noticed he lost most of the unnecessary sounds and pauses that usually embellish his speech. The mood in the meeting became very somber after hearing this sad story again.

Since most of us in the audience were from Generations X and Y, we had not heard a fairy tale for a long time. But thanks to Uncle Andrew, we all became young children again and listened in awe to the Cinderella story, with its evil stepmother, lazy step sisters, magnanimous fairy godmother, and charming prince; and let's not forget the glass slipper. Andrew, keep up the waltz. Fantastic.

We had a number of newcomers participate in the table topic session. It will be a session to watch in the coming meetings with the keen interest in it displayed by our new members recently.

Our evaluators all went overtime as they were very enthusiastic in giving their valuable feedback to the speakers. The grammarian, in pointing out to us the good use of language, taught us a thing or two: We use the "personification" technique when we give an object living characteristics, e.g., "a cursed pink purse"; we “concretize” a word when we transform an abstract idea/thought into a concrete/tangible object, e.g., "he took justice in his hand". Don’t you agree that there is some great use of impactful language at our club?

Yet another packed night, as we had 17 guests at the meeting. More chairs had to be brought in.

I announced that our Christmas Party will be held on 11 Dec (please check out details on our website). I look forward to our members coming to the party so that we have the chance to foster greater rapport.

Due to the Japanese Club venue again not being available on 13 Dec, we are holding another joint meeting this year with the Gammon Toastmasters Club at their office in Tai Koo Place on 15 December (a Wednesday). This will be our last meeting for the 2010 year because the 27th December is a public holiday and many of our members will be away to celebrate Christmas and the New Year, and we will not be holding a replacement meeting for this.

Joanne Chuk will be delivering her Project 10 speech from the Competent Communication manual in this upcoming joint meeting. Hers will be the first CC for our club this year. Please come and show your support and celebrate her achievement. There will also be some refreshment served at the meeting.

Last, but not least, here are the night's winners:

Best Speaker Andrew Yeung

Best Table Topic Speaker Jennifer (Guest)

Best Evaluator Asta Lee

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010-11

HKTMC - Christmas Party 2010 - Register by 22 Nov

2010-11-18T23:46:00.005+08:00

Fellow Toastmasters,

Ho ho ho..... Christmas, Christmas time is near, time for toy and time for an in-house party!

Let's celebrate this Christmas at Zenku! Here are the details:

Date: 11 December 2010 (Saturday)
Time: 7pm to 11pm

Venue: Zenku Japanese Restaurant
Shop Nos. 201-203, 2/F, Nexxus Building , No. 41 Connaught Road Central, Hong Kong (near the Hang Seng Headquarters) http://www.openrice.com/restaurant/sr2.htm?shopid=48039

Package:
Please refer to the menu attached.
Also includes 4 standard drinks per person.
(House White Wine, Red Wine, House Sake, Pineapple Vanilla Sake, Peach Honey Sake, Fresh orange juice, Fresh watermelon, Coke, Coke Zero, 7up, Perrier, Fiji Water, Coffee & Tea)
$400 per person (for members, friends and families) Spouses, families and friends are welcomed.

Registration: Please register with Andrew or Wendy AND pay in full at the next meeting (22 November 2010).

Mark it in your diary or calendars. :) Merry Christmas!

Regards,
Andrew
VP Membership
The Hong Kong Toastmasters Club

Summary of Nov 8 2010 Meeting

2010-11-15T23:35:00.011+08:00

Gilbert delivered a speech on a topic he is passionate about - Energy Efficiency. But from the title of his speech you would never have guessed that were about to learn how Hong Kong has to do more to enable the SAR to achieve the energy efficiency targets it has set for itself.

Our new member, Bill Ng revealed to us through his dreams that he is a computer game geek and a Tae Kwon Do martial artist, and currently working on his next dream of marrying the love of his life.

And our own master chef, Kenneth, gave us a memorable parting speech about cooking a great sirloin steak using the 3M (Meat, Method, and Magic) recipe (or was it really 6M - as someone quipped, it could also include Music, Mood and Money). What a shame that we did not get to taste the actual steak. But Kenneth very expertly teased the senses such that we could almost taste the actual meat, since we enjoyed the cooking process so much.

Our table topic speakers contributed many ideas to help us be more energy efficient, for example, switch off the lights when you leave the room, change to energy saving bulbs, lobby for the building of more green buildings, parents show good examples to their children with their good habits in conserving energy, learn more from Energenz, etc., etc., etc. Jo humorously reminded us that we ought to save our own energy by talking less and in a lower volume and not shout while having conversations. That would certainly make dining out a lot more pleasanter, don’t you agree?

Ben evaluated Gilbert and gave him some useful tips on how to attract audience attention to his slides and the web address. Bill impressed Edwin a lot as he managed to deliver his ice breaker speech without using any notes and cleverly used the dream stories to let us know more about him. We have often heard that a picture paints a thousand words but Joanne pointed out to us that Kenneth used words to arouse all the 5 senses (signt, hearing, touch, smell and taste) in us. Wow.

Our guest General Evaluator, Charles Law, the President of HKUST MBA Alumni Toastmasters Club gave us some commendations on what we do well in our club and also gave us some good suggestions for improvement. Thanks Charles.

Rita provided a hilarious moment when she commented that since our theme is on energy efficiency, we ought to be efficient with our use of unnecessary sounds. Paul relived how his parents in the past has given him a complex about keeping time and he asked for our understanding in advance if he was strict with his timekeeping. And he sure was strict. There were several more funny wisecracks uttered during the meeting, but I must have enjoyed them so much I forgot to record them down.

The winners for the evening’s speeches:

Best Speaker – Kenneth McNamee

Best Table Topic Speaker – Jo Manning

Best Evaluator – Joanne Chuk

At this meeting, we bade our farewells not just to Kenneth who is leaving us to join his wife back in the United States but also to Bobby Leung, our fairly new member who is moving to a new job in Shanghai. Please join me in wishing both of them all the best in their move and in settling into their new country and new life.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President 2010-11

Training Workshop - “From Speaker to Trainer”

2010-11-08T23:20:00.004+08:00

Training Workshop by Matchy Ma, DTM

“From Speaker to Trainer”

27 Nov at

The Gallery, B/F, Police Officers’ Club, 28 Hung Hing Road,
Causeway Bay, HK

Details on the Division H, K, & G website at:
http://www.hongkong-toastmasters.org/event_detail.php?pkey=573

Summary of Oct 25 2010 Meeting

2010-11-03T00:22:00.004+08:00

Dear Members and Guests,

Halloween gave us the inspiration to make Ghost Stories the theme of our meeting. Andrew wore a green half mask that looked so frightening and convincingly menacing that he easily commanded all our attention during the evening as the TME.

Both Michael and KY delivered their Project 6 speech on Vocal Variety. Michael shared with us his hero in the most unlikely of characters - Bugs Bunny. We learnt that Bugs has a lot of wise sayings. The one I like best is "Don't take life so seriously, you won't get out of it alive". So, any of us fretting about everything, time to start loosening up. KY employed a varying tone to bring home to us the miseries that victims suffered during the devastating Szechuan earthquake. He very skillfully created a somber and gloomy atmosphere reliving the memories of the children in the school that collapsed in Szechuan. The stark contrast was felt by all, after an uproariously funny retelling by Philippe of his experience working in France, Australia, Malaysia and Taiwan. We learnt that for the French, coffee is the answer to every situation.

Edwin did not know who Bugs Bunny was, so his evaluation for Michael fell a little bit flat. Important for us to remember that the choice of our speech topic has to have a wide audience appeal or otherwise the speech may not go down so well. Arthur questioned KY on the point of bringing the house down to such a somber level and leaving the audience hanging in a state of emotional dilemma. Joanne described Philippe's speech as having lots of juicy meaty filling for content.

At the table topic session, we heard from our speakers their various ghost encounters - at Disneyland, in a 100 year old clubhouse, in your own heart, in hotel beds........ and oh yes, Paul had on a mask that hid his loss for words very well. Good trick.

An excellent evening filled with laughter and jokes. Finally, here is the results announcement.

Best Speaker - Philip Grelon

Best Table Topic Speaker - Paul Breen

Best Evaluator - Arthur Ting

See you all on 8 Nov.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President

HKTMC

Summary of Oct 11 2010 Meeting

2010-10-12T21:42:00.013+08:00

We had a few first times during the evening.

It was Gilbert's first time to be the TME. Bravo to him for giving us a well executed and an enjoyable evening.

We had 3 new members give us their first speech in their Ice Breaker project. They told something of themselves to help us to get to know them better. They were Kenny Ko, Emma Zhang and Jonathan Mok. We learned, among other things, that Kenny works in the financial industry, Emma hails from Beijing, and that Jonathan is an individualist.

As the table topic master, Cecilia threw out a number of challenging questions pertaining to the Quest for Anti-Aging. She got hearts in the audience jumping like "popcorn in a popcorn machine" (quote from Joanne Chuk) and gave the gerascophobics (borrowed from our Grammarian Paul Breen) in the crowd a few more white hairs during the session. Nevertheless, we ended up with 3 winners in the Table Topics Session, I think perhaps a first in our club's long history.

We used the traffic light for the first time as our time flag in place of the usual colour coded cards. It is a monstrous traffic light but very effective as a time control.

Our meeting of course would not have been complete without the evaluator's feedback. Rita, KY, Eng Wah, Joanne and Kathy (from Oasis) gave us feedback which I am sure will help us to improve our speech-making and conduct more efficient meetings in the future.

The winners for the evening were:

Best Speaker - Emma Zhang

Best Table Topic Speakers - Jo Manning, Rita Tsui, and Arthur Ting

Best Evaluator - KY Tan

Till we meet again at the next HKTC meeting on 25th October.

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President

2010-11

20100927 - Summary of Joint Meeting with Oasis Club

2010-10-02T19:41:00.004+08:00

The joint meeting with Oasis went smoothly and it was great to see that quite a number of our club's diehard members showed up at the meeting. With the sizzling summer lingering on, the meeting theme Summer Romance got all the Toastmasters reminiscing and fantasizing their own romance.

The Oasis Toastmasters meeting started with a Summer Game, certainly a nice diversion from our usual meeting. It really got the participants all warmed up for the evening.

This was followed by the Table Topic Session. Only after that did we have the Prepared Speech session.

After a long absence from our club due to her other committments, Joanne Chuk returned to deliver a Project 9 Speech. This means we may have another CC in the club this year. Keep it up Joanne. The title of the speech "Your Style or Mine" took us down the path of the different learning styles and we were reminded that we each have our own styles and therefore need to recognise others learning style so as to have harmony to learn together.

Andrew Yeung kept steaming along with his Project 3 of the Advanced Manual for ACS (Advance Communicator Silver). With his "Left and Right is Black and White", he got us in stitches and perhaps confused a little too as to whether the flush water goes down clock wise or anti-clock wise in the northern or southern hemisphere or whether when we jump we go up or down first? Confused? You bet.

Here's the recognition for the evening's performance:

Best Table Topic Speaker - Ben Fung

Best Prepared Speech Speaker - Andrew Yeung

Best Evaluator - Grace Cheung (from Oasis)

Thank You Oasis Toastmasters for having us at your club.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President 2010-11

HKTMC

Division G Evaluation and Humorous Speech Contest - 2 Oct 2010 (this Sat)

2010-09-29T21:53:00.000+08:00

Do come and support Andrew Yeung and Edwin Lui in the Division G Contests. And also get to learn from all the other contestants.

The Division G timing for the contests as follows:

Evaluation Contest      12:00noon   to     1:00PM
Humorous Speech       2:00PM       to      3:15PM

Our Club will pay for the fee to the contest on a reimbursement basis. Please register your attendance with me at the venue for us to validate the reimbursement.

Venue:   School Hall
              TWGHs Lui Yun Choy Memorial School
              8 Yuk Nga Lane Tseung Kwan O
              (Po Lam MTR, Exit C)

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai
President 2010-11
HKTMC

13th Sep 2010 Meeting Update

2010-09-14T23:11:00.033+08:00

Our meeting last night was like a self-produced movie with many entertaining and informative bits and I'm sure it shall remain for some of us our own favourite movie.

Bobby gave his ice breaker speech and from it we learnt he is a Frenchman, er well, everyone referred to him as one after learning that he had lived in France previously and how when he first got there, he kept getting "Lost In Translation".

KY Tan delivered a vivid re-enactment of the biblical David and Goliath battle. The booming "PAK" that KY made (woke me up) was the sound of the stone from David's slingshot hitting Goliath's forehead and killing the giant. KY later likened himself to little David in describing his struggle with a Goliath not of physical stature but of wealth, Sir David.

Ben Fung implored us to "kill" the chicken.......no, no, not the live chicken that we eat but the chicken in each of us that keeps squawking inside our head, telling us that we cannot do well in our speeches. It was a hilarious and effective metaphor, one to remember in our quest to be better speakers.

Tina Wong conducted a workshop from the Advanced Manual about the Competent Leadership (CL) manual. Members and guests learnt what steps they could take to help them embark on the leadership track.

Our Table Topics Master, Arthur Ting, reminded us that while watching our favourite movies we would have our eyes glued to the screen. He challenged us to similarly look at him and not the floor in order to avoid being selected for the honour of doing an impromptu speech. The challenge definitely worked because hands shot up very quickly to take on the questions.

Our evaluators all gave constructive and useful feedback to the speakers to help them further fine tune their speaking for future performances.

Rita Tsui, our Immediate Past President (IPP) celebrated with us the club's achievement of attaining a Distinguished Club Award in 2009-10. Congratulations to the 2009 - 2010 Excom and club members.

Thanks to our Toastmaster of the Evening (TME), Asta Lee, we managed to wrap up our meeting by 9:10, despite a very heavy agenda.

The Oscar Awards went to:

Best Prepared Speech Ben Fung

Best Table Topic Elsa Law

Best Evaluator Frances Lam

Best regards

Ong Ai Ai

President 2010-11

HKTMC

District 85 Division H,K,G Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contests 2010

2010-09-12T21:44:00.004+08:00

Date: 2 October 2010 (Sat)

Time: 10:00 to 19:00

Venue: School Hall

TWGHs Lui Yun Choy Memorial School

8 Yuk Nga Lane Tseung Kwan O

(Po Lam MTR, Exit C)

Fees: Concession for Full Time Students HKD40

Early Bird (on or before 18 Sep) HKD70

Ordinary (after 18 Sep) HKD100

Early Bird Registration:

Send your Full Name, Name of Home Club, Mobile Number & "Early bird counts" to henry.cheung.tmc@gmail.com

If you have any enquiries, please direct them to Henry Cheung, the Contests Chairman and Asst Div K Governor (Education & Training) for 2010-11 at 97676772.

Do come and support our club members, Andrew Yung and Edwin Lui who will be representing our club and enjoy and learn from all the contestants.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai
President

HKTMC

Congratulations to Andrew Yeung and Edwin Lui

2010-09-12T21:34:00.008+08:00

Saturday, September 11, the Area G1 Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contests were held. I am delighted to announce that Andrew Yeung was the 1st place winner in the Evaluation Speech Contest and Edwin Lui the 2nd place winner in the Humorous Speech Contest. Both of them will now be advancing to the Division G contests on 2 October. Please make it a point to come on that day to support and cheer for them.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President

HKTMC

Area G1 Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contests!!!

2010-09-06T21:19:00.007+08:00

The Area G1 contests will take place:

Date : 11 September 2010 (Sat)

Time : about 4pm (after the G2 area contests) (You are also welcome to attend the G2 area contests which will begin at about 2pm.)

Venue : Room QR610 (6/F), Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon

Fee : No charge for G1 club members; $20 for guests; $10 for full-time students

Please come and support Edwin and Andrew this Saturday as they will be representing our club in the Humorous and Evaluation Speech contests, respectively. Furthermore, Diana will be the MC for the contests

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

27 September : Joint Meeting with Oasis Toastmasters Club at Jordan, Kowloon (change of venue)

2010-08-26T23:19:00.005+08:00

As the Japanese Club meeting room is not available for hire on 27 September, our club will hold a joint meeting with the Oasis Toastmasters Club at Jordan, Kowloon.

Address: Rm 1105, 11/F, Scout Centre, Austin Road, Kowloon

A joint meeting has the benefit of bringing our club members together with other Toastmasters club members for sharing of ideas and provides an opportunity to speak to a larger audience.

Do mark this change in your diary and we look forward to seeing you in a different venue at our joint meeting.

Guest Fees Issue

2010-08-25T18:04:00.001+08:00

While chatting with a guest last Monday night after the meeting, he mentioned that he had visited the Oasis club as a guest and had received a coupon to return for another meeting free of charge. Both Diana and I thought this was a pretty cunning idea to entice guests back a second time. We then discussed why we have a guest fee in our club when it is generally frowned upon by other clubs internationally. One reason was that renting a venue in Hong Kong is generally more expensive than in most other locations. Another reason mentioned was to discourage members from not renewing and just showing up occasionally as a guest. I personally think that the $40 guest fee is too high and should be abolished altogether as we are a non profit organisation and our venue is reasonably priced. Any other thoughts? Please add as a comment.

2010 In-House Evaluation Contest Winner

2010-08-25T11:40:00.001+08:00

Andrew Y. competed in both contests on the same night and really nailed the evaluation contest. Pictured here with his winners trophy and with chief judge, Arthur T. and contest chair, Diana L.

In-House Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contests Report

2010-08-25T11:35:00.001+08:00

Dear fellow Hong Kong Toastmasters, friends and guests,

Thank you very much for coming to the In-House Humorous Speech and Evaluation
Contests

2010. We had a full house of audience and a room filled with laughters and fun!
Results of the contests are as follows:

Humorous Speech Contest
Champion – Edwin Lui
Second Place – Andrew Yeung

Evaluation Contest
Champion – Andrew Yeung
Second Place – Rita Tsui
Third Place – Asta Lee

Thanks to all humorous speech contestants who have endeavored to amuse our
audience.

It was a head-to-head contest and everyone in the room has enjoyed your
speeches.

Thanks to all evaluation contestants who have presented their evaluations with
different styles and skills. It was really a great show.

Many thanks to our Chief Judge – Arthur Ting, our panel of judges: Henry Kong
and Chow Yiu Tong from GAP, Royce To from MDC, Aaron Ho, Jo Manning, Paul Wong, and Wendy
Chan from our Club, and contest officials: Ben Fung, Joanne Chuk, KY Tan, Eng Wah
Lim, Peter Ho and Jonathan Mok of Hong Kong Toastmasters for their time and great
efforts!

Special thanks to Akash Karia, our Test Speaker from HKUST Toastmasters Club,
for delivering a motivational and inspirational speech with the title of "How You
Can Use the 'ENTER and KNOCK' Technique to Achieve Your Dreams". Akash is a young,
talented and dedicated Toastmaster. He encouraged us to just go ahead and knock the doors
of CEOs and General Managers, selling our business proposals in the most confident
and direct way. His sharing of personal successful experience with us has totally
amazed the audience.

Members and guests, feel free to check out the contest photos via the following
link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/toastmasters.org.hk/20100823InHouseHumourousAndEvaluationContests?authkey=Gv1sRgCLu05qmEs46lFg#

Our top 2 winners will represent the Hong Kong Toastmasters Club to compete with
other clubs in the upcoming Area G1 Contest on 11 Sep 2010 (Sat) from 4pm - 6pm (venue
to be confirmed). Please show your support to our Club representatives by being there.
Stay tuned with us for further information.

Diana Lee
Contest Chair, In-house Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest 2010
The Hong Kong Toastmasters Club

2010 In House Humorous Speech Contest

2010-08-25T11:29:00.001+08:00

Congratulations to Edwin L. who is the winner of the 2010 In-house speech contest. His ruminations about how he wasn't sure he could love his wife forever got the biggest laugh of the night. Runner up was Andrew Y. who also discussed the battle of the sexes with his story: V For Women.

Toastmaster Speech Contest Rules

2010-08-12T00:38:00.006+08:00

To have a better understanding of Toastmaster speech contests, please follow this link to information about contest rules, covering eligibility, timing and general rules.

http://www.toastmasters.org/rulebook

Here is a summary of the Timing and Timing Disqualification rules for the different contest categories:

Speech Contest || Timing || Timing Disqualification

International (Prepared Speech) ** || 5 – 7 mins || Less than 4 min 30 sec or more than 7 min 30 sec
Evaluation || 2 – 3 mins || Less than 1 min 30 sec or more than 3 min 30 sec
Humorous || 5 – 7 mins || Less than 4 min 30 sec or more than 7 min 30 sec
Table Topics || 2 mins || Less than 1 min or more than 2 min 30 sec

** To enter the contest in this category, you need to have completed the first 6 Projects of the Competent Communication Manual.

11 Sep - Area Contest for Humorous and Evaluation Speeches

2010-08-12T00:24:00.003+08:00

Following our club's in-house Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contests on 23 August, the Humorous and Evaluation Speech champions of our club will be competing at the Area level contest. The detail for the Area contests is as follows:

Date: 11 Sep 2010 (Sat)
Time: 4pm - 6pm (G1 area)
Venue: PolyU/SPACE/HKU (will be determined very soon)

Fee per club: $250 (for student club: $150) with unlimited attendees.

Our club will pay the fee and our members can attend for free. Do plan to come and support our club champions.

I frequently get asked by our new members about Area, Division and District levels. To explain briefly, individual Toastmasters clubs are grouped under an Area. Hong Kong Toastmasters club is now part of Area G1, which consists of 5 clubs. Areas are grouped under a Division. In HK there are a total of 3 divisions i.e. H,K,G and we belong to Division G. Division reports to District and we are now in District 85 which is composed of Toastmasters Clubs from China, Hong Kong and Macau. Next up the hierarchy is Toastmasters International, where all the District Governors report.

Club -> Area -> Division -> District -> TI

After the Area Contest, the Division will hold the contest for all the Area Contest winners and following that the Division winners will compete at the District level during the convention in Beijing on 22-24 October.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

9th August 2010 Meeting Update

2010-08-11T23:55:00.004+08:00

Dear Members & Guests,

To believe or not to believe in Feng Shui? Judging by our meeting participants reaction during the evening, the verdict is still out there. But what we learned in certainty from our Grammarian, Cecilia, was that you can use Feng Shui as a noun, verb, or an adjective.

Kenneth was our first speaker and the test speaker for Asta to evaluate for the workshop she was running for the evaluation contest. Kenneth was relaxed and confident delivering his speech on how to start your own online business. His wife came to the meeting to support him. Nice. We learned the online business recipe EGG + P from him. It stands for ELan (outsourcing), Getty (images), Go Daddy (web hosting), and Paypal (payment processing).

Next we had the unstoppable speech delivery train, KY, who this week gave us a SCREAM. It's an acronym for simile, contrast, rhyme, echo, alliteration and metaphor. The SCREAM technique can help us enhance our communication and make our speeches more memorable and notable for our listeners. In his speech KY recapped for us some verbal gems, mnemonics, acronyms, and memorable phrases, that he has heard recently from club members. Thank you, KY and those who have given us those treasures to remember. And how did KY remember so many things said in the past at the club? By reading our club blog, of course!

Paul Wong tried to convince us that flying is safer than driving a car or even cycling, with statistics to boot. But going by his lack of success in convincing his cousin Nicole, who has a fear of flying, statistics are not enough to persuade someone with aerophobia that it's safe to fly.

Philip Ngan took a novel approach to the Table Topics Session. He repeated the same question - Do you (still) believe in Feng Shui? 4 times, but with a different setup each time. It was an effective technique for enticing volunteers to share their opinions about feng shui. Perhaps the best tip we heard was from Samson, our new member, who was advised to keep a bird cage with a peach blossom inside in his room in order to catch a lady love. But he was also told that you must remember to toss out the cage after you've met your love.

Asta conducted another great evaluation workshop. She drew upon her long experience as a speech evaluator who has taken part in numerous evaluation contests and shared with us four (main) areas to focus on during an evaluation contest. They are:

1. Tame your emotions.

2. Prepare to be the 1st speaker.

3. Know the judging criteria.

4. Get ready for challenging speeches.

Next came the evaluation session. Our evaluators applied the techniques Asta had just shared with us so well that they went overtime. Even Gilbert used his full time allocation.

Our TME, Arthur Ting, imparted to us some more of his valuable wisdom when he said that at Toastmasters we have no teachers but we learn from each other.

As it was a longer than usual meeting, because we tried to pack a lot of things into it, I quickly proceeded to announce the winners of the speeches:

Best Prepared Speech Speaker KY Tan

Best Table Topic Speaker Ben Fung

Best Evaluator Asta Lee

Come on everyone. Now that you've had such great tips from Andrew and Asta, you are ready to steel your nerves and sign up for the upcoming club contests! Remember to register with our Contest Chairs – Diana Lee and Kenneth McNamee if you want to take part in the contests on 23 August. Read up about the contest rules and timing etc. on our website and blog.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President 2010-11

HKTMC

Beijing Fall Conference: October 22nd thru 24th

2010-08-08T23:29:00.007+08:00

Hong Kong and Macau officially joined District 85 in June 2010. Beijing Convention October 2010 is the first semi-annual district convention that we can enjoy together.

When, Where, What, Pricing and Tickets

Agenda

In-House Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contests - 23rd August!

2010-08-08T17:35:00.006+08:00

Our in-house club Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contests will be held on August 23rd. If you are interested to take part, please register with our Contest Chair - Diana Lee leefungchi@yahoo.com.hk, or with Kenneth McNamee kennethmcnamee26@msn.com.

Grab this golden opportunity to take part in a contest and go on to achieve greater heights in your Toastmaster journey.

The Area contests will be on September 4th and we look forward to see our winners compete at that level.

Asta will Conduct an Evaluation Workshop on Saturday 7-Aug-2010

2010-08-04T13:35:00.022+08:00

An Evaluation Workshop, organised at the Division Level, will be held on Saturday, 7th August, 2010. The English session will be conducted by our own club member, Asta Lee. For more details about the workshop, please visit the Division website:

http://www.hongkong-toastmasters.org/event_detail.php?pkey=566

You can also register for the workshop on the website if you are interested to attend.

Hong Kong Vs Australia - Not The World Cup!

2010-07-28T20:02:00.002+08:00

Curious about what might be different about an Australian Toastmasters meeting, I went along tonight to the Robina (Gold Coast) club. First thing I noticed is that there were a lot more Australians. Second thing I noticed was the standard of the speeches was a lot higher than in our club - looks like we have some work to do. And, the third thing I noticed was that the meeting was run quite formally - surprising for supposedly ''laid back'' Australia.

As expected, meeting structure was very similar with prepared speeches first, followed by table topics and a break. After the break were the evaluations and facilitators reports. Another interesting thing I noticed was that members gave two of the prepared speech speakers a standing ovation - something that I've never seen at a Hong Kong meeting.

I got to introduce myself at the beginning and to give some comments before the end of the meeting. Managed to get a laugh and some publicity for our club. If you are travelling, and have a spare evening, I'd encourage you to visit a meeting. Speaking to new people forces you out of the comfort zone and you might just learn something new or meet some new friends.

26th July 2010 Meeting Update

2010-07-28T08:56:00.011+08:00

What would you do if you were in an elevator with someone you wanted to impress and you had only 2 minutes to do it? The theme of our meeting was about what sales pitch you could make in that short time.

Typical of Edwin's witty self, he seized on the elevator concept in our theme Elevator Pitch and introduced most of the speakers as some type of elevator, e.g., a fast moving elevator (Cecilia), a new elevator, tomorrow's elevator (Andrew). I think it was a creative and colourful way to introduce the speakers.

For the 3 facilitators, it was a first time for Jonathan and Pauline as Ah-Counter and Grammarian, respectively. And it was only Dick's 2nd time as Timekeeper. Pauline gave us a new word of the day : TRIAGE (v) (n ). Any guess as to what it means? It means prioritization and is commonly used in the hospitals and in the army. The 2 persons who used the word during the meeting received a prize from Pauline.

Philip Ngan delivered a speech packed with deep meaning and action. He even got blown to the floor by a typhoon 8 gust while acting out the role of the Mighty Tree. His message to us was that it's okay to be a small plant as it withstands the storm better than the Mighty Tree.

Cecilia asked us To Be or Not To Be....a multi-tasker. Apparently we are all multi-taskers one way or another. Cecilia informed us that it can be highly stressful to multi-task and you could lose out in efficiency, especially when performing complicated tasks.

Andrew delivered an advanced manual project, a seminar to benefit our club members interested to compete in the Humorous Speech Contest. He shared with us that we must have a reason to compete, and know our style and be comfortable with it since there is not any one style that will please everyone e.g. are you a Woody Allen or a Michael Hui? He told us that we must have a goal to achieve and should practice twice a day. Andrew shared many valuable tips and it was great to be there to learn from the master himself.

As an experienced Toastmaster, Edwin was able to explain to the audience the 3 different manuals that were used during the evening. It was really beneficial to hear his sharing. Thanks Edwin.

During the Table Topic Session, we heard two distinguished guests speak : Akash Karia, the President of HKUST Toastmasters Club; and KS Teo, DTM from Raffles Toastmasters Club Singapore. Teo left us with the phrase - "HK is uniquely unique". It stemmed from his observation of the many nationalities that turned up at our club. It was an impressive performance from the two and we were certainly given a great chance to learn, with their skillful 2-minute handling of their topics. Gilbert and Peter also displayed courage and skill in volunteering themselves for a Table Topic.

We had another good evening in terms of guest turnout with 12 guests coming to our meeting. Steven Li came to bid farewell to us as he is returning to Tianjin after his memorable stay in HK.

I did a demo of Easy Speak in a continued quest to engage our members to use this great software to ease the administration and organising of our club meetings.

During the Evaluation session, all speakers received great feedback from their evaluators, as usual. Several valid criticisms were made that I expect many of us in the audience found applicable to our own speechmaking.

Here are the announcements for:

Best Speaker - Andrew Yeung;
Best Table Topic Speaker - Akash;
Best Evaluator - Daniel Chan.

Yet another fun, entertaining, educational meeting. Till we meet again at the next meeting.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

HKTMC President

Upcoming Humorous Speech, and Evaluation Workshops!

2010-07-22T12:56:00.004+08:00

Dear Members and Guests,

We have often heard from our experienced and distinguished Toastmasters that to further improve our public speaking skills, we must push ourselves to take part in contests.

With the Club's Evaluation Speech and Humorous Speech Contest taking place at our 2nd meeting in August, our VPE team has arranged for a couple of mini-workshops (20 min tips sharing) for us on how to get prepared for the contests. With the kind support of 2 seasoned contestants from our club, we are pleased to bring the following programme to you:

26 Jul Andrew Yeung on Humorous Speech Contest -- "Laugh Towards Your Goal"

9 Aug Asta Lee on Evaluation Speech Contest -- "How to Perform at Your Best"

Please come and join us at these 2 meetings to learn more and benefit from our 2 speakers.

In addition, I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that Asta will also be running an Evaluation workshop for beginner evaluators at the Division Level on 7 Aug. This workshop is a longer session, not the 20min one that Asta is running for our club. New members from our club and those of us who think that they need a refresher, please make time to join in Asta's workshop. We will announce the details of this workshop when we receive the update from the Division Governor.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President

HKTMC

Message from the Immediate Past President

2010-07-20T15:59:00.001+08:00

During the past year as a president, I have learnt how to make right decisions for the Club. I have also learnt how to get things done through people. It is always difficult to motivate people, especially those who are volunteers. However, with the assistance of the executive committee, regular meetings were held smoothly and special activities, such as the anniversary dinner, annual outing, and inhouse speech contests were organized upto our satisfaction. As the immediate past president, I have the following insights:

WITHOUT THE PASSION AND THE LOVE TOWARDS THE CLUB, I would never have done my very best for the club. I would never have made decisions which were for the benefits of the club, which would in turn to the advantage of the club members.

WITHOUT THE SUPPORT OF THE EX-COM MEMBERS, I would have ended up doing everything by myself, not a leader anymore.

WITHOUT THE GUIDANCE AND FEEDBACK FROM THE FELLOW MEMBERS, I would never have improved. That's why in the toastmasters, we have a very good feedback mechanism, with which we can improve or excel ourselves in both the communication and leadershop skills.

I really enjoy being a member of the Hong Kong Toastmasters Club, I even treasure the opportunity of having been a club president, which helps me grow further not only in my worklife but also on the personal level.

I always believe in NO PAIN, NO GAIN. Without playing any efforts, how can we expect to have any gains!

Cheers,

Rita Tsui

My 1st blog in English - Stephen Li

2010-07-18T09:54:00.001+08:00

Hi! This is Stephen Li. I'm invited to write something in HKTM Blog and have been absolutely into this job.

As some of you probably remember in my Project-1 speech talking about myself weeks ago, I mentioned that I'm in the group who enjoys travelling and sharing. Certainly writing blogs is one of my favourite pastimes that I do regularly (but all were in Chinese, never tried English one).

By telling people (known or not) my life experience, mindflows, thoughts, witnesses over special events, even some incidents I went through, I believe it is a great way to communicate with others, yet not the perfect! The perfect one in my view now is, speaking to others by face-face communication, verbally convey your thoughts and information before people, for it's more efficient, very immediate, also can be very interesting because of the interactions involved, challenges in spontaneous responses. In this techno-charged era, one unchanged universal truth is, people still prefer to get information face to face. Won't you agree?

I used to be quite frightened of this way, I mean F-F-comm. Either in my mother tongue or another language, I just couldn't manage doing it well. The main problem I figured out was that I worried too much about my language fluency or usage, eye contacts, facial expressions, etc., lots of trivial elements. I wanted to be perfect in communication, but that's impossible (at least not at this stage). Therefore, all those factors hindered myself from smooth communication with others, and it happened so many times that I was very frustrated, discouraged, overwhelmed by the failures I personally reckoned in some F-F-Comm. Eventually I found myself only comfortable in ways of linking outside world via e-ways, like phone calls, emails, online chatting, blogs etc.. The more mistakes you're afraid to make, the less virtual F-F-Comm you'll put in efforts, and the consequence will be you only dwell in own house to touch out via invisible ways, which is absolutely pitiful. But with joining Toastmaster club, things are gradually changed. Those existing issues are still there, yet my attitude is transformed. 'Be my guest!, I say to my anxieties, 'I don't worry about you anymore, I want to stand up and speak out...' By contrast, my concern is subtly changed to, how can I communicate with others more effectively and more into profound level (other than staying on surface only).

Toastmaster Club is one of the best treasures I discovered during my stay in HKG. It's my great fortune joining it as a regular member, and got plenty opportunities in knowing nice, friendly people here, participation of speech project, facilitating work, as well as having lots of sharing with one another, getting acquainted, even did hiking together once. The best part I mean to express is, this is only the beginning of my TM life, I'm expecting to go and check the Toastmaster club back home later on (Fyi, there's one running in downtown of Tianjin, also in English). If things go well, surely I will be joining the TM activities there and hopefully become an active member to give contributions like you guys are doing over here.

Herewith my gratitude firstly goes to Rita Tsui, TM President of 2009-2010 term, because she introduced me this great club which I've found like a home to settle myself, let alone the beneficial parts to personal communication skill and into leadership. Ai-Ai and Michael, you're doing excellent jobs in HKTM, I know for sure the new term will be running very smooth and successful with your endeavors. Keep it up and I can't wait to see the fruits when I'm visiting HK again earlier next year. Changing the topic of Michael's speech the other night, I'd like to say, 'You shoot, you'll score! (I was thinking to change it to 'you cultivate, you harvest', but doesn't sound that powerful, haha~~)

Last but not least, I hope to say thanks to pals like, Paul, Ben, Arthur, Asta, Gilbert, Frances, KY Tan, Andrew, Kenneth, Peter, Diana, Wendy, Philip, Pauline, Eng Wah, Tina, etc... Lots of people I can recognize the face but may not be able to call out your names when we meet. Many of you are very skillful and professional in TM yet still seeking for all possibilities in upgrading yourselves in communication and leadership. You're the role models I admire and aspire to learn from you in all aspects and all the way! Others may be facing the same problem as I do, believe or not, we're growing up all together if we come to TM as much as possible. I hope we can share the fruits between each other when I'm returning HKTM in 2011.

In concluding this blog, I hope to leave you my contact details. In case any of you are visiting Tianjin, please feel free to contact me for any helps. If you're interested, I may also take you to the TM there. =)

All right, you can find me in 'Windows Live Messenger' or 'Facebook' via same account: ste_li@hotmail.com (there's one hyphen on the bottom)
My mobile in Mainland is +86 133 1202 8218
All the best, everyone! I'm still seeing you again on 2nd session of July.

Happy Toastmastering!

12th July 2010 Meeting Update

2010-07-14T23:56:00.013+08:00

Dear Members and Guests,

Kenneth as the TME showed us how the WAVE is done in the spirit of the World Cup. The participants at the meeting enjoyed the WAVE. This is certainly a first that I've experienced in our Toastmaster meetings. Its very novel and I like it a lot. It really sets off the meeting to a great start.

Ping Fan and Paul Wong who had both been away for a while came to the meeting. It was great to see them again after a long absence.

Gilbert came to the meeting even after informing us he could not make it. So, all was well for the meeting to proceed.

According to KY, it takes 43 facial muscles to frown and only 17 to smile, but then he also informed us that it only takes 4 muscles to punch someone! Up to you to choose! Then there were more tips on how to practice your smile. One was to bite a pencil between your teeth but I won't go into the tip on how you frown.

Love sparks passion. Pauline our 2nd speaker who is very passionate about service to her customers in the health care industry shared with us the high stress environment in health care where people are subject to strong emotions as life and death is always in the balance. We learned that in the hospitals it has become a mantra that if you can't CURE a patient you resort to CARE. Give some thoughts to those unsung heroes that work in the hospital and any compliments paid to them will be greatly welcomed by the staff there.

"He shoots! He scores!" Michael surprised us by his exaggerated body language and raised arms and voice. This is how he re-enacted his nostalgic memory of the once famous Canadian TV sports announcer Foster Hewitt. Michael was relieving the enjoyable time when his family watched hockey on TV every Saturday night in Canada. However, he ended his speech "nostagically" by telling us that ALL good times must come to an end.

Andrew encouraged the Table Topic speakers to speak intelligently when doing their table topic speeches as the questions are all related to the World Cup, but did they? Never mind, you had to be there to find out.

Ben had a topic on Spain. Peter on the "Paul the Octopus". Paul Breen on Yellow Card (or was it Jersey?). Diana on Cheering. And Frances commented on Strikers who cannot score.

All our evaluators gave positive feedback to our speakers and I'm sure the speakers will work on the areas for their improvements in their next speech.

Our Grammarian, Gilbert did a follow up on the WAVE to keep people awake as we have some in the audience who were up late to watch the World Cup.

A special thank you to our Area G1 Governor, Henry Kong, who came to visit our club and be our General Evaluator.

And finally, here are the champions of our meeting.

Best Speaker - Michael Boynton

Best Table Topic Speaker - Frances Lam

Best Evaluator - Asta Lee

Oh yes, before I sign-off, I must make a mention that the OVERALL champion of the evening was Paul the Octopus because he got the most mentions during the evening.

Best regards,

Ong Ai Ai

President

HKTMC

Pencil A Smile - KY 12 July 2010

2010-07-13T17:58:00.000+08:00

KY is not only a potential future champion public speaker but he's also a pretty prolific blogger. The script of his speech, Pencil A Smile, can be found on his blog here:

http://tanky18.blogspot.com/2010/07/pencil-smile.html

And, the book that was his inspiration for this speech, 59 Seconds by Professor Richard Wiseman, was the subject of a post I did recently on my blog:

http://powmarday.blogspot.com/2010/06/59-seconds-think-little-change-lot.html

That's a very clever idea KY - post your script to a blog so interested listeners can have another look. Well done.

Mobile Internet at Club Meetings

2010-07-11T14:43:00.002+08:00

The club recently purchased a mobile Internet router. We are hoping that it can be used at meetings, special events, exco meetings, district competitions, etc. The router connects to the Internet via the 3G telephone network and acts as a wi-fi source. Up to 5 devices (laptop, iPhone, etc) can be connected to the Internet simultaneously. If you need to hook up to the Internet during a meeting, approach Paul or Ai Ai for the password.

We are also hoping it can help us streamline club administration by registering new members at the international site on the spot and by allowing us to post club news to the blog as it happens. Lets see how it works out. As always, any questions or comments welcome.

More Travelling Toastmasters

2010-07-07T01:12:00.025+08:00

Ai Ai and Michael used the July 1st holiday as an opportunity to do some more exploring of the mainland. This time they travelled to Xian to trek up one of China's Five Great (Taoist) Mountains, HuaShan (actually, HuaShan has at least five peaks: North, South, East, West, and Central). HuaShan has been labelled by some in China 'The Number One Precipitous Mountain under Heaven'. Some internet forum writers (usually the ones who haven't been there themselves) label it as dangerous and unsafe for tourists. After hiking over pretty much all of it, as far as Ai Ai and Michael are concerned, it's definitely precipitous in places, but not particularly dangerous or unsafe currently. If you want to be completely safe there are a few steep rock step verticals that should be avoided they say, but it's not required to traverse any of them. The infamous 'plank walk' is not only pretty safe but less of a thrill than one would imagine from photos, in their opinion. "Still, it does get one's heart pumping in spots", according to Michael. While in Xian (briefly), Ai Ai and Michael also made quick visits to the Terracotta Warriors Museum and the replica Tang dynasty palace and baths at the Huaqing hot springs.

"First Impressions of Sydney - My Move to Sydney" by Gary French

2010-07-06T22:27:00.000+08:00

Dear All,

For those of you who aren't already aware of it, I'm now living in Sydney. My wife and son moved here in January so he could start school here. As usual I was a bit behind schedule. I only moved to Sydney in mid-May. I'm still getting settled in, and still looking for the "perfect" job. Well, not sure if I'm waiting for the perfect job or not; I'm getting bored sitting around home, so I'm not as picky as I was. People always think it would be great not to have to "go to the office" every day; but the question is what do you do at home every day. I don't enjoy cooking that much, and I'm not too big on housecleaning either, so I've been watching more TV than I have in the past 10 years in Hong Kong! That said, you can only watch so much TV before it gets boring.

My wife, son and I are living in Gordon; one of the Northern suburbs. Our apartment is a 3-bedroom apartment, but much bigger than a 3 BDRM flat in Hong Kong. I guess that is because they have the space here in Australia. Our Master bedroom is much bigger than the one we had in Sai Kung, and the other 2 bedrooms are also big; you still have room after you have a double bed, a desk and bookcase and other assorted odds and ends in there. Plus, all 3 bedrooms have built in wardrobes! I know, it is probably standard for Sydney, but after living in Hong Kong for 15 years I'm quite impressed with the built-in wardrobes and the space. Guess it doesn't take much to make me happy.

It's COLD here in Sydney. Several people told me that it was cold in Australia, but I laughed at them; because I used to live in Iowa, where it was below 0 degrees in the winter and we had several feet of snow. However, I guess I've been in Hong Kong for too long, I'm not used to the cold weather anymore. During the day it is usually from 14-18 degrees C but when the sun goes down it cools off very quickly. Last week was the coldest weather we've had since I've been here, each night it got down to 3-4 degrees; too cold for me, had to turn on the furnace a couple nights! But, when the sun comes out, it warms up in a hurry. Of course, this is the Winter "down under", so I guess I'll have to put up with the cold weather for a few more months. Then, when you guys are having cold weather I'll be at the beach working on my tan!

One funny thing I should tell you about my driving skills (or lack thereof). I had to take the written and Driving test to get my Australian Driving license here, because they don't recognize the HK Driving license as up to their standards. But, as I haven't had my HK license renewed for at least 3 years, I ended up with a P license (P for "provisional", meaning that I haven't had enough experience yet to get a "full" license). My son thought it was quite funny, that I've been driving for over 25 years, but still don't have a "real" license here in Sydney! Oh well, I should have kept my US license up-to-date, as Australia does recognize a US Drivers license. Oh well, that's the way it goes.

A bit more about the driving here in Sydney. People actually use their blinkers when they change lanes here; plus, they also wait for pedestrians to cross the road in front of them! Not like in Hong Kong where most drivers assume that the traffic laws apply to everybody else, not me. I remember that in Hong Kong if you waited to let somebody else into traffic, ahead of you, you may end up waiting for 10 minutes to keep going. Plus, everybody behind you would be honking their horn to get you to move.

Birds, they're all over! Maybe in Hong Kong it was too noisy you never heard the birds too much; well, you didn't see too many either unless you were out in the County Park. We live in a suburb here in Sydney; in a 2 story apartment building with lots of trees and gardens around our building. So we see, and hear, a lot of birds every day. And they aren't just sparrows and pigeons, but a lot of colourful birds as well. Every morning on our balcony I can see Parrots, several kinds of Cockatoos, Kookaburras, Turtle Doves, Crested Pigeons, etc, etc. It is really neat to sit on the balcony enjoying a cup of coffee and see all the beautiful birds flying by. They say they have quite a few foxes roaming around, but I haven't seen any of them. Not too many squirrels either, but instead they have a lot of ring-tailed possums climbing the trees. Fact is, there is one that comes up almost every evening to our balcony to eat the vegetables that my wife is "trying" to grow in our "garden". Not having too much luck, though; as soon as they get 6-8 inches high the possums come up and chew them down to nothing!

I also wanted to take this opportunity to let you all know how much I've enjoyed being a member of the HK Toastmaster's Club. Even though I never did get very far in my Toastmaster's journey, I really enjoyed all the people I've met in Toastmasters. As they say "Reaching your destination is good, but it's the things that happen/people you meet along the way that makes it great!". In Toastmasters that has really been the case. Whether I'm now an accomplished Speaker is questionable, I've certainly learned from all of the other Members that I've met; and I hoped that you've been able to learn something from me (I hope you haven't just picked up my bad habits; Ha Ha).

You can contact me via this e-mail address, or my HK number (9515 8682), or my Australian mobile phone (04 2442 6624) if you'd like to keep in touch. Of course, if any of you are visiting Sydney let me know, so we can meet up if our schedules allow. Of course, right now I'm "between jobs" so I have plenty of time; ha ha.

Cheers,

Gary

Message from the President (Re meeting on 28 June 2010)

2010-06-29T15:09:00.003+08:00

It was an enjoyable and team-spirited evening.

In the prepared speech session, Stephen shared with us his experience and feeling of staying in Hong Kong for the past few months. If he could tell us more about himself, it would certainly have helped us know him better. KY conducted an educational talk on spotted felines, namely, jaguars, leopards and cheetahs. I like the last sentence of his speech "A leopard does not change its spots". Peter briefed us his trip of 5 senses by telling us his story in Egypt. After his speech, I hope that I could make a trip there sometime next year.

After the prepared speech session, we had the table topic session whereby Paul, our best table topic speaker, surprised us on how facebook saves his marriage!

In the evaluation session, all evaluators gave very constructive comments to our speakers and I particularly like the one delivered by Arthur - brief, to the point and encouraging.

Apart from the normal program, we also had a sharing session for the outgoing excom, which was well thought-out. Each excom member was given 2-minute to tell us their experience of having been in the team for almost a year. Thereafter, Danial conducted the installation of incoming ex-com in an entertaining manner.

Last but not least:

The Best Prepared Speech Speaker - KY Tan

The Best Evaluator - Arthur Ting

The Best Table Topic Speaker - Paul Breen

Congratulations to all of them!

You can click on the following link for the photos taken during the meeting:

http://picasaweb.google.com/109983967344739667301/20100628HKTMCFacebook?authkey=Gv1sRgCPWA5_2xi6Po7gE#

Happy Toastmastering!

Message from the President (Re meeting on 15 June 2010)

2010-06-17T08:52:00.003+08:00

It was a fun and enjoyable meeting with a full-house of audience.

In the prepared speech session, Chris expressed to us the advantages of joining the HK Toastmasters Club - receiving encouragement and care from fellow toastmasters. Great speeches can motivate people and even move the world! KY disclosed his secrets of not joining toastmasters club for his first ten years in HKG and now he was just like a stranger returning to his home and ultimately found his anchor in Hong Kong. Gilbert shared with us his joy of sailing in a yacht and Eng Wah Lim created ripples in the heart of the audience by telling us a story about his 5-year-old kid.

After the prepared speech session, we had a group of positive thinking toastmasters as individual evaluators. They all gave very encouraging feedback to our speakers.

In the table topic session, Edwin prepared short and brief topics. Most of the table topic speakers were able to deliver their impromptu speeches with opening, body and conclusion. It was very well done!

Last but not least:

The Best Prepared Speech Speaker - KY Tan

The Best Evaluator - Elsa Law

The Best Table Topic Speaker - Ai Ai Ong

Congratulations to all of them!

We have an installation of the new executive committee in the next meeting (28 June). Please come to join us.

Happy Toastmastering!

Grammarian Extras 15 June 2010 Meeting

2010-06-16T09:13:00.006+08:00

We had quite a bit more discussion after the meeting about the proverb quoted by K.Y, 'like a stray returning to the fold.'
In this case the fold is a group of people who share the same aims or ideas. A better definition can be found here on the Macmillan Dictionary.

Cantonese version of this proverb is : 浪子回頭 / long zi wui tau

Similes were also a focus of my report. Just to recap, a simile is a grammatical device that uses the words like or as to make a comparison. Using a simile can often make an idea or thought more memorable. Here's a few I remember from the meeting;

K.Y. when talking about Hong Kong: 'Hong Kong has been like a harbour to anchor myself.'

Gilbert when talking about his passion for yachting: 'Attracted like a moth to a flame.'

Chris when talking about public speaking: 'Public speaking is like an artist making a performance.'

K.Y. also quoted an inscription he saw while in the UK: 'There are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet.'

K.Y. wins the King of Grammar award for this meeting for using so many grammatical devices and for using them so well. No surprise he picked up the best speaker award on the night.

Message from the President

2010-05-25T14:00:00.002+08:00

Dear All,

We had an "Advanced Speeches" night with speeches of high quality!

In the advanced speech session, Arthur revealed his secrets of being a great speaker - rehearse and repeat. He even repeated what he did in his first area contest by throwing off a cockroach to the audience!!! I was particularly attracted by Andrew's superb delivery skills. His opening story was delivered in a vividly and lively way. I also enjoyed Edwin's speech of persuading audience to revamp the swimming pool in the Fairview Garden.

With a group of great prepared speech speakers, we also had a team of seasoned toastmasters as individual evaluators. They all led a good example by evaluating speeches in accordance with speech objectives.

We have to admit that we had a team of facilitators who were full of imagination. Our timekeeper, Ben Fung used an analogy between traffic lights "GREEN, YELLOW AND RED" and our time signals for delivering his timekeeping report. Kenneth made use of the length of lightings to signify the number of unnecessary sounds that speakers had. This was also coincided with meeting theme "climate change". Though Philippe's mother tongue is not English, he delivered his grammarian report at ease.

In addition, we had Asta as the TME who introduced each speaker in a caring manner and Stella as the GE who contributed alot of great ideas to us.

Last but not least:

The Best Prepared Speech Speaker - Arthur Ting

The Best Evaluator - Michael Boynton

The Best Table Topic Speaker - Stella Hong

Congratulations to all of them!

Due to unavailability of function rooms in the Japanese Club, our next meeting is now scheduled for 15 June (Tue), same time and same venue.

Happy Toastmastering!

Message from the President

2010-05-11T14:53:00.002+08:00

Once again we had a full-house meeting last night with over 12 guests. We all had an enjoyable night!

In the prepared speech session, Pauline shared with us some of the thought provoking ideas such as attitude is altitude; when you have a will, you will have a way. We also have to thank Peter for the tips of attending free seminars. Ben further advised us the techniques of handling difficult conversations.

In the table topics session, our table topic master, Andrew was able to demonstrate the skills of KISS, i.e., keep it short and sweet by using one WORD for each topic. It was creative.

All our evaluators were experienced toastmasters and were able to give constructive feedback to our speakers.

The highlight of the meeting was the presidential election. We had 2 candidates to run for the election. After 1 minute of each on their knowledge of the club history, another 2 minutes on the weaknesses and strengths of the club and the last 3 minutes on their respective vision, we finally elected our next Club President. I can say that both performed extremely well and it was difficult to tell who the winner was. Though it was a tough decision, in the end Ai Ai Ong was made President of the Club. Congratulations to Ai Ai! If you are interested to join her Excom, please feel free to contact her at ongaiai@hotmail.com.

Last but not least:

The Best Prepared Speech Speaker - Ben Fung

The Best Evaluator - Ai Ai Ong

The Best Table Topic Speaker - Kenneth McNamee

Congratulations to all of them!

Attached are the photos taken during our meeting.

Happy Toastmastering!

Cheers, Rita

Message from the President

2010-04-27T12:41:00.006+08:00

We had a hiking activity on Sunday, 25th April. The weather was excellent. There was not much sunshine and cloudy most of time.

We started at Sha Tin Au and finished at Tai Po Road (MacLehose Trail Stage 5) in 3 hours. Though we were all sweating while we hiked, it was an excellent opportunity for office workers like us who seldom do any exercises to gain the benefits of breathing fresh air and enjoying the panoramic view of Hong Kong. It is not just a challenge to our physical body, it has also put our level of endurance or perseverance into a test.

In the end, we made it as we live by the motto - Never give up till we have reached our goal!

After hiking, we had a great lunch at the Chinese Restaurant of the Baptist University. After that, we left with a tiring body but a great smile on the face!

Cheers,

Rita