SUPERHEROES AND SUPERSHEROES!
16th May 2013 heralds the 8th anniversary celebration for our club. SAA Ida kickstarted the meeting with an "action-packed" icebreaker. She introduced herself and shared that she loves the colour red. All who share this "love" had to swop seats. The last person left standing will move to the front and introduce himself. The activity kept us on the edge of our seats and got our adrenalin pumping. Through it, we learnt that Choon Liang likes bright colours, Peter loves Hokkien Mee, Aarti loves playing with children and Joni loves toastmasters!
Club President Leena Santore, in her opening speech, highlighted people's inexplicable fascination with superheroes like Superman, Spiderman and Ironman. She likened the Exco members to superheroes and supersheroes for their unwavering commitment and dedication to the club. She expressed her appreciation for their hard work and presented each of them with tokens of appreciation.
Language guru John Sih taught us the word IMPERATIVE, which is an adjective, meaning absolutely necessary or required, or commanding. For example, we could say "It is imperative for club members to carefully craft and religiously rehearse their speeches to deliver them impressively." or "He spoke in an imperative tone of voice."
Prepared Speeches
Maria Benu presented her P3 speech with an intriguing title: 6 seconds for the brain. She used Powerpoint slides to explain how our brain releases serotonin which affects our mood. The limbic system is home to our emotions and it takes 6 seconds for the stimulus to reach our frontal lobe. She advised when faced with an panic-inducing situation that we apply CPR to our brain. C for Count to 6, P for Practice deep breathing to calm ourselves down and R for Resistance to impulsive reactions. In this way, we can defuse our anger and instead lead happy and healthy lives.
P9 Persuade With Power speaker Shahnawaz gave us a catchy tagline: Facts Tell, Stories Sell. He told us the story of Jared Fogle and his SUBWAY diet and how that powerfully transformed SUBWAY's image into a healthy place to eat. Jared Fogle, at 425-pounds, was so fat that he couldn't fit through doorways nor squeeze into car seats. He stumbled upon SUBWAY and ate the foot-long veggie sandwich every night, which helped him to shed 245 pounds in a year. In the same way, we can use stories to communicate our messages powerfully, whether to our colleagues, friends or family members.
Choon Liang shared with us Lessons from Running in his P10 speech. When there is a voice in our heads telling us to stop, do we give in to the voice or do we keep going? He tells us to defeat the voice. The second lesson is practice makes perfect. He started out as a straggler when running with his platoon in the army, but after constant practice, he was able to keep up with the platoon and even took part in a 42-km marathon finishing in 5h 40 mins despite the challenges he faced. Setting goals was the third lesson he shared. Nike founder Bill Bowerman was a track coach with a simple goal of making light and comfortable shoes for his runners. He was best known for ruining his wife's waffle iron, experimenting with the idea of using waffle-ironed rubber to create a new sole for footwear that would grip but be lightweight.
Choon Liang was voted the Best Speaker for the evening. Congratulations on attaining your CC award! We're proud of you!
Table Topics
Joni led us in Table Topics with a series of quotations about love, life and learning, using the acronym ANNIVERSARY. 4 speakers bravely took up the challenge and opined on the topics they chose:
Roann - Right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.
Aarti - A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Marco - Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.
Mae - Relationships don't always make sense. Especially from the outside.
Marco was voted the Best Table Topics Speaker on his speech about how we should embrace each other regardless of which God or what God we believe in. He also waxed philosophical about how we should just live in the present and just be!
Project Evaluations
Burt enthused about Maria's effective use of technology and powerpoint visuals to enhance her speech, something which he wants to learn from her. She came across as a confident speaker. Areas of improvement included enunciation and slowing down her speaking rate.
Marco commended Shahnawaz's use of question to hook us into his speech. There was a clear logical flow to his speech content and stories were well-chosen. He recommended more eye-contact instead of looking down and tying the speech title to the key message.
Stanley praised Choon Liang for his use of personal anecdotes and humour. He came across as a positive and confident speaker. He suggested the use of gestures to make transitions smoother, the use of acronyms to make his key points more memorable and perhaps wearing a marathon runner's outfit to suit the speech. He recalled a speech in the past where a lady also spoke about running and halfway through the speech, removed her suit to reveal runner's outfit with the number tag. It left a deep impression in his mind!
Language Evaluation
John regaled us with a joke involving acronyms.
A girl asked a boy, "How much do you love me?"
The boy replied, "ABCDEFG! A boy can do everything for girl!"
The aunty who overheard that decided to ask her husband the same question.
His reply: "ABCDEFGHIJK!"
The aunty was overjoyed and asked what that meant.
The husband replied, "You're adorable, beautiful, captivating, delightful, enchanting, fantastic, great, hot!"
The wife frowned and asked, "What about IJK?"
The husband said, "I just kidding!"
That pretty much put all of us in stitches. Then we learnt about triads such as "gumption, attitude and desire" and "influence, inspire and persuade", and great words and phrases like "stand at the helm", "coercing, cajoling", "at the brink of discovery", and "fired right through with confidence".
John took great pains to teach us the correct pronunciation of words like 'guests', 'marathon', 'thank you', 'hone', 'opportunity' and 'presentation'. He also advised Choon Liang to speak from his diaphragm so that he will be able to throw out his voice and speak louder, instead of swallowing his words.
Closing
Ida presented tokens of appreciation to all our visiting toastmasters friends for helping to spice up our meeting. Leena invited everyone to attend our next meeting on 3rd Thursday, 20th June 2013 which will feature Installation of the incoming EXCO.
Club President Leena Santore, in her opening speech, highlighted people's inexplicable fascination with superheroes like Superman, Spiderman and Ironman. She likened the Exco members to superheroes and supersheroes for their unwavering commitment and dedication to the club. She expressed her appreciation for their hard work and presented each of them with tokens of appreciation.
Language guru John Sih taught us the word IMPERATIVE, which is an adjective, meaning absolutely necessary or required, or commanding. For example, we could say "It is imperative for club members to carefully craft and religiously rehearse their speeches to deliver them impressively." or "He spoke in an imperative tone of voice."
Prepared Speeches
Maria Benu presented her P3 speech with an intriguing title: 6 seconds for the brain. She used Powerpoint slides to explain how our brain releases serotonin which affects our mood. The limbic system is home to our emotions and it takes 6 seconds for the stimulus to reach our frontal lobe. She advised when faced with an panic-inducing situation that we apply CPR to our brain. C for Count to 6, P for Practice deep breathing to calm ourselves down and R for Resistance to impulsive reactions. In this way, we can defuse our anger and instead lead happy and healthy lives.
P9 Persuade With Power speaker Shahnawaz gave us a catchy tagline: Facts Tell, Stories Sell. He told us the story of Jared Fogle and his SUBWAY diet and how that powerfully transformed SUBWAY's image into a healthy place to eat. Jared Fogle, at 425-pounds, was so fat that he couldn't fit through doorways nor squeeze into car seats. He stumbled upon SUBWAY and ate the foot-long veggie sandwich every night, which helped him to shed 245 pounds in a year. In the same way, we can use stories to communicate our messages powerfully, whether to our colleagues, friends or family members.
Choon Liang shared with us Lessons from Running in his P10 speech. When there is a voice in our heads telling us to stop, do we give in to the voice or do we keep going? He tells us to defeat the voice. The second lesson is practice makes perfect. He started out as a straggler when running with his platoon in the army, but after constant practice, he was able to keep up with the platoon and even took part in a 42-km marathon finishing in 5h 40 mins despite the challenges he faced. Setting goals was the third lesson he shared. Nike founder Bill Bowerman was a track coach with a simple goal of making light and comfortable shoes for his runners. He was best known for ruining his wife's waffle iron, experimenting with the idea of using waffle-ironed rubber to create a new sole for footwear that would grip but be lightweight.
Choon Liang was voted the Best Speaker for the evening. Congratulations on attaining your CC award! We're proud of you!
Table Topics
Joni led us in Table Topics with a series of quotations about love, life and learning, using the acronym ANNIVERSARY. 4 speakers bravely took up the challenge and opined on the topics they chose:
Roann - Right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.
Aarti - A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Marco - Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.
Mae - Relationships don't always make sense. Especially from the outside.
Marco was voted the Best Table Topics Speaker on his speech about how we should embrace each other regardless of which God or what God we believe in. He also waxed philosophical about how we should just live in the present and just be!
Project Evaluations
Burt enthused about Maria's effective use of technology and powerpoint visuals to enhance her speech, something which he wants to learn from her. She came across as a confident speaker. Areas of improvement included enunciation and slowing down her speaking rate.
Marco commended Shahnawaz's use of question to hook us into his speech. There was a clear logical flow to his speech content and stories were well-chosen. He recommended more eye-contact instead of looking down and tying the speech title to the key message.
Stanley praised Choon Liang for his use of personal anecdotes and humour. He came across as a positive and confident speaker. He suggested the use of gestures to make transitions smoother, the use of acronyms to make his key points more memorable and perhaps wearing a marathon runner's outfit to suit the speech. He recalled a speech in the past where a lady also spoke about running and halfway through the speech, removed her suit to reveal runner's outfit with the number tag. It left a deep impression in his mind!
Language Evaluation
John regaled us with a joke involving acronyms.
A girl asked a boy, "How much do you love me?"
The boy replied, "ABCDEFG! A boy can do everything for girl!"
The aunty who overheard that decided to ask her husband the same question.
His reply: "ABCDEFGHIJK!"
The aunty was overjoyed and asked what that meant.
The husband replied, "You're adorable, beautiful, captivating, delightful, enchanting, fantastic, great, hot!"
The wife frowned and asked, "What about IJK?"
The husband said, "I just kidding!"
That pretty much put all of us in stitches. Then we learnt about triads such as "gumption, attitude and desire" and "influence, inspire and persuade", and great words and phrases like "stand at the helm", "coercing, cajoling", "at the brink of discovery", and "fired right through with confidence".
John took great pains to teach us the correct pronunciation of words like 'guests', 'marathon', 'thank you', 'hone', 'opportunity' and 'presentation'. He also advised Choon Liang to speak from his diaphragm so that he will be able to throw out his voice and speak louder, instead of swallowing his words.
Closing
Ida presented tokens of appreciation to all our visiting toastmasters friends for helping to spice up our meeting. Leena invited everyone to attend our next meeting on 3rd Thursday, 20th June 2013 which will feature Installation of the incoming EXCO.
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