The F Word

Monday 4^th March

Theme: Failure

Word of the Day: The Grammarian failed to give us one

We’re back after a very successful club International and Table Topics speech contest and to keep the momentum going, tonight we aimed to have another successful evening. But if it didn’t go as planed, just know that there is much to learn from failure. There are many quotes we can use to pick ourselves up. Winston Churchill once said that, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.” So we continued to deliver quality speeches, develop communication skills and edge closer to achieving our Toastmaster goals.

The theme of the evening is the F word, Failure, but our Toastmaster of the Evening never fails to impress us with his enthusiasm and stage presence. He’s been a member of the club since 2011 and we’ve learnt a lot about his Mexican culture and dancing talents from his speeches. Our TME tonight was Sergio Aguirre.

We’ve all heard the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” The always organised, Sergio started the evening defining the dreaded idea of failure but rather than focussing on the outcome, we should be focussing on the process. Here, Here. Successful people don’t work alone. There’s a “work team” behind them. Where would Elvis, Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan be without dance instructors, managers and a team?

Our first speaker tonight was Matthew Lee, the nomadic businessman who criss-crosses South-East Asia living in a suitcase so he devised a “Suitcase Soultion,” he should really trademark this name. In his CC7- Research your Topic speech, “Life in a Suitcase”, Matt researched and explained how he’s managed to turn troublesome travel problems into solutions with using suitcase cubes, online check-in systems and making sure we T.O.W. This mnemonic of T.O.W can be applied to all travellers. T- TSA approved, O- Online check-in and W- Wear light. Our second speaker, Steven Wong attempted his CC8 speech- Get Comfortable with Visual Aids with his ideas on “Investing.” Invaluable advice was given to those who are sitting on money and not doing anything with it. If you’re one of these people, you should have been at tonight’s meeting. Three words why we must invest- Inflation, Inflation, Inflation. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.  Third speaker, Andrew Yeung took the stage next with his advanced speech on Scripted Shortage. In this Fact Finding Report, we were made aware of the sensationalised current news reports on the shortage of milk powder in the city. We were made to question on whether there was an actual shortage or are other powers at play. Well, according to Andrew’s research, it pays to understand the manipulation behind supply and demand.

Best Prepared Speaker- Andrew Yeung

Onto Table Topics led by Table Topics Master, Philip Ngan. Philip’s job of throwing out quick questions had a theme tonight of hypothetical situations on the idea of our theme. Our new member, Mikko Revonniemi braved the stage tonight and answered the question, “If you failed an exam, what would you do?” I have images of students crying in their beds at night but not Mikko. To him, failure isn’t a problem. To him, the word failure is just that, a word and that there is always another chance to try something again. Reminds me of a quote from Thomas Edison who said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways it won’t work.” Next question up for grabs, “If you failed at investing, what would you do?” Our guest Echo decided to tackle that question with a quick reply of how she’s lucky to have a husband who does very well in investing. The last question asked was, “If you failed at winning Mark 6, what would you do,” well I believe there are many of us who have experience in never reaching that goal. Our guest Eddie’s advice was first don’t take it all too seriously and it could be worse if you had chosen all the right number but in the wrong order.

Best Table Topics Speaker and new member- Mikko Ravonniemi

Evaluators and seasoned members aim to support our shortcomings and setbacks with words of encouragement. Without their motivating words, we’d probably throw in the towel with Toastmasters. Our first supporter, Paul Wong had the task of evaluating Matthew and whilst the speech was indeed entertaining, the lack of research material required of the speech meant it wasn’t given a passing grade. We have an engaging evaluator in the club. Her name is Ai Ai Ong and when she talks, you listen. We listened intently as she gave feedback to Steven Wong and reminded us that all speeches must have a clear message and thus this speech was also not given a pass. Not to worry boys, as we’ve been saying all along, there is no such thing as failure, just the will to carry on. One speaker who did make the grade was Andrew who was passed by evaluator, Ben Fung. Using a mnemonic, M.I.L.K, we learnt that the Main purpose was clearly stated, the Information was presented, there was a clear Logic in its structure however Key information was not made obvious.

Best Evaluator: Ben Fung

The key message delivered tonight was that no matter what setbacks we have, there is always people there to support you, we’ve been given the opportunity to give it another go and the journey towards success includes failure. Join us on our journey at our next meeting on the 18^th of March at 6/F L’Hotel, Tin Hau from 7-9pm.

Sandy Chan
President
Hong Kong Toastmasters Club