Yow Kia

What did I enjoy the most?
Zhenghua Toastmasters Club is a new club, which will be chartered soon. I saw the support given by the Grassroot leaders from Zhenghua Community Club and was amazed by their enthusiasm and dedication in helping to charter a new Toastmasters Club. During the table topic session, almost all the volunteers were from the pool of Grassroot leaders. They took initiative to showcase their speaking skills and to prove to the public that Toastmasters Club is a good place to hone our communication and leadership skills.

Who was the one left the greatest impression to me?
I must applaud the masterly time management by the Toastmaster of the Day – Patrick Chang. He controlled the flow of the meeting by starting each session of the meeting on time almost perfectly. The accuracy of the start time was only plus or minus 5 minutes. Amazing! He cooperated with the timer very well in every segment and the timer – Kenneth had done a great job by signaling Patrick the timing sequence. Good Job!

I have seen a lot of Toastmasters of the Day always overshot the time because they didn’t take into consideration of the time management for their own “talking”. Some Toastmasters of the Day tended to talk too much. The role of the Toastmaster of the Day, mainly is to control the flow of the meeting. He has to make sure that the transition of the meeting is done flawlessly. Of course, he still need to create a joyful meeting atmosphere by talking. Talk lesser when there is time constraint, talk more when there is extra time.

What did I do during the chapter meeting?
I was evaluating Project 3: How to Say It, by Benson (he came to Singapore from China 5 months ago). I was exceedingly shocked when I heard the topic of his speech. Ladies and gentlemen, the title of his speech was……. Are you ready??…. The title of his speech was… “I HATE PUBLIC SPEAKING!” The title of his speech really blew my mind. He shared with us the feeling that he had while doing public speaking and he wondered why people are doing Public Speaking in Toastmasters Club. He understood that what caused him to hate public speaking was due to his belief system. He believed that he can’t speak proper English, he is not suitable to speak in public, he will make the audience feel uncomfortable and he feels like he is making fool of himself. At the end of the speech, he hoped we could give advice to him to conquer his fear in public speaking.

After he finished his speech, I felt some eyes were glancing at me. I felt the burden as I was his evaluator and I was supposed to turn his “HATE” into “ENJOY”. One good thing I like about his speech is he shared with sincerity. I talked to him during the break and asked him why he joined Toastmasters Club since he hates public speaking so much. He told me that he has no choice, having good communication skill is a must to survive in this highly competitive society. He was absolutely RIGHT! We really need to improve ourselves in order to survive in our life. Like it or not, you have to face the reality.

To counter his speech title, I started off by telling him, “Benson, I hate doing evaluation! However, I discovered that the more I do it, the more comfortable I feel, the better I become.”

Actually, I felt that he knew the main points that he wanted to tell the audience. What he needs to do in the future is to elaborate more on the main points and bring in some stories that relate to the points that he intends to share.

Then, I thought, is human by nature fear of public speaking? NO!! Human by nature loves to speak in public. Remember when you were a baby? You cried openly in public!

Language use
Good use of language:
- My life from black and white was transformed to colourful life.
- Spice up the speech with humour
- Become a verbal magician
- Evaluation is the heart of the program.
- A dog with two trails (meaning: happy)
- Stand out from the crowd
- To bell the cat (meaning: to do a dangerous mission)
- Singapore, we are the rainbow of the world

Good use of humour:
- He has no hair but colourful skin.
- I am a housewife and I have to take care of 5 daughters and ONE DOG.
- He has a mind like a computer. (Someone said: Does he hang always?)
- I felt like a magnet to attract people (Someone said: Me too, except that me and him are in north poles)

Word of the day
Impeccable (Adj)
Meaning: having no flaws; perfect
Synonyms: Faultless, immaculate
(Source from: http://thefreedictionary.com)