Exams revisited

Monday 20^th May

Word of the Day: Studious, Studiously

When was the last time you had an exam? Members and guests were reminded of multiple-choice questions and studying studiously as we started the meeting with a quick quiz. Have a go at these 5 questions about our club.

1) Which year was Hong Kong Toastmasters Club established?

a) 1990       b) 1954      c) 1964

2) Who was its founder and first president?

a) Clement Wong           b) Donald Tsang            c) Alan Aitken

3) True or False?  In its establishment, only men were invited to be members.

4) Where was the club’s first meeting held?

a)  IFC                b) Mandarin Oriental Hotel            c) HSBC Headquarters

5) What district does the club belong to?

a) 89                  b) 85                  c) 90

University professors and tutors’ advice are invaluable and one thing you should keep in mind when studying for any exam is to treat it like a performance. Just like how any pianist or musician rehearses and practises before their opening night, an exam is a chance for you to showcase everything you’ve been preparing for. It is this performance that counts and where you should give everything you’ve got. Our Toastmaster of the Evening has an innate sense of humour but he was very well-prepared for his role. He’s also our club’s secretary and a committed member of our club, he’s the one and only Ben Fung.

Ben started proceedings in with his usual charming jokes as he introduced the facilitators who were our time-keeper-Melinda Luk who also happens to be a new member. Bonnie Lam was our ah-counter and I took the role of grammarian.

Onto our prepared speakers with new member Maggie Lee taking the stage for the first time giving her icebreaker speech Why Toastmasters? A Shy Pianist Overcoming Stage Fright and Facing Challenges. Maggie used her musical background to introduce herself and rhetorical devices of personification on how music “speaks to her soul.” Her use of imagery in the story helped us build a picture of steps she’s had to overcome to get to where she is today. Aparna Sachar, had the second spot and she delivered yet again another clever speech in her CC7- Research your Topic Genderously Speaking. Yes, it was a speech on gender differences but it her examples of current issues such as habits of men and women checking Facebook exes that took an otherwise dull speech to one that was worth listening to. Alan Kwong is heading towards becoming a competent communicator and tonight he gave us his CC9- Persuade with Power Cyber Addiction looking at the dangers of extensive hours of violent computer games. This is a topical issue affecting many parts of Asia, namely South Korea, China and of course even Hong Kong is not immune to the addictive power of online gaming. We love listening to stories. Philip Ngan is developing is his storytelling skills in his advanced speech- The Moral of the Story, Second Race of the Hare and the Tortoise. We all know the original. The overconfident hare takes a nap and loses to a tortoise in a race but what happens next? Philip, using a variety of voices, gestures and stage movement, takes us to a rematch between the tortoise and the hare. This time however the hare forgoes the nap but instead face plants a rock disorientating him while tortoise is able to pass him and win. How? Philip had a twist in the story. An element of surprise catching us completely off guard. Tortoise was wearing rollerblades! Cheating or Cleverness, call it what you will. The ending had us in hysterics. The moral of the story is to improve yourself in anyway you can.

                                                   Best Prepared Speaker: Aparna Sachar

Table Topics time. Our Table Topics master, Rita Tsui led this session in her usual charismatic way. Alice braved the first question of answering how she prepares for an exam. Our guest Penni tackled the second question of whether or not she did well in her exams. George, also a guest, took on the third question of whether exams are necessary and our fourth speaker, Lawrence delivered his impromptu speech of how exams and performances are related. 

                                                          Best Table Topics Speaker: George

Evaluators are highly respected and we’re fortunate to have seasoned members who do the job at a high standard each and every time. Arthur Ting confidently and competently gave feedback about Maggie’s speech making sure there’s a balance of critique and encouragement given. Sergio Aguirre had to job of evaluating Aparna’s speech illustrating how even the positioning of visual aids affect the impact of a presentation. Asta Lee is no amateur in giving encouragement and advice as she gave several suggestions on how to select appropriate topics for meeting CC objectives. Her job tonight was to evaluate Alan’s speech. Ai Ai Ong, another star evaluator commented on Philip’s story. Philip ticked all the boxes HOWEVER there’s always room for improvements and we were treated to a master class in how to maximise interest and engagement in every storytelling session.

                                                                    Best Evaluator: Ai Ai Ong

General Evaluators are also invaluable. These are the speakers who evaluate everything from lighting to our evaluators. Nothing and no one, apart from those already evaluated, is immune. Michael Boynton's fair and thorough assessment ranged from punctuality to keeping our evaluators in check. Where would we be without our GE’s keeping us in check?

The term is coming to an end with June being our last month of meetings so we have a few members completing their CC10s and CLs. Continue to come along to our meetings to see how far these members have come.

Sandy Chan

President

Hong Kong Toastmasters Club

Answers to quick 5 questions: 1) b 2) c  3) True  4) C 5) a