Best Prepared Speech: Darren Loh
Best Evaluator: Ang Wee Yong, ACG, ALB
Our Toastmaster of the Day, Toastmaster
Joe Wan, gave the meeting his own unique flavour when he asked us to
pair up in groups of 2, and tell each other “I think I'm going to
love this guy!!” (“This guy” meaning Joe)
Club President Gurmit Singh, CC,
officially started the meeting with a story: there was once a boy who
used to get angry often. His father told him, to control his anger,
he had to hammer in a nail into a wooden fence post, each time he got
angry. It took quite a bit of effort to hammer the nails in (these
were the days before nail guns, or his father didn't allow him to use
one). Soon, the boy learned to control his anger. After a few
consecutive days of angerless bliss, his father told him to pull out
each of the nails: but he could only pull out one nail per day. When
he finally finished pulling out ALL the nails in the fence post, his
father told him to look carefully at the wooden fence post. There
were holes in the fence post (the boy was a genius), where the nails
used to be. His father told him, “You see, these holes are like the
hurt we cause whenever we say something in anger. Even though the
nails are gone, but the hurt remains”
The first Prepared Speech by
Toastmaster See Shunwei, began with him showing us a coin. He told us
that it had 2 sides, a head and a tail. And Shunwei talked about how
many of the things that we see can be interpreted 2 ways, eg pictures
of schoolkids sleeping on the MRT train seats. Are they really tired,
or do they just want to occupy the seats by pretending to sleep? Or
consider the case of a guy with tattoos and piercings wanting to
share a table with us, during mealtimes. Would we be willing to share
the table with them, or say that the seats available are occupied,
even though it is not?
The second Prepared Speech, by Shaun
Li, ACS, ALB, started with a question: “What if, only after getting
married, the true colours of your spouse emerges?” Shaun
illustrated, full of drama, to show us what a daily commute to the
city was like. More importantly, Shaun shared with us 2 techniques of
entering MRT trains: 'The File' and 'The Prata'. 'The File' involves
slotting in sideways in a narrow space (like placing a file on a
shelf), and 'The Prata' is when you weave in between people to get
ahead.
The third Prepared Speech, by
Toastmaster Kathryn Low, was about her Chinese New Year Celebration.
Kathryn spoke in detail about how she prepared for Chinese New Year,
why some people avoid relatives during this time (it's like a Police
interrogation, even though they may 'mean well'- they're probably
just really bored) and why she makes sure there is fish at mealtimes
('fish' in Chinese sounds like 'yu' or 'abundance)
The fourth Prepared Speech by
Toastmaster Darren Loh, started with “I have a dream” like Martin
Luther King, Jr's landmark speech. Darren then proceeded to talk
about how his son dreamed of becoming 'a fire engine' (sic). Darren
wanted to correct his son's grammar, saying what his son really
wanted to be, was a 'fireman' (actually I agree with his son, because
to me 'fireman' conjures up an image of a man on fire. Either that,
or Donald Trump). “It's really pointless arguing with a boy that
has a fire engine in his hand” Darren conceded. He's right. Later
when he asked his son again, his son wanted to be a 'gardener'. His
son clearly took pride in his work, watering the plants in their
garden with amazing regularity. Darren said he can change his
original dream of becoming 'the best engineer' to 'the best father'
to support his son's ambition. That's a Dedicated Daddy if I ever saw
one.
The fifth Speaker, Toastmaster Flora
Fong, in her speech entitled “Everything Happens for a Reason”,
told the sad tale of how she flew all the way to Singapore for a job
interview, and ended up not getting the job. However, Flora was
persistent and asked her interviewer what she did wrong, and why she
wasn't hired. Her interviewer was kind enough to tell her the area
she needed to improve: her communication skills. Flora took it in the
right spirit and concentrated on improving that area of her life.
Long story short, Flora is now working in Singapore!
Andrew Chen, ATMB, ALS, presented a
speech for the AP4 “Addressing the Opposition” project. He talked
about how Tampines Changkat Toastmasters has evolved from NCOC 1
(thank goodness we got rid of that robotic name, even though it's our
heritage) to the present form. Each time the club had to close down,
we found a way to resurrect it! In a hypothetical situation where we
were going to be charged to use the Community Centre's facilities, we
basically had 3 options:
Raise membership fees to offset
the additional charges (not everyone's favourite option)
Hand over control to the Community
Centre, (including all decision making and funds!)
Move to another Community Centre,
which allows us free reign of usage time and fund allocation
After the presentation, there was a
Question and Answer session. Then we all took a vote to decide the
(hypothetical) future of the club. Can you guess which option most
people went for?*
Our seventh speaker, Toastmaster Linda
Low, gave a speech entitled “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?”,
which got our attention. She talked about how there are 3 types of
millionaires:
Those self-made millionaires
Those who inherited their millions
The 'windfall' type: eg lottery
winners
Can you guess which type will have the
millions at the end of their lives?**
(Even though I aspire to be Type 3, I
just have to accept that I'm going to be a Type 1- time to get
cracking!)
Last but not least, we had John Bhaddo
Lee talk about a place he's travelled to: Chiengmai, in Thailand.
I've personally heard wonderful things about Chiengmai, mostly
involving tall, supermodel-looking women populating the city. I must
go someday!
Back to John: he described the
wonderful food, noodles with grilled meat and something called “Kau
Soy”- a soup with crispy egg noodles. Sounds yummy! Everything
except the tall, supermodel-looking women. Wonder if it's true...?
After a really short break, and
listening to the incredibly energetic and enthusiastic Evaluators, we
ended the meeting. Next meeting, we'll be having our club's
International Speech and Table Topics Contest.
Till next meeting, be a millionaire so
that you can support your kids' ambitions!
Carl Wong HL
Vice President of Public Relations
*Option 3: Move to another CC
**Type 1: Self-made millionaires,
barring any financial catastrophes, eg planes dropping down and
totally destroying their cargo ships. Hey, it happens. Or, if they
were in said cargo ships, then yes, they did die with their millions.
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| Best Prepared Speech: Darren Loh |
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| Best Evaluator: Ang Wee Yong, ACG, ALB |
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| Roy just joined us as a member! |
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| Pijush who just joined Tampines Changkat TMC, giving his thoughts about the meeting |
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| Irene Choo, one of our guests |
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| Kheng Soon |
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| Shaun Li and Johnbosco: Do they look like brothers? |
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