Wow… It’s been a long time since I last blogged! How are you??

Of course, I’m still alive! For the past 4 months, a lot of things happened to me. Good and bad… Anyway, let’s look ahead to the new year.. I promise you all. I will be back in year 2009! I WILL BE BACK!!!!

Stay tune and I will share with you more about public speaking, sales, relationship, etc…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2009!

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This was an outing which I have been waiting for since the day one I joined Toastmasters Club. I have joined The Frontier Toastmasters Club for two and a half years and I have discovered that something is missing in my club. That is member’s bonding. In my opinion, most of the members are working adults and they have their own family. It is quite difficult to gather everybody for an outing with the purpose of creating a better bonding among members. However, I really wanted to give it a try.It took two hands to clap. I was fortunate to have a member - Kwok Kiong who volunteered himself to organize an outing for the club. Foremost in Kwok Kiong’s mind was to have an outing to create a better friendship that lasts forever. We went through a few discussions to finalize the program as follow:
1) Kite making - to make a kite in a group of 2 people and fly the kite together.
=> This is to cultivate team work within the group and gain satisfaction after seeing the self-made kite flying in the sky.
2) Card games - to have fun together.
=> This is to have a relax moment when we can laugh and make fun of each other.
3) Table topic sessions - to have more personal topics
=> This is for us to know each other better.
4) Compliment cards - to write some compliments to every participant
=> This is to have a happy ending of the outing and everybody will be motivated by the positive messages from our members.

I could see that Kwok Kiong really endeavored to make this outing a successful one.

Before one day of the outing, I received a lot of last-minute messages saying that they could not attend the outing due to personal reasons. One, two, three, four….members could not make it for this wonderful planned outing. I was so worried that Kwok Kiong will be saddened and demoralized by the response from the members. Fortunately, his mood was not affected.

Ironically, rain was falling heavily after the kites were made. A lot of programs could not be carried out due to the lack of participants and weather.

At first, I thought this outing would be a boring one. However, after all the negative incidents, it turned out to be something good. Within a small group of five, we got to sit closer to each other under a shelter to avoid the rain. We had a scintillating conversation by sharing our personal stories.

Towards the end of the session, Kwok Kiong executed the “compliment cards” activity beautifully. Deep inside my heart, I was touched by the messages that I received. I have promised myself to continue helping the members to achieve whatever they want to achieve in their Toastmasters Journey… I want to see them blossom one day!

I have learnt something throughout this outing. No matter how bad the situation is, we still have to be positive and let our optimism to rule our mind. The end result will be somehow sparkled…I hope an outing will be carried out at least once every 3 months and with that, I strongly believe that we will grow together as a team , as a big family.

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Left: Mr. Rob Salisbury, Right: Me

In this new term, at Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club, under the lead of the new president Benjamin Cheng, we kick-started our very first professional series workshop. The professional speaker whom he has invited is Mr. Rob Salisbury.

Here is the background of the speaker. Rob is the author of the best selling CD series “How to MC almost anything” and co-contributor to eight best selling books. Amongst just 500 professionals worldwide to have earned the coveted Certified Speaking Professional designation, CSP is the benchmark and highest international speaking accreditation one can attain from the USA and Australian National Speakers Association. As a certified trainer, professional speaker, emcee, host and panel moderator Rob has been hired over 1700 times in the USA, Europe, SE Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

We are privilege to invite him to speak on the topic “How to be a Great MC or Host for any Event”.

Below are the 15 pointers in “How to be a great MC and host for any event”
1) MC mindset and skills
- As a MC, he has to think of serving the people first.

2) MC moderator, role
- An MC has to know his role very well.

3) The MC is not a speaker, entertainer or comic.
- Then what is an MC? He is the host of the whole event. He has to take charge of the responsibility in ensuring the programs are smoothly running one by one.

4) Observe Academy & MTV Awards
- Academy & MTV Awards are always hosted by a world-class great MC. It’s good to learn from the best of the best.

5) Event briefings, theme and run sheets.
- Before the event, an MC has to find out the exact theme of the event and what are the programs that they are having.

6) Lights, camera, action
- Make sure everything is ready before starting the event.

7) Air-con, microphones, door, technology, room logistics.
- Make sure that there will be no distractive stuff like dim lightings, a clock on a stage, noisy door and others.

8 ) 7 Ps of a great event
- Proper Pre-planning Preparation Prevent Pitiful Performance in Public

9) Event opening, people introduction, thank you.
- Bear in mind that good-manner is very important. The event opening must be appropriate to the theme of the event. All the people to be on stage are to be introduced with sincerity and accurate details. Thank the speaker, performers and those who come on stage.

10) Good, bad, ugly venues
- Be aware of where the good, bad, ugly venues are. Try to avoid standing at the bad and ugly venues.

11) 10-> 5-> 2 minutes => Time’s up.
- Get a guy to time your speech and give you signal of the timing.

12) Music, breaks, transition
- To refresh audience’s mind, it’s good to wear a different custome after break. The easiest one would be a change of tie.

13) Auctions, raffles, give aways.
- Inject excitement to auctions, raffles and give aways.

14) Wear a badge with name
- Let the audience recognize and know you.

15) Show time - getting people in the ballroom to start on time.
- Think of innovative ideas to get people back to the room before event starts or after break.

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Left: Stanley (Division Z Governor), Right: Cynthia Zhai (new president)

Wow… Finally, one term of service as a president in The Frontier Toastmasters Club was over! I was eventually free from the heavy burden of leading a club. However, as the immediate past president of the club, somehow or rather, I still play a quite important role in the club, I guess…

Now, the new president is a China Lady - Cynthia Zhai. I used to work under a lady boss in my previous company and a lot of people warned me that lady boss was actually quite difficult to deal with. Sorry to offend my previous boss, yup, indeed, she was a little bit difficult to deal with compared with all the male bosses whom I had dealt with. Sometimes, I found that ladies were quite emotional. Ops, I think I have not only offended my ex-boss, but ladies. Sometimes, I can be quite emotional too… After all, she was still my very good boss. The new president, the lady boss of The Frontier Toastmasters Club, is she going to be a tough person to deal with? We will see….

To me, I must admit that I was very fortunate to have Cynthia as my Vice President of Education during my service as a president. Till now, she is still the best VPE whom I have never met. The dedication, passion and enthusiasm of her in Toastmasters, are definitely assets to The Frontier TMC. Her greatest attribute is her sincerity. I must say that she is a role model for all the Toastmasters.

This term, she has set a higher goal to the club, which is to achieve President Distinguished Club award with 10 out of 10 goals. And she said…. “We MUST achieve!” That wowed me as I dared not to say this sentence out when I first received the baton as a president. This was something that I should learn from her.

Once a member of The Frontier TMC, I will be forever the member of The Frontier TMC. This is like a second-home for me. My dream is to witness every member in the club, is able to success in their career and speaking journey. I want them to be proud of themselves when they stand on stage and tell everybody that “I am a Toastmaster from The Frontier TMC!”

I believe, under the new leadership of Cynthia, The Frontier TMC will achieve a greater height!

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We used to hire people to distribute flyers to promote our club events. It happened in last year that we did the same thing to promote our club 4th anniversary celebration. We made arrangement to distribute 500 flyers at the train station which was located nearby The Frontier Community Club and we targeted for 50 participants. Eventually, only less than 5 participants came for the celebration. So, in order to get 50 participants, we needed to distribute 500 x 10 = 5000 flyers, which would cost us a bomb.

This year, I wanted to try something different to promote the 5th anniversary of The Frontier Toastmasters Club celebration. Together with my club members, we set up a booth in the community club and distributed free tickets and get the contacts of the people who signed up for the event.

We started the booth at 12pm and ended at 5pm. Within 5 hours, we managed to distribute 40 tickets and got more than 30 contact details. I thought this was considered quite a good result. Not only we had distributed tickets and got the contact details, we also managed to create awareness to the public that there is a club called Toastmasters Club which can help them to improve their communication and leadership skills.

The reasons why I would recommend you to try this strategy - Setting up a booth, are because:
1) This is the most direct way to approach prospects who are interested in improving their communication and leadership skills.
2) This is a good platform for your members to practise their speaking skills in a real life example to promote club event to the public.
3) This is a very economical way to promote a club event. (provided that you have a supportive community club like The Frontier Community Club which doesn’t charge us a single cent for the booth setting. Kudos to The Frontier Community Club…)
4) This is the best way to understand what the public is thinking about the importance of effective communication.

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