Feliz Navidad!

Once again, it’s the time of the year to celebrate Christmas with our annual joint meeting with Brilliant Advanced Toastmasters Club.

We had 4 visiting guests Andy, Vanusa, Manish and Doris tonight.  The meeting started with an ice-breaker game where everyone mingled to get fellow toastmasters and guests to answer questions and fill in the blanks. Nik, Choon Liang and Manish emerged as the top 3 winners and were awarded ‘kisses’ (hershey’s chocolates, in case you were wondering) from TME Joni.  We found out interesting nuggets of information about everyone, such as Kok Peng has a pet rabbit named Bunny, Pritha likes to collect jewelry and she has plenty of them.

VP(Education) Choon Liang gave the Opening Address where he shared his experience of celebrating Christmas with his girlfriend’s family, who are Christians. He also invited everyone to sing along to one of his favourite Christmas songs, Feliz Navidad, which meant Merry Christmas in Spanish.

Prepared Speeches

The first speech on the agenda was a P10 speech delivered by our club President Leena.  She inspired us to ‘Believe and Conquer’ by sharing personal stories and 3 tips on how we can achieve our dreams: (1) hold on to your past successes, (2) set small goals for yourself, (3) be prepared.  She was voted the Best Speaker for the evening! Well done, Leena and congrats on achieving your CC award!

2^nd speaker Kok Peng, from Brilliant Advanced TMC, entertained us with an Advanced Project 1 speech from The Entertaining Speaker manual.  In his speech ‘Only as good as the weakest singer’, he recounted his younger days as a choir member, how he joined to get to know girls and ended up learning important life lessons like how to smile, and how to be humble as he had to practise longer and harder than the rest of the choir members due to his lack of music background.  He drew a lot of laughter from the audience.

Final speaker Jack Zhang, also from Brilliant Advanced TMC, tackled Advanced Project 3 The Winning Proposal. In his speech “Why did you join Toastmasters?”, he proposed a 1-1 coaching system whereby more experienced toastmasters can help new members to grow and develop their speaking skills.

Project Evaluations

DTM Lim Seh Leng commended Leena on her use of powerful personal stories that were colourful and dramatic and her superb mastery of the language. She came across as a forceful, confident and positive speaker.  She recommended the use of questions in the beginning of the speech to appeal to the audience’s needs and to get them thinking before launching into her stories.

Benjamin was full of praise for Kok Peng’s use of vivid words and surprises in his entertaining speech. He also likes his candour in admitting why he joined choir.  He felt Kok Peng’s vocal variety and use of body language could be further enhanced to add impact to his speech.  As an advanced speaker, he should also not to referring to any notes.  Benjamin was voted the Best Evaluator for the evening!

Navin affirmed Jack for his choice of topic, which was both relevant and important. He was also able to engage the audience by asking pertinent questions.  However, he wished Jack had been more detailed about his proposal by explaining what was the plan or critical success factors to determine if the coaching was successful and effective.

Table Topics

After gift exchange during the break, we embarked on Table Topics, led by Raj.  He had prepared many beautiful quotes related to the Christmas season:

1.    Remembrance is like a candle that burns brightest at Christmas time. – Hoe Koon

2.    The best present around a Christmas tree is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. – Nik

3.    Christmas, my child, is love in action. – Elaine Tan

4.    The secret of love is perpetuating the present. – Andy

5.    All I want for Christmas is you. – Vanusa

6.    Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. – Manish

7.    God could not be everywhere, therefore, He made mothers. – Shalini

Vanusa, who’s from Brazil, shared how she was missing her daughter very much and her husband surprised her by buying a ticket for her daughter to fly from Brazil to Singapore to spend Christmas with them.  All she wanted for Christmas was for her daughter to be with her family.  That brought a tear to many of our eyes and Vanusa was voted the Best Table Topics Speaker. 

And thus we ended our last meeting of the year, amidst great cheer and laughter. 

Here's wishing everyone a Blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year and we look forward to meeting up with you again at our next chapter meeting on 3rd Thursday 17 January 2013.