After a chapter meeting, there was one club president asked me whether I have any good tips in President Opening Address preparation. As a president of The Frontier Toastmasters Club, I have to make an opening speech in every chapter meeting. Since last year July until now, I had made 6 President Opening Speeches.To me, the opening address is just another Stage Time. How to make full use of the Stage Time and at the same time whatever you say, it strikes a chord to the audience, especially to your club members? I would like to share with you my point of view in president opening address…

1) Share your vision, thinking and goals
- Whatever you are going to say during president opening address, it has to be aligned with your vision, thinking and goals.

2) Stress on your motto
- “It can be done” is my motto and a lot of time, I stress on this sentence to my members and now, whenever my members hear this sentence, they will somehow relate to me.

3) An incident that happened to you
- Share with the audience a recent incident that happened to you, preferably the incident that you have learnt something from. There must be a message that you wish to convey to the audience through your story.
- I have once shared my experience when I first obtained my driving license in Singapore. I didn’t know many road names in Singapore and I lost my way in one occasion. With that incident, I brought out a message “it’s important to do planning”, with proper road planning before driving, we can save a lot of unnecessary time in searching for roads. Same to our life… We need to do planning.

4) An incident that happened in Toastmasters Movement
- The target audience is majority Toastmasters. As a president, I think we have the responsibility to say good about Toastmasters all the time.
- I talked about how semi-annual convention has changed my perception towards Toastmasters and how my mindset was built to be more positive through the convention. At the same time, I encouraged them to join the Toastmasters Convention.

5) A book, workshop, educational program
- Talk about what you have learnt from the book that you’ve read, the workshop that you’ve attended and the educational program that you’ve listened. This will not only benefit the audience, it will help you to remember the important points that you’ve learnt in the programs.
- I couldn’t wait to share the tips about time management from Brian Tracy after I listened to his audio programme. I immediately shared with my members during the next chapter meeting after I listened to that programme.

6) Try something new
- Opening speech is your stage time. I would suggest you to try something that you have never tried in your project speeches. I have tried a stage magic to relate to my message – “to master a skill you have to know the methods, and then practise and practise until you succeed.” I was quite satisfied with this opening address and here, I have included the youtube video.