When you ask
the common man on the street “what does 1 + 1 equate to?”, most will reply 2.
However, all those who were at AIA and Tampines-Changkat joint chapter meeting
last night will tell you that the answer isn’t 2, but an integer that is more
than 2!
No, it isn’t
because we are terrible at math (half the people in the room are Financial
Services Consultants, mind you!) but we all knew what SYNERGY is, and boy was
there STUPENDOUS SYNERGY when these 2 powerful clubs came together at the
humble premises of Tampines-Changkat Community Center, home ground of
Tampines-Changkat Toastmaster Club.
Just to
recap, about 2 months ago, a joint meeting between these two giants was held at
AIA premises.
The idea of an exchange meeting was adopted from the exchange
programs the best universities in the world has. The objectives of such
programs is enable students and teachers to glean outstanding practices from the
other university.
The result?
World-class standard and top-notch universities.
AIA Toastmasters Club and Tampines-Changkat Toastmaster Club, although already
two very powerful clubs, were humble and willing to take a step back to see how
the other club ran their meetings so that they could share and adopt the best
practices from one another and thus, elevate their own standard of practice.
In last night’s second episode, the
reverse was done. Tampines-Changkat Toastmasters Club members hosted the
meeting and provided speakers while AIA Toastmasters Club members took up
appointment roles.
However,
before I go into detail about how splendid last night’s meeting was, the
appointment holders for such an important meeting should be mentioned:
Sergeant-at-Arms:
Joe Wan
Toastmasters
of the Evening: Abigail Lee and Linda Lee
Table
Topics Master: Margrette Lo
Timer:
Ngoh Seh Suan
Ah
Counter: Alan Woo
At 7:25pm, the room was filled to the brim! The
atmosphere was buzzing with excitement as everyone awaited for the meeting to
begin. 7:30pm sharp, the sound of the gavel silenced the crowd as the Sergeant-at-Arms
to call the meeting to order.
We
had a mother-daughter duo who were our Toastmasters of the Evening! 2 love-Lee
ladies; Linda Lee from AIA Toastmasters Club Abigail Lee and Tampines-Changkat Toastmasters Club who gave the meeting an interesting twist!
A thought-provoking opening address was
giving by our beautiful Madam President, Gladys Tye, who convinced us that
inner beauty is so much more important than external beauty.
The next segment was the Prepared Speeches
segment. 5 amazing speakers took stage and captivated us with their
inspirational, insightful and invigorating speeches!
 |
| Project 1 - The Ice Breaker Ho Yee Yuen, CC |
 |
| Project 8 - Get Comfortable with Visual Aids Hyder Taufik |
 |
| Advanced Project 3 - The Roast (Special Occasion Speeches Manual) Arjun Chakrabarti, ACB, ALB |
 |
| Advanced Project 3 - Make Them Laugh (Humorously Speaking Manual) John Lee, CC, CL |
 |
| Advanced Project 1 - Mastering the Toast (Special Occasion Speeches Manual) Kapil Pareek, CC |
What an array of projects! From an Ice Breaker speech, to Visual Aids, followed by some humor from the Humorous speech, and it ended off with a Roast and a Toast.
At Tampines-Changkat Toastmaster Club,
members are family and thus birthday celebrations are of utmost importance!
Vice-President of Membership, Zhuo Shuzhen led in the birthday celebrations of
the June babies! Cakes were cut, candles blown and songs were sung.
On top of that, the exco presented Arjun
Chakrabarti, our beloved Vice President of Public Relations with a token of
appreciation. Arjun has been such an amazing member and contributor in our
club, however, he will be leaving us very soon in pursue of his future studies
in the States! We will miss you very dearly Arjun!
It was such an emotional segment
especially when Shu Zhen dedicated a song of her own to our beloved VPPR.
After a short break, we invited the
amazing evaluators from AIA to evaluate each of our speakers during the
Prepared Speeches Evaluation segment. What insightful evaluations were they!
Our evaluators for the night were:
Project 1 (Ho Yee Yuen) - Anson Cheng, CC
Project 8 (Hyder Tuafik) - Gayathri Subash, CC
Advanced Project 3 (Arjun Chakrabarti) - Oh Cheng Kok, ACB, ALB
Advanced Project 3 (John Lee) - Alan Woo, CC, CL
Advanced Project 1 (Kapil Pareek) - Zhuo Shuzhen, ACS, ALS
Top-notch evaluators from AIA! I can say, with much confidence, that EVERYONE
took away something from the evaluations that will help bring their own
speeches to the next level.
Finally, everyone’s favourite segment of
the night; Table Topics! Table Topics Master, Margrette Lo, did such a
fantastic job and prepared such an interesting Disney-themed topic that was to
be delivered in the form of a eulogy! There was not one dry eye in the meeting
while each speaker was giving his eulogy…. Because we were all laughing so hard
that tears came to our eyes! What a hilarious twist each speaker had for their
topic!
Finally, it was time to announce the results and present the ribbons to our winners.
Best Speakers (tie)- Toastmaster Hyder Taufik and Toastmaster Arjun Chakrabarti
Best Evaluator: Toastmaster Oh Cheng Kok
Table Topics: Toastmaster Ng Kin Foong
Also, other awards such as the Triple Crown award as well as the PQD Speech Challenge award were given out to members to have done us proud and achieved various milestones in their Toastmasters Journey.
As in the first exchange, there was much
to be learned from both clubs and it was a real eye-opener for all members as
well as guests during this special joint meeting.
Special mention must be made of Toastmaster Zhuo Shuzhen who is a member of both the clubs and who therefore got the most cheers and claps as she was instrumental in organizing the meeting.
It
was indeed an eventful night filled with much fun and fellowship as well as
many lessons to be learned.
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