9th August 2010 Meeting Update

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