252th Mid Valley TMC Meeting

By Daniel Lim

It probably wouldn’t come as a shock to you that a UK research found that most sick leaves are taken on Mondays. As to why Monday is a particularly moody day, well, it’s pretty obvious that we’d end up a bit down when returning to work, especially after a fun and rested weekend. In reality, the real reason may be more than meets the eye. Fortunately for us, there are a few simple things we can do to help minimize the ill effects of Monday Blues.

Rule no 1# Have Something To Look Forward To On Monday Nights and to me, it’s attending Toastmaster Club Mid Valley Meeting. Being the 252th meeting and it’s the first meeting of the year 2015 for Mid Valley TMC, the theme is – No Limits. 

It’s indeed a fruitful meeting which allow me has a powerful kick start by gaining new insight out of each project speaker. I started to pick up routine jog the next day after the meeting, I’ll tell why later in the blog.

As always, Toastmaster members and guests arrived to Cititel Hotel 5th level 5 by 6.00pm, which is a good time to mingle around and get to know each other by juice up some conversation while having simple yet delectable Fried Rice and Fried Noodle being served. At 6.57pm,  SAA TM Ivy started to get all the enthusiastic members and guests in to the meeting room.

The first meeting of the year started off with Presidential Speech by ever charming "Princedent" Shim Chee Loon. There are total of 25 attendees in the cozy meeting room, 21 awesome Toastmaster members and 4 great guests. After a round of self introduction by members and guests, here come a specky and prolly the bubbly'st girl  I've ever met - and she is non other than TM Siew Lai Yee as the Toastmaster of The Evening role, she came out a brilliant idea on introduce TMC origin by using presentation slide, which i think she deserves a big Kudos.  Lai Yee follow by introduced all the Role Players for the night. GE of the 252 meeting is TM Chin Yeow Honn, he came with a box of mouth watery cookies. Again, a big thanks to his courtesy, small gesture often can goes a long way. TM Mi Shan as a Grammarian, i go deeper of feminism because of her. Last but not least, ever pose with poise speak with elegance TM Yeap Wei Leeng done his long journey to far far away and back to TMC Mid Valley to take up Time Keeper role where he said there is a limit of time although the theme is - No Limit. 

The meeting turn into exhilarating ambiance the minute a cute guy TM Chong Chee Siong take the floor as a Table Topic Master, he never fail to project a sense of shrewd and uplifting image under his "Cute skin". The first speaker brave enough to volunteer himself to take up the impromptu speech is a member of Toastmaster Mid Valley club, TM Ryan Ting, we all are so excited the heartthrob wannabe Ryan back to the meeting after his missing in action for last meeting, we cant really explain why just one meeting absent make us feel he has left us for long period, maybe we too miss him. The second speaker of impromptu speech is TM Timothy Nagapapa, he is the one who got me believe that the hearsay within the club, he who could paint as Pablo Picasso with his words. The third and fourth speakers goes to guest of the night handsome Dylan and Kenneth. At the end of the meeting, the Best Table Topic Speaker award went to TM Timothy.

The night has came to it climax by the most anticipated prepare speech session. There are 4 speakers, from novice to full fledge season speaker. 

Firstly start with biblical Eve Chong who deliver her virgin Ice Breaker speech - Up and Down

She shared her up and down experience in her life by emphasis without the down part of ones life, you will not aware the "Top of the world" feeling on the up part. She also share a Chinese idiom, Failure is the mother of success. Where Up and Down not just illustrate her teenage and young adult life, but also her job as a dealer representative in RHB investment bank, she experience Up and Down roller coaster experience practically on daily basis by looking at stock market index and investor sentiment. 

Second speaker goes to ever calmed, poised TM Kow Chee Khon (4th Yer), his prepared speech is CC#2 Live A Better Life with Butt. He start the speech by asking what is exactly the purpose of butt, and it's indeed triggered the curiosity within the room and successfully captured audience attention. The correct answer is running. Kow also advocate audience in the house for not abuse the butt by not running. He stated two main reason people dont are first, TOO BUSY, Second, TOO STRESS, he gave a motivation example that US President Barrack Obama runs average 45 mins daily amid his BUSY and STRESSFUL routine. Kudo to TM Kow, i get my ass back in to running the next day of your speech.

Third speaker is TM Ivy Chang, her voice is ever loud and clear, she is doing her project speech 7# Couchsurfing. Christy start her speech by asking how to get free accommodation while travelling, and of course the answer is Couchsurfing, frankly,  i had no idea what is couchsurfing until speech was given by Christy, the key objective of this initiative is to bring together the like-minded traveller who wants to travel like a local and to promote authentic culture exchange. Thanks Christy, I'll definitely try Couchsurfing one day in near future. 

Fourth speaker has the expertise notion about brand, being a brand expert, Ian as usual, dress the part for the meeting by suit up, stand straight, articulate ideas clearly, all hail to TM Ian Lai to deliver his project speech #9 It's Never Too Late, Ian begin his speech asking how many of the audience in the room has make New year resolution, he shares a interesting research that showing 90% people will forget the new year resolution in just three days time. And in his speech, the core message to deliver is punctuality, and remind that we all often has a tendency being late on our own resolution, and he shared a useful way for all the audience to bring back time to think on our feet, who are we to our closest one, to career and to friends, write it on the sticky paper that are provided and stick it at the mirror.


After all the insightful information and knowledge from the speakers, we get into cheerful mode as TMC Mid Valley culture, a delectable secret recipe cake will be served every second meeting of the month. We have approximately 10 mins refreshment time. 

When the time came to the last session of the toastmaster event, Evaluation are did by experienced and season speakers TM Ang Chee Yong on the table topic, TM Carmun Chong being the evaluator for Eve Chong, TM Wong Woon Pen being the evaluator for TM Kow Chee Khon, TM Timothy Nakayama being the evaluator for Christy Chang and last but not least is the voted the best Evaluator TM Sharm Siva who is evaluator for TM Ian Lai.

All in all, i felt i have gain a lot by attending Toastmaster meeting. The wonderful part of toastmaster event is not how great the speaker are, or how tremendous insightful of the speech being delivered, to me, it's the community of who spend time to attend the meeting and spend effort to make the meeting happen, at here, we all have a same goal to improve public speaking skill, to advance in life by honing leader skill, in toastmaster community, there are loads of encouragement, louder and extremely good platform to learn public speaking yet can have the upside by get to know new friends who like-minded as your. Although i just deliver my first project speech cc #1, i already can feel confidence toward public speaking. I must show my highest gratitude to whom who came out the Toastmaster ideas, and to the Mid Valley TMC exco who spend lots of effort to keep the club rolling, last but not least, for those havent visit Toastmaster club before, feel free to pay TMC Mid Valley  a visit, It'll worth every minute spent. You have my word. Adios