Yow Kia

What did I enjoy the most?
I like the sharing of the language evaluator about the use of elegant language. He gave a scenario that why we should use beautiful language during Toastmasters Club Meeting. For example, we need to dress up if we go to special occasion like attending a dinner in hotel, attending a wedding dinner, etc. Same thing, in daily conversation, we talk casually with friends and relatives. Sometimes, our tone will change to a serious tone when we are talking about formal thing like having a meeting with big bosses. In Toastmasters Club, we need to DRESS UP our language use too. I agree with him. Occasionally, we need to use beautiful language to leave a deep impression to the person we are talking to.

Who was the one left the greatest impression to me?
A guest, who is a non-Toastmaster, who came all the way from San Francisco, he is a director of a financial company. Well, not because of his outlook which impressed me. It’s his talking style that impressed me a lot! I found that he is quite an out-spoken and friendly guy. I started the conversation by asking him where he comes from. And guess what… He asked me to take a guess. Only 3 guesses, he said. It’s very obvious that his accent is not a local accent. But I just couldn’t guess it right. At last, I gave up. During self-introduction session, he was appointed to give a brief introduction of a group of 5 people who were assigned to his group. He did a pretty good introduction. Also, during the table topics session, he shared with us his dream. He dreamt to be financially independent since young. He didn’t mention whether his dream came true. But, I guess, he is financially independent now.

What did I do during the chapter meeting?
I was a project evaluator, evaluating “Project 5: Your body moves” from a Toastmaster who is working in telecommunication industry. His topic was about the new age of communication – VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). Overall, the topic was not well chosen to suit the objectives of the project. The topic that he chose was on technical information which I felt that this topic should be presented in “Project 7: Research Your Topic”. However, I did try to give some tips in how to implement body gestures, facial expressions and body movements in his speech. I love to give suggestion to Toastmaster on Opening whenever I do evaluation. I find that OPENING is the MOST IMPORTANT part for the whole speech. If you can’t get the attention of the audience, they won’t follow you throughout the speech. He started with a quite direct opening by saying nowadays the telecommunication is very common is business. And then, immediately he jumped into the body to discuss about VOIP.

How if Mr. President is in oversea? Using handphone? NO! It’s too expensive. I will choose to use VOIP! What is VOIP? I will tell you later…”For that, I suggest him to start the opening as follow: “Good evening everybody! Telecommunication technology is evolving. Everybody owns a handphone nowadays even a primary school kid. May I have a show of hand, who doesn’t own a handphone? If I want to contact Mr. President now, what do you think I would do? Using handphone? NO! He is just sitting on my left, I will just SHOUT AT HIM, “Hey, Mr. President!”

Even for a technical presentation, I strongly feel that we should start casually. Nobody loves to listen to technical talk throughout the whole presentation….

Language use
Good use of metaphor:
- Passport to drive
- The stretch of vocal muscle.

Good use of humour:
- I’m not going to tell you about American’s dream, but my dream.
- Iraqi war, that’s the American’s dream.
- You are very good in playing which keyboard? The computer keyboard?
- There is one speech contest for old-folks who is 65 years old and above. Luckily, you all are not eligible to compete with me.

Word of the day
Elegant (adj), Elegantly (adv), Elegance (n)
Meaning: Refined and tasteful in appearance or behaviour or style
(Source from: http:thefreedictionary.com)