Lee JinHwui International Speech Area S4 Contest 2011

Hi all! i am pleased to share the following video with you. This is the video of our Club member, DTM Lee JinHwui delivering his inspirational speech at the area S4 international speech Contest 2011. He emerged Champion in the highly competitive contest and made our club proud. Please enjoy!

Public Speaking tips for beginners

Hi all!

As some of you may know, i have just gotten my Competent Communicator title in toastmasters recently. It entails completing 10 projects of the basic communication manual, each with different speech objectives. It took me about 9 months with an average of 1 project per month to achieve this milestone in my toastmasters journey.

As i look back at the video of my 1st few projects recently, i realized how much of a progress i have made and how far i have advanced in the toastmasters journey. Looking back, i recalled my 1st chapter meeting where i stared with awe at the speeches of the giants in Tampines Changkat toastmasters club. Now, i could shamelessly consider myself as a tiny giant, not too far away from the titans :)

Well, the purpose of this entry is to share with you, budding competent communicators on my toastmasters journey to date. First and foremost, from my observation, most toastmasters who drop out or go missing in action halfway in their toastmasters journey would, in most instances give reason such as lacking of speech inspiration.

So i am going to share- how do you craft a good speech that is appealing to the audience? For my case, i carry a smart phone(most Singaporeans do) and whenever i meet or experience something that is notable, i would jot it down on my phone. It can be simply a quote, an incident or a commendable person that aroused your emotions(positive or negative) or impressed you. Trust me, it can be used as a supporting material later on in your speeches. However, please do not attempt to cram irrelevant anecdotes in your speech which focuses only on a certain message. You can always save your impressive story for the next speech.

Why is that so important? Because, in public speaking, people want to listen to stories, especially personal stories as they are the most powerful inspirational material. On top of that, you do not need to spend extra effort trying to memorize your own story, it will just come out of your mouth unconsciously as you share(its something that left an impact on you after all!) Most important of all, you will exhibit unceasing enthusiasm when sharing your own story, rather than some story taken out from the story book. And that is the most important element in public speaking: Enthusiasm. (Techniques are secondary, you will learn then sooner or later as you progress in your journey. )

Do not be afraid to share your own stories and think that they are insignificant. Every story is worth mentioning in toastmasters. We are all here to learn from each other. For example, in my 5th project, i shared about my life as an introvert and how i was being forced to conform to societal's expectations to become an extrovert. Honestly, it was more of a confiding session and i felt relief after that. I was initially having reservations about that speech but to my surprise, many of my club members who seemed sociable, came to me, revealing they are introverts as well,facing the same problems as me! This drew our relationship closer as we realize we have something in common. Toastmasters is technically a platform for you to express yourself.

Many people will ask.. How do i start writing a speech ? i have totally no inspirations at all. Do not fret. Follow this simple guide.

-Begin with the end in mind; ask yourself what do you want to tell your audience? Focus on just one thing. you do not have all the time in the world. Every speech should be centered only one major point and several sub-points.

- Once you have identified your speech message, everything will be much easier. Rally all your relevant thoughts, quotes and stories that you have garnered previously to the speech. Brainstorm to come out with more points. Allow your creativity to flow.

- Lastly, string all your points together to come up with an excellent speech. Make each transition from sub-point to sub-point logical.

- Rehearse as many times as you feel is necessary to smoothen your delivery and make amendments if necessary.

If you feel that you are lacking in speech inspiration, that is very common. The only way to solve it is to commit yourself to a speaking slot. DO NOT wait till you have a speech ready before you decide to speak, that will never happen. When you have a sense of urgency, you will stop procrastinating and you will give yourself some time and sit down to craft a speech. That is when you come up with a world class speech.

Tip: To reap maximum benefits out of the toastmasters movement, it is imperative for you to read the manual thoroughly and try to adhere to the speech objectives as closely as possible. DO NOT give projects for the sake of completing the manual, you will not last long.

Last but not least, i hope you enjoy every speech up there and best of luck in your toastmasters journey.

Yours truly

Ted Chong

VPE-elect

Recap of 406th Chapter meeting @ Tampines Changkat

'Bang!' With the familiar knock of the hammer, our president announced the end of our 406th Chapter meeting as well as the end of a fruitful term.

Yesterday's chapter meeting was the last of the term 2010/2011 for Tampines Changkat Toastmasters Club. Let us review the fruits of our effort over the term; Taking into account our 3 new CCs : Angela Oh, Linda Huang and Ted Chong, we have achieved 10/10 DCP goals for this term! which means a full score ! Credits to our Exco as well as all members who have worked relentlessly to make this possible. We also had our 15th new member joining us yesterday night at our last chapter meeting of the term. Welcome Christina !! Guests have long commented on the friendly and homely culture within our club, i guess that is what makes our membership rates thrive!

Our president kick-start the chapter meeting with an inspirational opening address that identified the autopilot attribute of most of our lives. He prompt us to relook into our lives and review our goals from time to time to make sure we are on the right track.

Luan eng, our toastmaster of the evening revealed that she was just taking up the role for the 2nd time in her toastmaster journey and asked for forgiveness for any mistakes made. However, in my heart, i respect her for her courage in trying and in seeking forgiveness. There is no better time and place to learn to fail and make mistakes than in toastmasters chapter meeting as we are all here to learn! No one learns by not making mistakes.

Angela Oh won the Best speaker of the evening title as she completes her p10- an inspirational speech that urged us to believe in ourselves. Congrats to Competent Communicator Angela Oh and Competent Communicator Linda Huang !

Lim Seh Leng, our guest from Brilliant Advanced TMC was the best evaluator of the evening as she shared with us the strengths and weaknesses of Angela's speech.

Kenny Thong, also a guest won the best table topic speaker title as he announced his plans for Apple as its incoming CEO.

As 2 of our members obtained their CCs, We also had the fortune of having chilli crab as supper. It is a tradition within our club to have CCs treat us to Chilli Crabs. If you have missed this round of CCs, make sure you turn up for all our chapter meetings to catch our next upcoming CC. See you next term on 7/7/2011, thurs tampines Changkat CC auditorium for our new exco installation night!

Chili Crabs @ Tampines Changkat 406th Chapter Meeting on 16th Jun 2011

Ladies and Gentlemen!!!

Its Chili Crabs at Tampines Changkat TMC on the 16th of Jun 2011

No need to change your glasses, there is nothing wrong with your eyes

Its not a typo error by the VPE. (Yours truly:))

Its a club tradition whereby members will treat the club members to Chili Crabs at the nearby coffee shop, once they attain the status of Competent Communicator (CC)

Its not just an excuse by the club to celebrate. (Like we need to reason to celebrate in the first place:))

The reason:

The journey towards obtaining CC is combination of various factors:

1. Personal discipline and efforts

2. Availability of club premises

3. Support from club members during and outside of chapter meetings

4. Enlightening evaluation from project evaluators who points out your strength and areas of improvement

We have the newer CCs treat the club members as a reminder to themselves:

Personal growth is not attained by just ones own efforts but with the support of the people around them as well.

I often heard comments as to why does our members often deliver good quality speeches.

The reason: The good attract the good, and the good help each other become great.

Linda and Angela, we look forward to be inspired by your speeches and to celebrate your success.

Dear members, your journey towards greatness is never lonely, we are there to accompany you.

Where is your company?

At Tampines Changkat Toastmasters club, where there is food for the thought, food for the tummy and fun for everyone!!!

Cheers,

Shaun
VPE Tampines Changkat TMC WY 2010/2011

Coen Tan International Speech Area S4 Contest 2011

Hi all! i am pleased to share the following video with you. This is the video of our Club President, Coen Tan delivering his inspirational speech at the area S4 international speech Contest 2011. He emerged 1st runner-up in the highly competitive contest and made our club proud. Please enjoy!

Title of Speech: Before its too late

Division S Achiever's day

Attention! Division S Achiever's day will be held on 18/6/2011, Saturday 1.30pm- 5pm at Braddell Heights CC. All are welcomed.

Catch our club's speaker, Ted Chong deliver his P10 there!

Language evaluation by Coen Tan on 2/6/2011

I am so pleased to share with you the following language evaluation by our president, Coen Tan. He is a highly sought-after language evaluator and was recognized in the district officer training as one of the best language evaluator of toastmasters.

Rhetorical devices

SCESIS ONOMATON
Words of similar meaning, when
used in consecutive sequence,
adds impact to the idea.
• Tired, Lethargic, Exhausted
• Exhilarated, Elated, Euphoric
• Honored, proud and awed (Shaun)
•All their Heart, Sincerity and Pride (Shaun)
•Amazed, wowed and exhilarated (Shaun)
•Handsome, Dashing and Charming (Shaun)

EPIZEUXIS
Deliberate repetition of a word
for impact.
• Practice, Practice, Practice
• Work, Work, Work
• Thank you, thank you, thank

EUPHEMISM
• If I have that many points, I would have seen the red light (Shaun)
• Someone who digs his nose, someone who has this special action (Favian)

ALLITERATION
• Fun Facts (Raymond)

ANALOGIES
• Evaluation is the Lifeblood of Toastmasters (Coen)

METAPHORS
• You build a bridge to the audience (Ram)
• Build that platform to help us understand you better (Jin Hwui)
• Table Topic Topic prepared a Box of Tricks for us (Shaun)

CONTRAST
• Not for yourselves, but for your kids (Zamir)

ANAPHORA
• Through Imagination, _____________ (x3) (Matthew)
• We imagine that we can ___________ (Matthew)
• You can ___________ (Foong Yin)


EPISTROPHE
I get to lie, people know that I lie, and I get rewarded to lie (Raymond)

PARALLELISM
20 years ago, _______. 20 years later, ______. (Raymond)

TRIAD
Visit the Past,
Contemplate the Present,
Anticipate the Future (Matthew)

DESCRIPTIVE WORDS
Biting the Bullet and Bearing the Pain (Matthew)
Earth is Immediately Dwarfed by the Sun (Matthew)
I was blown away by ________ (Jin Hwui)

By Coen Tan
President

Recap of 405th Chapter meeting @ tampines changkat toastmasters club

I always have so much thought to pen down after every chapter meeting and this one is no exception. Thanks to our club's blog, there is a channel for me to share my experience in tampines changkat with you.

Yesterday's meeting was indeed an exhilarating one, with so many worthy highlights.
Firstly, our club's giant in public speaking, DTM Lee Jinhwui who recently won the district's table topics contest, treated us to pizzas! We all had had a hearty refreshment break, thanks to JinHwui.

I couldn't contain my delight when i see so many guests turning up at our chapter meeting yesterday. In fact, it was considered a record-breaking night with the vast number of 1st-time visitors! The break was barely sufficient for me chat up with them and to eat the pizzas at the same time.
All toastmasters and aspiring toastmasters share one thing in common which is a keen passion to improve on ourselves to become a better person and that explains our immediate rapport.

After some pushing by our Sergeant-at-arms, we could finally put our plates down and start the meeting proper. The question of the day: describe yourself with an adjective that starts with the 1st letter of your name. Our members and guests came up with really creative answers that wowed the rest of us. Thank you Linda for making everyone of us language masters this evening through the usage of alliteration.

Through the opening address, Coen let us in on his fruitful learning journey in toastmasters club throughout his term as a president.
As usual, our language evaluator, Coen Tan added so much value to the meeting by teaching the usage of the rhetorical device of the evening.

For our prepared speech segment tonight, our 1st speaker is Raymond who is giving his maiden speech in toastmasters. With his calm, collected and confident poise, he disclosed many things about himself in an organised manner and we got to know him so much better. Congrats to Raymond for taking 1st step towards excellence. As the saying goes, 'A journey of a thousand miles starts with the very first step.'

Our next speaker, Matthew shared with us the lessons on life through the usage of visual aid-powerpoint. He cleverly used pictures and principle of relativity to illustrate how minute and humble we are as human beings. By doing so, he inspired many of us to strive for the better! Even our guest is mesmerized by his inspirational speech!

Congrats to Raymond and Matthew for winning the best speakers of the evening with a tie!

Our final speaker is a long-awaited member who has been away for some time due to school commitments. Its so nice to have him back and to continue on his projects. We missed his warm smile on the stage. Zamir spoke about genetic engineering and caught all our interests with his extensive research on the topic.

The next segment would be the table topics segment which a visitor from Changi Simei toastmaster club is anchoring. Denny gave a very creative table topics segment by getting volunteers to complete a story of 'beauty and the beast.' It truly entertained all of us with a distorted version of the story by the speakers.
ChengLee and Richard won the best table topics speaker title with a tie!

As the meeting come to a close, Coen expressed his gratitude to various appointment holders as well as guests for being wonderful and participative audiences. One of our guest even signed up with us immediately on the spot. Cheers to Stephen for joining our big family!

See you on next meeting on 16/6/2011, thurs, 7.15pm! at tampines Changkat CC!

Ted Chong
Vice president(public relations)
Tampines Chankat Toastmasters club