Meeting 23 Dec 2008

DTM Logandran receiving his Award for Best Role Player and Most Friendly Person from our Vice President Education Levine Lee, CC.







Dr Devi was recognised for her Evaluation of Lee Hin Chong as Best Evaluator for the evening. The Award was presented by our VP(E) Lovingly.





Mr Simon Soh stole the Best Speaker Award for the night from our VPE Lovingly. Besides the Certificate Simon was also awarded with a Christmas tree from our President.






Masdiana Ooi was also Awarded as the Best Table Topics Speaker for the evening.








The President of Speakers Dream Chow Mun Yuen giving her Closing Address. Smiling, full of confidence and happy that the Speakers Dream members came in full support of the meeting.






Gwendoline Gwee the Evaluator for our Past President Philip Wong - very gentle and very firm with her Evaluation.






Our Past President Larry Toh sbna (Single but not available) very poised and sharp in his Evaluation of Simon Soh speech.







Our Humour Master Low Gain Drain always smiling and tickling everyone with his wits and humour without offending anyone - very clean jokes.






Lim Hing Chong, attempting his difficult (to me) assignment - reading a Poem but he started by singing.






Our Area Governor Dr Devi very serious when reading the Objective of Lee Hing Chong's speech. On her left is the DOT from MII looking at some phono I guess.






Another PP from MII Mr Thilothaman - a shining example - sharing his views as he Evaluated Ng Lay Choo a member of GE TM Club.






Ng Lay Choo making her presentation that allows every part of her body to communicate to the audience.







Our General Evaluator listening attentively together with the Time Keeper on his right and the Table Topics Master on his left.




It was the last meeting for the year 2008 and I was glad I came. I was told there were 46 members, (Speakers Dream and MII) with family and guests. The two rooms were crowded and sad to say that some members went home without uttering a word, except of course during dinner.

The President of MII was as usual, gave a speech about Christmas and also told us about turkey the chicken. He said the turkey did not come from Turkey it came from North America, for the Malays turkey is Holland and they called it the Dutch Chicken and to the Chinese it is the Chicken from Fire not to the Fire. We learned something last night. I did not managed to check with my Indian friends what turkey is to them and also from the French Foo Chow Association President, Monsieur Tilaka. Maybe they have thier own version.

He later introduced us to our PP Anna dressed with a Santa Hat and called her Santa Anna where our Toastmasters International Head Quarters is now. Santa Anna briefed us in dtail on the history of Toastmaster and also the meeting schedule.

The Invocation Presenter PP Masdiana read to us a touching poem from Mother Theresa on LIFE.

The VPE of Speakers Dream Lawrence Who oops it is a HOO gave us unpredictable questions as to what we should give to someone and even the most experienced speaker got stuck. Volunteers were Monsieur, Dr Devi, Masdiana, Thilo, Teik Lee and Suresh. The Winner goes to Masdiana for giving Joy to her family during Xmas.

Mohamad was the TT Evaluator and he really meant what he said "to whack the speakers". From the President of the French connection, to Area Governors (past and present), Division Champion, Past President to Lady Diana all got whacked.

The Humour Master was Loghandran (prounced Low Gain Drain) our Malaysian highest achiever that was placed first runner-up at the International Speech Contest in Canada this year. He made fun of the Singh though not negatively.

Dinner was better as it was a Christmas Dinner with Turkey and Apple cinnamon (I do not know what it is but I hope the spelling is correct). Oh yes it was also to celebrate the birthday of Dr Gem, 27 year old Khung (am poor in maths the numbers seemed to switch places) and also World FRU TISC (please figure this out - but no prize for winners).

The Prepared speeches came from Speakers Dream and Simon say........don't ask WHY but ask HOW. Philip from MII our Taipan selling his property in Kuching at a discount for those present, Lay Choo (formerly from Great Eastern) telling us the concept of Kungfu Panda and Lim Hin Chong from Speakers Dream sharing with us a poem from Lord something.

The Evaluators were: PP Larry, GG (Gwenddoline Gwee), PP Thilo and AG Dr Devi. The Grammarian was Dr Gem, Ah Counter was Monsieur and Time Keeper from Speakers Dream, (sorry I forgot to ask her for her autograph). Oh yes the GE is Hi Loss Drain or Loghandran Krishnasamy

Observation from the GE were: Only two father Christmas or rather one father and one mother for the night; one to represent China and the other India (the two most populous country in the world), the food was great and they want to come back next year, the session was easy for him and the Evaluators did their job well.

The Recognition Session saw Masdiana taking the Best Table topics speaker, Simon as the best project speaker, Dr Devi - best Evaluator, and Low Gain Drain took the Most Friendly Person and Best Role Player. MII members are very fair, they try and please their guests by recognising them so that they will have fond memories of MII and will come back soon

Finally the President of Speakers Dream MY Chow (people call her Mun Yuen) close the meeting and also announced that the Speakers Dream Speech Contest will be held on 12 Jan 2008 and all are invited.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE AND MAY GOD BLESS YOU!

At this time of giving, I like to give my best wishes,to you, your family and your friends too (and that's me) for a happy holiday and don't believe what you hear about 2009 - It is going to be a great year for all of us. Just believe it and it will come true.

The Newly Wed

My Dear Fellow MII-TMC Members,

Life trickles down to a few precious moments.
Today is one of those pure moments.
The happy times and the best years of our lives can come
in our carefree childhood, the growing up years in school,
in full romance, followed by marriage and finally parenthood.




Sunday 23 Nov 2008 - TM Ho Fook Chuan will join
the exclusive men's only section of the club where
the married men get together after each meeting
for a few drinks and cry their hearts out for falling into
the oldest scam in the world - Love & Marriage.

With divorce rates climbing all over the world, its
no wonder that marriage has lost its lustre.
But before we lose faith in man's oldest known institution - marriage,
lets sits back and share today's wonderful memories with TM FC Ho.

Tonight, i will share with you the love story of my fellow
Toastmaster and my very good friend - TM Ho Fook Chuan.
Just after the Asian Financial crisis of 97/98 , Ho also
emerged from an equally devastating commitment failure.
He swore to himself that he had given up on the oldest trick in the world - Love,
and proceeded to bury himself 24/7 in his advertising agency.



But then Love works in mysterious ways and as we celebrated the arrival
of the new millennium, bringing with it a new ray of hope, along came a friend
who introduced him to a shy & demure girl called Shy Yen. Boy, was she shy.
( Shy Yen is a junior education facilitator pursuing her MBA )
( FC Ho is a senior Toastmaster still pursuing his CC )
But through the cloak of her shyness, Ho said to himself -
" Ho Fook Chuan, if you had any sense, you will marry this wonderful girl " .
He practically held a shotgun over his head and said " I do " on the
18th Feb 2008 at the Registry of Civil Marriages, KL.
Even as the Registrar pronounced the both of them husband & wife,
Ho wasn't so sure. Make no mistake, Ho was sure about Yen,
but he wasn't so sure about matrimony and he wasn't sure about himself.
You may think that this is not very complimentary to Yen, but the truth is -
we can never be sure that we are sure , we can only be sure that we are Not sure.

There exists a verse in the Holy Bible that says it perfectly,
" There remains then - Faith , Hope & Love.
But the greatest of these is LOVE. "
1 Corinthians 13.

It is indeed one of the most memorable highlights of my Presidency to see my
fellow members Find Love, Discover Love and finally making that Commitment to Love.


Let us all here in MII-TMC propose a Toast to this young couple who truly deserve each other,

To Ho & Yen,
A Toast to a Long & Lasting Love.
May the days ahead be always filled
with Fun, Happiness & Laughter.


Cheers,

leong 23rd November 2008

P.S - for the rest of you, all your club leaves has been cancelled by the president.
therefore, please report for duty this Tuesday 25th Nov @ 6.30pm sharp.

Message from our new Competent Communicator

Dear all,

Thank you for your kind wishes.

To be awarded the competent communicator award is a great way to cap the year. It has been a fruitful year for me in M11, in terms of learning and fellowship. I especially felt the strong teamwork in the speechcraft program that was held in the middle of the year.I was proud to be given the opportunity and to be representing M11, even though I was a novice then.



I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the 'seniors' for the invaluable feedbacks you have given to me throughout my 'training' in M11. I have 'swallowed' my ego and pride from the beginning, having realised that to learn and improve - the best teachers are my fellow TM at ground level. A special thanks to our infatigable President, who has ensured the smooth running of the club's activites at all times.I think it will be an unanimous vote for you to stay a second term?

Achieving the CC award is not the end of the learning for me. it is the beginning of another milestone . It is a reminder for me to continously put into practice what I have learnt, to keep on improving what needs to be improved, and that I will be a 'model' to those who are still striving to reach that level.

Let's continue to enjoy our journey in learning !

warm regards,
Dr GAn

Meeting 16 Dec 2008

I am back and this is due to two persons who have responded. Thank you for your support and I will continue and hope to get more fans to read it.

Our meeting on Tuesday 16 Dec 2008 was as usual but our TME was William Shakespeare Ho and our GE was Anna. As usual our MPM=Most Powerful Man in MII took the stage and he shamed us all including the Muslim as to how much he is aware of the Qurban Celebration. Well done MPM.

After his Surmon he introduce us the newly wedded Mr WHO, William Ho as the TME. I am happy to note he prepared himself well and did a great job inspite of his shortcomings (puns not intended).

Quickly he introduced the Invocation Presenter our Foo Chow President from France Monsieur Tilaka who gave a rendition of Don't Quit. Though he has to go to the Airport he did sacrifice his time and be with us till the dinner break.

Our Virgin TTM Chin Kong Meng really surprised us with gifts from people he selected to speak on SACRIFICE. Great work and well prepared. People will always need incentives to move. The speakers chosen were: Khung, Dr Gan, Rosli, Mano, Willy and another. The best speaker title for the night goes to the Waterman Willy Tan. The Evaluator Masdiana gave her usual kind of evaluation firm and hard.

Today's unusual program was the Roast of our NMM - newly married man Mr WHO. Questions were posed to him by our Powerful Man, like a table topics session but restricted to be answered by NMM only. Ms Goh our visiting TM from TTDI said that we laugh a lot in this club. Well what do you expect when our powerful man roast a NMM?

Dinner was as usual, a little better food I must say and we missed our Banana as Khung just couldn't get it. Funny, Khung volunteer to bring it and he felt sorry and apologise for not bringing it. I think it is time for other members to contribute something as well and not depend on Mr Khung all the time.

The Prepared Speech Assignments from Mano, Willy and Dr Gan went well and they were evaluated by three Past Presidents Masdiana, Thilo and Mohamad. The best speaker title went to Dr Gan and the best Evaluator title goes to her Evaluator.

Mano spoke about the insurance on Landslip and Landslide and Willy on the same thing but more on his experience in helping the victims. For Dr Gan she gave us a Inspirational speech on giving hope. One of her best speeches and that makes her our new Competent Communicator. A standing ovation was given to Dr Gem.

Our GE Anna takes over and invited Ms Goh the Grammarian, Rosli the Aahcountant and Khung the keeper of time besides the three Speech Evaluators before she starts rendering her evaluation. I like to record that she recommends that the club conduct a Role Play Workshop as we have several new members and they are not quite conversant with their roles. She also recommends that Khung takes up bigger challenge by doing his speeches or bigger role.

Our GE also commended on our President during his Presidential Speech which she said is different from the many clubs she had visited in Malaysia as well as Overseas. For the TME she commends that he did well and recommends that he find out the biodata of the speakers before he calls them up.

The other winners for the night were Best Role Player goes to Anna and Most Friendly Person goes to Chin Kong Meng.

In the Closing Ode, Anna said that she was a member since 1977 and she enjoyed her time in TM and encourages everyone to make TM interesting. She brought in PP Larry her nephew and Dr Gan her school mate and they have done well. She also recommends everyone to visit more clubs and feel the difference.

Total Members present were 13, Visiting TM 1 and Guest 1 ie Chua Koon Tsing Dr Gan's son.

Send me your feedbacks soon.......

Lost Steam

Dear Members, with the response I have it looks like it is a waste of my time to write the report as no one sees it and no one responded to it except for the hardworking President.

I may have lost my steam but I have not lost my enthusiasm as a member of MII TMC. I believe there is another way of getting through to you guys.

Until I find that way, I shall close this site unless of course there are people who are interested.

If you read this just say, "I've read." would be enough to encourage me to proceed.

Meeting 14 October 2008

Our President first 100 days was on 08X08 and I am sure all the members would agree that he has done so much that very few of us can dare to challenge. The next person in line has to work much harder to be near to what he has done.

Anyway for our meeting he has done the usual fixing up of the roles and you can see that almost everyone of the role player came. Everyone came on time except the couple the so called Founders came late. They claimed that they were illegally detained by UHMC.

Present for the meeting were: Leong, Levine, Mohamad, Monsieur, Larry, Dr Gan, Joyce, Raja, Mano, Adam, Chin, Ho, Thilo, Diana, Mike, Khung, Manian and Guests Lim and Yian. With 17 members we have a 61% attendance score. With 2 non-members we have almost 10% of the those present as guests.

After a long break, Joyce managed to take a break from her high flying activities and oblige with a TME job. Considering her long absence I must say she has done her job well. Raja did his Invocation and Mano conducted the Table Topics with Adam taking the TT Evaluator role. The subject was current and controvertial Thilo, Masdiana, Lim, Yian and Mohamad volunteered. The winner went to Mohamad with his machine gun rattling from opening to the end telling us how to look at our commonalities rather than our differences.

The speakers for the evening were Chin speaking on "My Philosophy in Life", Ho on "Vote for Change", Mohamad on "We must open up" and Thilo on "When the going gets tough the tough gets going". I suppose everyone was emotional that night and the vote goes to Ho as the best speaker after he showed his temper and throwing away temper. I guess everyone was afraid that if he does not win he may throw us out of the window. He was so emotional and passionate about what he spoke and all of us can feel his anger.

The speech evaluators were Levine, Masdiana, Mike and Larry. The winner went to Masdiana who evaluate Ho. Apparently, the speech winner has some bearing on the Evaluator too. Her main advise to Ho is don't litter the place - Bandaraya will take him to court.

Monsieur was our General Evaluator. He admit that he has been GE for other club but this is the first time he was given a chance to do it in our club. Khung our Grammarian did well, Caren was absent and the role goes to someone I forgot to note, and the timer is Manian.

President took over from the GE and wanted to close the meeting until he was reminded to pass to Larry to close the meeting. Larry did well to close the meeting as he prepares a poem for us all to ponder and bring home.

Well, the theme 100 days went well without crisis a negative word chosen for the day.

Another great meeting I must add and I am sorry to all who were absent as I was delinquent in writing this report on time. I must try and do it but sometime I just could not as I have to take care of my injured wife, you know ferry her through KL traffic.

Meeting 23 September 2008

We had a DOT to be our General Evaluator and this DOT was imported. He seemed to give good commendations about everything and one that really struck me was on Punctuality (we even have a clock directly opposite him) and how he felt about our members enthusiasm and commitment. I am proud of you Dr DTM William Lau for recognising us and you members of MII for the way you have projected the club to our Guest.

Our meeting starts sharp at 7pm with Levine our ASAA calling the meeting to order and quickly pass the control to our President Mr Leong Kok Wah (no relation to Teresa Kok). This time our President amaze us with his understanding of the Ramadan and Shawal festivities and he also named the 12 Muslim calender month. Good research and this is what I believe Malaysian should practice. We should not be afraid to learn about other people's culture and we should not also be afraid to let others learn our culture. With better understanding we will achieve better harmony.

From my count we had a good attendant with 16 members present, one guest brought my Monsiuer and one visiting TM Dr William.

The TME was Mr Monsiuer Tilaka, a 3 in 1 guy. In the morning he is a Tourist Guide, in the evening he is an Insurance Agent and in the night he is Disc Jockey and whenever he is free he is also a Transporter, taking Test Speaker from one club to another. He got everyone with a Role to briefly explain their job and due to his excitement he forgot to call upon our General Evaluator to do his.

Next Session was the Invocation and this was presented by Chin. Someone need to mentor him before he attempt to handle this role as in our club the person just have to read a motivating verse or poem to start the meeting.

After Chin it went to Adam who conducted the Table Topics and he limit it to only four as time was limited. Only Khung, Mano, Chin and Mohamad were called and the winner went to Chin with his Horizontally Challenged poser.

Oh yes, I forgot this time we went for dinner just after the President's address and we had the usual food but Khung as usual brought his bananas, Mohamad brought Raya kuih called "Akok" named after our President and Teresa and the Birthday cake for Willy I believe was bought by Levine. We got kurma too and I failed to find out who brought it. Too much to eat and we shared it with two from MII office.

The prepared speeches started off with Manian (Evaluated by Masdiana), Philip (Evaluated by Anna), Dr Gan Eng Meng (Evaluated by Mike), Willy (Evaluated by Levine). It was an interesting variety of topics. Manian spoke about himself - how in 5 years he changed 6 schools, Philip on how to play the Stock Market, Dr Gan appealing for support for her Tai Chi Association and Willy talking about Health. The best speaker award goest to Dr Gan and the best Evaluator Award went to Mike.

GE Dr Willian, DTM take over the last session and praise and praise the club for everything. His recommendations were to restore the Humour Session, (actually we will if time permit) and his observation as to how lost Khung were during the Table Topics Session. His recommendations were for the Table Topics Master to explain before starting the session.

The President then took over and presented the Awards. The Best Role Player went to Dr William Lau. Apparently, someone forget about the Most Friendly Person for the night, much to the disappointment of the regular winners like Mike & Adam.

The Closing Ode was conducted by Masdiana and she gave an inspiring speech whilst at the same time thanking all the members of the MII TMC for the support during her recent accident. She felt that MII is like a family to her and besides going for our journey in Communication and Leadership she felt that the rapport amongst members is equally important.

I am waiting for the pictures taken last nigh to come and I hope to post to you soonest possible.

I am not lost of words now as Khung said during the Table Topics I am short of time. Hope you guys enjoy the reading and do give me your feedback. Cherio......

The Area Contest

MII TM Club became the host again and this time our President took the role of Contest Chair for both the Contests. As it falls on the Ramadan month, he quickly start the contest session at 7pm and then declare the meeting adjourned for Buka Puasa. This is just like the translation of Marine Open Cover Policy. In Malay it is cal Polisi Buka Tutup Marin.

There were four Contestants for the Evaluation and three for the Humour. I can't remember the names of the Contestants and the test speaker - perhaps due to my age or the puasa but I must speak up for the sake of freedom of the press - Anna Hue ought to be the Champion for the Evaluation Contest. Just could not understand how the judges gave it to another who in my personal opinion is not even near enough. All the other Evaluators speak from the Rostrum and they kept their eye contact on the speaker - as I have many timesbut we are not talking to the speaker but to the audience at large.

Not to sound like a sore loser I guess, Judges need to be effectively trained if they are trained at all.

As for Humour Session, I believe Mohamad did better than the last time when he won at the club level but the other two contestants were better than him. The other contestants were smooth in their delivery, have enough body gesture or 'slapsticks' and they are good with their words. They deserve to win.

If I may just make by comments here, I find Toastmasters are over dramatic in their presentation. Almost every word they express must have a gesture and this to me is distractive. Perhaps I like to open this discussion with the readers....if any lah.

Let me put this in better perspective, should a speaker use gesture for every word they use and make a speech so dramatic like a clown? I think a speaker should speak and from the words he or she selected the audience is able to picture it without graphic display of our body. Send in your comments and we will debate over it.

P/s. Sshhhh don't tell anyone, whilst Mohamad lost the contest he is happy with himself. He thinks he has done better. If you do not agree tell him and if you agree tell him too.

Am Back Again

Hi guys, I hate to start a conversation with an apology but this must be an exception. I have been missing for sometime now and here I am back - as no one wants to do the job. Huh...pity me huh.

Our meeting on 26 August 2008 was a little different as the President wants all our contestants to redo their speeches at the club and members present to whack them hard into shape. I will leave the details out just concentrate on the program - fine with you guys?

Mohamad, you know who he is, still talking about the DOT, the dirty or Distinguished Old Toastmaster stuff and the members didn't seemed to be very entertained. Everyone gave their opinions on how they view his Humour Speech and I guess Willy hit him right on the head - Be yourself. I guess, I can speak for him as he just cannot relax and be himself. When he is on the stage he is a different monster. He needs to change.

Another Mr M, Mr Monsier he told us about the same thing and Mohamad told him to make it like he is being reborn, getting out of the hole for the second time, but this time he is fully aware of what is going on. Unfortunate for him, nothing went wrong with Mohamad and he has to stand by till next year perhaps.

On Evaluation, Anna was great but our President felt that being too confident is not good. Anna should go behind the rostrum and speak like the rest. Whilst this is true to some point but for the Division and District levels, you would not be able to win if you stay behind the rostrum. Anna as usual, motherly type, giving her evaluation witout notes and very structure. You want to be a good Evaluator, buy her lunch and she will help you improve by leaps and bounds.

I should also report on the Table Topics Session conducted before the Humour Speech Rehearsal. Zarini was the Master and gave topics related to Patriotism and the best speaker went to theis Cellgen guy Willy, very calm and composed kind of a guy. When Adam Fung is the TME all the best roles will be his. He took the Best Role Player and the most friendly person for the evening. Next time he should be graceful enough to bestow his award to another as he is getting too many already.

That is all I got for you and I hope you are happy with the brief reporting style.

MII Installation Dinner Photographs

Past Division W Governor making his presence Our Past VPPR Master Piece - the sign at the door.

Rear Picture of our guest from Australia
Another rear shot by our cameraman.
Good piece of photography.
Our (Immediate Past) District Governor K K Chee chatting with his TLI Chief Ramdas Nayar with Mohamad busy interrupting them.