Meeting 10 June 2008

Thank you, thank you and thank you for reading this blog. I know not many would like to see or read about others but the some or few would still enjoy reading it. Do drop me a line if you think I should change my style of reporting so that it is more friendly for readers. Whack me if you think I deserve it.

Our first meeting in June was great, we have 19 persons attending and what is greater we have only two guests; meaning we have 17 members. This is almost 85% of our membership. If you are one of them, my salute to you for the support and again for reading this blog.

The meeting theme was "Toastmasters Transform" and the word for the day is "HIKE". Toastmaster has transform so many of us from a timid kancil to a assertive tiger, from a small atom into a devastating bomb, from a softie to a hardie. Whatever it is we must thank our organisation that empowered us to be better everyday.

Our Acting President Leong Kok Wah came on stage sharp at 7.00 pm to address the floor and in a short 3 minutes he handed the control to the TME, Mohamad Abdullah. Our TME strongly emphasised that he intends to end the meeting sharp at 9.13pm and requested all Role Players to help him achieve this by being on time.

Our TME quickly introduced the Role Player and briefly explained the roles for the benefit of the guests except for some Role he had asked for the Role Player to explained it themselves. Later he introduced the members and asked the Guests to introduce themselves. All within time.

Anna then came on as Invocation Presenter and read an article from our old Invoccation booklet to inspire the members. After that the TME introduced the Table Topics Master PP Philip Wong. He had some easy and some difficult questins about current affairs and 5 members participated. The winner goes to Leong Kok Wah.

The Table Topics Evaluator for the evening was PP Thilo and PP Anna. We had a double dose of Evaluation from the floor due to a confusion. The TME thought he would discount with the Evaluation session but Ag President appointed PP Thilo and Anna on her own accord seeing that the assigned TTE was not present cover for her. In view of their efforts the TME allowed both to give their Evaluation.

Just before dinner we had an Induction Ceremony conducted by our President Sherine. As usual she confidently and professionally conducted the session to induct our new member Zarini Nazimuddin and Chin Kong Meng. Time allotted was 10 minutes but she finish it within 8 minutes. Great ceremony, official yet not boring.

Dinner was as usual on the 4th floor and surprisingly we had a new catering staff and the food seemed to have finished before the TME could take his share. Anyway, Levine as usual arranged for the cake to celebrate our June birthday Girls or Boys, and for the night it was only for President Sherine. We sang her a song, she blows the candle, only one, cut the cake, made her wishes and distributed it to all.

During the Prepared Speech Assignment Mr Khung Varn Fatt did his maiden speech on "Opportunity" by telling us something about himself. We now know he is 70 and not 17, has been in insurance for over 20 years with the Harpers and later on his own. Now happily married to one woman and have one son and three grandchildren. This day we can claim that Mr Khung is the most senior member of our club.

The next speaker is our lady Dr Gan Eng Meng attempting her C&L 8th Project with the topic 'Bones, moans and groans'. She prepared a great power point presentation on osteoprosis (I hope the spelling is right) but more importantly how we can prevent it when we are old.

The third speaker for the evening was our friendly Adam. I am pleased with his presentatin lately. He is well prepared and he must have read the Manual a couple of times before he make his presentation. His enactment of how to influence a member to do his manual by asserting his wish seemed natural. I must also congratulate Ho for taking the role of co-acting with him as he seems to be a natural actor. I suggest he should go to Hongkong and follow Jackie Cheung.

After all the excitement we have to come down to the routine of calling the General Evaluator and this time is another virgin RP Ag President Leong Kok Wah. Considering his length of service and time with the club I am proud that he handles the role well. He gave a run down as usual. However he was interrupted by Masdiana Ooi when she pointed out that Dr Gan's PPt presentation and that is when Anna joins in and time went by - though he still think that we were ahead of time. Anyway, who would like to fault the new boss?

The other evaluators are: Grammarian goes to King of Toastmaster aka T Raja. The Aah counter was the Football Club of Holland aka F C Ho and the time keeper was new born baby Zarini Najibuddin. For the speech evaluators are Levine for Khung, whilst Anna evaluated Dr Gan and Thilo evaluated Adam.

Due to time, the TME quickly invited the President to conduct a simple business session. The TME being the Hon Secretary of the club announced that our incoming Treasurer has withdrawn from the post due to her work commitment and there was a proposer from Leong Kok Wah for Zarini to take over. Since there was no objection the motion was carried and Zarini will now be our incoming Treasurer.

Next the President gave away Certificates to the following:
Best Table Topics speaker - Leong Kok Wah
Best Assignment Speaker - Adam Fung
Best Speech Evaluator - Anna Hue
Best Role Player - F C Ho
Most Friendly Person - Mohamad Abdullah

Since someone forgot to prepare the Certificates, everyone was given the opportunity to take a picture with her. Hope I can load it up when the pictures are in hand.

I would also like to aknowledge the following who came for the meeting:

Guests: Miss Ng and Mr Willy
Present and Past Presidents: Anna, Masdiana, Philip, Thilo, Mohamad and Sherine
Members: Leong Kok Wah, Mano, Chin, Levine, Kasturi, T Raja, Ho, Zarini,Dr Gan, Khung and Adam.
Absent with apologies: Mike Teng and Larry King (Toh)

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Bye and may God bless you all.