SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER MEETING ON 19 MAY 2011

For our club's 6th Anniversary, we had invited Craig Teo as our Guest Speaker and 4 visiting toastmasters: Daniel Tran from Vietnam TMC, Lee Min from Singhealth TMC, Florence Boey from Toa Payoh Central TMC and RIchard Sng from Tiarel TMC.

SAA Leena kick-started our chapter meeting by reminding us that the June school holidays is around the corner, and requested the floor to share with one another their most memorable school holiday. Items shared were video gaming, overseas trips, the 80's kampong life and spending quality time with family.

Benjamin Gan, our club's Charter President, gave us the opening speech. He shared with us the history of the club, an appropriate theme for the club's 6th anniversary. The club was initially located at Singapore Swimming Club, where sumptuous food was always served during meetings.

The club ran into a brick wall when the management of the clubhouse realised that most members of the Toastmasters Club are actually non-member of the clubhouse. Katong Toastmasters Club was told to vacate the location.

Although the members were sad to leave, we soon found a new home at Katong CC. It was marriage made in heaven! Thereafter, we began to hold our monthly chapter meetings at this new home.

Next, our guest speaker Craig Teo presented the topic, "The Power of Numbers". He informed that using our birth date in the format of DD/MM/YY, we can derive general characteristics and traits of ourselves. He also shared with us on what numbers from 1 to 9 represents, and how the number links to the yin and yang of metal, water, fire, wood and earth. It can be used to Profile a Person and the accuracy is up to 90%.

After the informative talk by Craig, we moved on the Table Topics segment. Table Topics Master Zhuang Yan used the letters K,A,T,O,N,G to label the six mystery topics that he had prepared.

Daniel chose the letter T and told us one thing that he would like to know in the future. Placing kinship as his primary priority, he would like to know how his family will do in the future and wishes that they remain strongly bonded.

Leena had the opportunity to tell us what superpowers she would like to have. She would like to have the power to heal, both physical and emotional healing. This is particularly relevant to her as she can't bear to see her young children fall and get hurt.

Lee Min's topic was to select a place she would like to revisit if she could travel back in time. She explained that she would return to her childhood years. As a 5-year-old girl, she was happy, innocent and worry-free.

Florence was challenged that if she has no fear, what would she like to do. She informed us that she is a fearless person, and did gymnastics when she was young. The rigorous training gave her many scars and through gymnastics, she has nothing to fear about.

Richard was posed with the topic on what habit would he like to break. He informed that his habits include sleeping late, and multi-tasking, by reading, listening and watching television at the same time. As he is comfortable with his habit, there is no habit he wants to break.

The next item on the agenda was the prepared speeches. In Bruce's P5 speech, "Kung Fu", he provided us with the spectacular live demonstration of using nunchaku. The motivation to learn Kung Fu is to maintain good health, and at the same time to use the strength to keep his family safe. He concluded that perseverance can lead to success, just like the journey of a toastmasters.

In Daniel's AP4 speech from the Humorously Speaking manual, "Single but Available", he shared about the experiences he had with his unreasonable ex-girlfriend and demanding supervisor. He wanted to be the perfect boyfriend and had to work long hours to earn as much as his female counterpart. In the process, he had to endure the endless ranting from his supervisor. Soon, he learnt that joining a toastmasters club was a sound decision. It taught him communication skills to deal with difficult people. He proposed a Competent Lady Killer course and after 10 lessons, one would be qualified as a distinguished lady killer.

1^st evaluator Lee Min praised that Bruce's body really speaks, and because he was speaking about his interest, the speech was excellently prepared. Bruce appeared very confident and was accompanied by many kicks and punches. However, he would need to maintain more eye contact with the audience and explain the purpose of the nunchaku.

2^nd evaluator commended Daniel for bringing laughter to the audience. His speech included several jokes and anecdotes to stir up laughter. He has achieved the purpose of the speech but he must link his jokes to the short stories and give more elaboration on his ideas.

Ah counter Merry wrapped up the night with her meticulous report of a whole list of words and sounds (ah, um or er) that we uttered instead using pauses.

Best Table Topics Speakers: Richard / Florence Boey

Next event will be our club monthly chapter meeting on 16 June 2011.

To view photos taken at this meeting, go to http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150251437516798.365772.119437361797