Theme: New Start
Word of the Day: Discover/ Discovery/ Discovered
Happy New Year fellow Toastmasters and readers. To our members if your New Year’s resolution is to be a more committed member, coming to the first meeting of the year is a good start. To our guests, a new year presents an open door to new discoveries and adventures which is what you’ll find when you attend our eye-opening meetings. We always aim to make the New Year more successful than the last. One member in particular had a very impressive 2012, this person goes from strength to strength in giving speeches and performs well in competitions and know he’ll do even better in 2013 and he also happened to be our Toastmaster of the Evening, Andrew Yeung.
Our expert facilitators were Timekeeper- Clement Wong, Ah Counter- Arthur Ting and Grammarian- Matthew Lee to keep the show running smoothly.
The first prepared speaker of the year was Alan Wong who gave an emphatic speech about how to find the gift of life in his CC2 speech, “The Most Valuable Gift in the World.” The gift is living in the present and making the most of each day in the journey towards your ideal future. His powerful speech reminded me of the book The Alchemist. Second up was Steven Wong who gave us his words of wisdom on how to “Eat Responsibly” in his CC7 speech. In today’s wasteful times where tonnes of food are being thrown away, where 40% of waste in this city is food, it was a wake up call to many. Jonathan’s speech was his CC9- “Less is More” where his enthusiasm shown through once again as he spoke on how technology actually makes us work harder and instead of us using it, it owns us. How many old mobile phones do you have lying around the house? Joanne Chuk’s progressing her way though her advanced manual on storytelling. Tonight she told us a highly-entertaining story “Heads or Tails” on how chance has led to her meeting her American Chinese husband and the lessons we can learn from cross-cultural marriages.
Best Prepared Speaker- Joanne Chuk
Our first Table Topics master of the year was Marcus Chu. Marcus’s first question was taken up by Vanessa who told us about lesson’s she learnt from last year. Our guest Colman Lam took the second question where he spoke about improving himself such as his English through Toastmasters and of course, getting into shape. How many of you relate to Marcus? Our new member, Levina Poon took the third question where she spoke on what lessons she’s learnt from the past and how she applies in the present.
Best Table Topics Speaker: Colman Lam
Everyone’s alert when our evaluators take the stage. Their valuable feedback is what we’re here for so we can discover our strengths and develop our weaker areas. It is one thing to list a speakers weaker points but advice should be given to improve for next time. Aparna Sachar evaluated Alan where she advised Alan to quote in order to add depth to a speech. Edwin Lui was Steven’s speech advisor where advice was given to reduce a list of 10 points to 3 so that the speech’s message is clearer. Evaluators also paraphrase speeches to remind the audience what had been spoken about. Ben Fung’s advice to Jonathan is to use jargon if it helps the speech and to maintain eye-contact with the audience. Our seasoned evaluator Rita captured our attention when she advised Joanne how to capture an audience by using personal anecdotes to help the audience relate to the speaker.
Best Evaluator: Ben Fung
There's an immense amount you can discover on the internet while preparing for meetings. After browsing through numerous websites on most common resolutions for the New Year, I’ve compiled a list of my own.
1. Spend more time with friends and family. – Easy we do it every 1st, 3rd and 5th Monday each month.
2. Fit in Fitness- Done, we exercise our mouth muscles and stomach muscles from all the laughter.
3. Eat and Drink Responsibly- Again, not a problem, we always make sure we go to a restaurant that serves vegetables after the meeting.
4. Learn New Things- There is always something new to discover at our meetings. All our members are teachers of some sort.
5. Enjoy Life More- Absolutely, if you do from 1 to 4, you will enjoy life more.
President
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