Toastmasters Meetings and Detail

Dear members and readers,

Please be informed that our Club meeting will now be scheduled on the 1st and 3rd Friday. As such, our meeting in December will be on the 5th and 19th December.

And guys, please remember, we have also changed the venue. Kindly refer to previous posting for the address.


Thank you.....see you in the next meeting.

Change

We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance. Well that's what Harrison Ford once said. True enough, change is inevitable in our lives. If not for change, things will not stay the way they are. The only constant thing in our live is change.

Thus, it is for the progress of our club that the Vistana Toastmasters have been changed to Kuantan Toastmasters starting from November 2008. There is no need for further explanation, suffice to say that the Exco members feel that Kuantan is the best reflection of our club. Vistana will always be a part of our club's history, as it gives the foundation to be where we are today.

And now, to conquer the challenges ahead, let's pray for our Club's success!

"They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." ~Confucius

Change For Better

As we are celebrating our 84th anniversary of Toastmasters International on the month of October, we at Vistana Toastmasters will embark our new chapter in another new place. 31 Oct 2008, a historic day for Vistana Toastmasters Club. Today we are having our Toastmasters meeting at our new venue at Pahang Ceylonese Club. Inline with our theme of that evening “Change for the better”, we also were inform by our Mdm. President TM Sarimah about the change of our club name. Effective Nov 2008 the club Exco decided to change our club name to Kuantan Toastmasters Club. Truly a big change for us.

It was a great start for us having 7 guests on that memorable evening. We have four guests from Hong Leong group consist of Dennis, Aaron Tee, Mr Lim and Danny. We also have Su Chin @ Susi from P&G, Mr Adnan, a retiree and Amidah, our regular guest. During the Table Topic session four of our guest participates as Table Topic speakers conducted by our President TM Sarimah. It was a well receive session as most of the guest attempted this session for the first time. Well done to all the Table Topic speakers on that evening for a splendid performance especially Aaron Tee who pick up the Best Guest Table Topic speaker. Thumb up for Table Topic Master Sarimah for motivate the Table Topic speakers to “Open their mouth”

In the second part of our meeting, we have 3 assignment speakers who attempted their communication manual. They are TM Fong Siew Ching who is doing her Ice Breaker entitle “Autobiography”. It was a short and sweet Ice Breaker by Siew Ching who share with us her background and why she being a Toastmasters. Later, two of our club leaders share with us their Project 8: Get comfortable with visual aids. TM Pohlin with her speech title “Garbage Enzyme, The savoir” and TM Sarimah with “Cheap but Good”. What can I say about their performance is “Magnificent”, ‘Truly a great speech”. I should bring a video recorded to capture their excellent speech.

During the evaluation session, all the speakers have been point out their strong point and room for improvements. Above all I feel the members and guests have enjoy the meeting and is good to known two of our guest Amidah and Mr. Adnan is going to be apart of Kuantan Toastmasters club soon. A big thank you to all the role players and speakers that make the meeting a success and memorable. To sum up, I must say thank you to Pahang Ceylonese Club for renting us a good and comfortable meeting place for us to continue our Toastmasters aspiration.


P.S. Thanks to Gunedran for recommend this new venue to us.

Courage to Make a Difference


Your TME,
Vince Lim
31 Oct 2008

Change of Venue

Dear Vistana Toastmasters members, mentors and guests,


Please be informed that our next meeting date is on 31 Oct 2008 I/O 24 Oct 2008 due to state Holiday on 24 Oct. We will officially change our meeting venue from 31 Oct 2008(Friday) onwards.

Our new meeting venue is:

Persatuan Ceylon Pahang
A-4834, Tingkat 1,
Lorong Seri Kuantan 25,
Taman Intan,
25250, Kuantan,
Pahang Darul Makmur


Our meeting time and day will remain unchange, which is on every 2nd and 4th Friday of the month from 7.45pm to 10.00pm.

20th September: Born Are Our Stars For Vistana Toastmasters Club!

20th September 2008, the day started with a bright sunny morning, many people started their usual Saturday morning; however, four of our dearest members had to wake up early to begin their over 300km journey to KDU, Petaling Jaya, accompanied with them, were their nervous and anxious hearts; with only one intention: to represent Vistana Toastmasters Club in Area B4 Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest. For the first time ever, in Vistana Toastmasters Club history!! Yes! They are none other than our dearest Vince Lim and Sabrina Yap who took part in Humorous Speech Contest, and Sarimah and Sharifah in Evaluation Contest.



Contestants had to be at the venue slightly earlier that day in order for the organizing committee to determine the contestants speaking sequence, Sarimah was the first contestant for evaluation contest. I still remembered she told me, "I can feel butterflies in my tummy already." On the other hand, Vince made use of the time before contest to practice again and again, even on their journey to Kuala Lumpur. No one was able to predict how the results will be, they only hope their presentation will turn out smoothly during the contest.



The Humorous contest began about 2.30pm and Vince was the 3rd contestant. In his speech, titled 'Honored with Humour', he shared with us about his fear and dilemma when our Area Governor, Johnson suggested to him to join the humorous speech contest. A usual contestants for KTM (Kuda, Toto & Magnum), Vince took Eugene Ng's advice to put on 'a stronger pair' to conquer his fear and move forward to the contest stage to contest!! He definitely did not take the Humorous Speech contest as easy as contesting in KTM, therefore in the process of polishing his skills from a humour-less to humourous speaker, he smuggled into a school to practice in front of kids audience, because he believed it would be easier to humour kids; as research says, kids laugh or smile more then 400 times daily. Unfortunately he frightened them and made them cried. What next? He was banned from entering the school again…… (Opps! Don't get me wrong. Vince is a nice guy, I am just sharing some of his speech content. And, feedback from the floor was quite good, audience laughing!!) Sabrina was the last contestant with her speech entitle, Dating Vs. Marriage. She shared with us how a sweet elegant lady mimicked the stunts in Bollywood and Hollywood movies when she was dating her boyfriend. She then turned into a 'fierce aunty' after married, with one big kid (her hubby) and three small kids, frequently screaming to discipline them all. (Sabrina, I hope those scenes only happened in your speech though, you don't look that fierce anyhow…)



The end of Humorous Speech contest not only marked the moment of relief for Vince and Sabrina but also marked that the show time for Sarimah and Sharifah had begin! After listened to the test speaker, Ong Yi Jieh from Sunway Toastmasters. Evaluation contestants were given 5 minutes for preparation. Sarimah was the first contestant, she stood at the lectern and started saying, "Ong, what more can I say about you?! You name already ONG (means lucky in Chinese)", which made the whole floor laughed, then she continued on to analyzed good and points for improvement for the speaker in her usual vivid way. Followed by Sharifah as the final contestant delivering words of encouragement to the speaker.



After a series of contestants, the moment everyone was waiting for, Results Announcement was the most memorable for all of us from Vistana Toastmasters Club!!! It was a moment of glory for all of us!! All because our very own Sabrina and Vince won the 2nd and 1st runner-up for Humorous Speech Contest; on the other hand, Sarimah won 2nd runner-up for Evaluation Contest!!! Yes, the Contest Chair really announced their names as the winners.



What is the big deal of winning 2nd and 1st Runners-up?! For Vistana Toastmasters Club, winning a trophy not our main focus, being 2nd and 1st Runners-up still a moment of glory, moment of joy and moment of breakthrough. We are still champion in our hearts, because our contestants had conquered their fear, made a big step out there to participate in a contest, first time in their life and first time for Vistana Toastmasters Club. They created a new history to Vistana Toastmasters Club.



Behind the success, it is the special bonding of friendships, encouragements and supports among the members that drive us from a quiet club to a club that finally took a brave step to participate in contest. No forgetting to forward million thanks to our Area Gorvenor, ACS ALB Johnson Yike for encouraging Vistana Toastmasters to participate in the contest. Helpful and constructing inputs from visiting Toastmasters, especially Zaharah, Sue Ding and Sharmini.



Last but no least Vince, Sabrina and Sarimah, Vistana Toastmasters Club is extremely proud of you all! Don't let this fire of glory slowly fade off with time, together let's transform it to a powerful energy to drive Vistana Toastmasters to conquer from one peak to another peak. Together we will show that Vistana Toastmasters Club, not only fosters public speaking and leadership skills; but also a club that foster friendships and teamwork.



Pohlin
Proud VPE of
Vistana Toastmasters Club

Break a leg!

Hey all....you might be wondering whattttttttttt?
Noooo.... its not actually to break a leg literally! You see, there's this contest in D'Utama TM this coming Saturday (yeah, u got it rite, its TOMMORROW)...AND guess what?
We're sending our Ah Beng and Ah Lians to join the Humorous Speech and Evaluation Contest! Thus the break a leg title for today's posting... a good luck wish to Ah Beng and Ah Lians of Vistana Toastmasters....

"A New Beginning" on a "A Special Day"

080808, a special day for many people around the world; many couples chose that date to walk down the aisle, and many chose to stay home waiting for China Olympic Opening. And, most importantly 080808 also marked a special beginning for Vistana Toastmasters Club. Besides having the meeting on this special day, the meeting started at 8.08pm, we have 8 attendee (many stayed at home for Olympic Opening Ceremony), and 8 table topic speakers.

Although there were only 8 persons attending the meeting, but 'SIZE DID NOT MATTER', the number of attendee did not weaken the 'chemistry' of the meeting. It started with our Madam President, Toastmaster Sarimah sharing her 'Secret', a book that she read recently, Table Topic Master, Ainul turned all of us into Sportsmen and Sportswomen in Olympic by her topics all related to Olympic games. It ended with wonderful evaluation session conducted by our honourable guest from KL, CTM Parasakti.

So? What's so special about the meeting? First of all, we had all our exco members dressed formally that evening for our second purpose; that was to launch our new implementations to improve club performance and enhance learning curve of members and guest.

After all the effort from the team of Vistana Toastmasters Club and guidance from Klang Valley members, we are glad that we see positive results in membership strength and meeting quality. On 8 August 2008, 8.08pm, we officially announced few changes that we would like to implement in Vistana Toastmasters Club, it might be common things that other strong clubs doing all the time, but over here we could not due to our membership strength in the past.

The new implementations including the launching of:

No. 1: Mentoring Program,

No. 2: in order to improve meeting quality, we formalized of Role Players' duties and responsibilities, meeting roster for members to pre-plan speaking slots and roles; and theme for every meeting to add varieties to spice up meeting ambient.

No. 3: club website as a place for Vistana Toastmasters to share our Toastmaster-ing experience and nametag to increase the sense of belonging.

080808, a brand new beginning to Vistana Toastmasters Club, and this new beginning will mark new challenges for us here to make Vistana Toastmasters Club a better club. A place we learn, we share, we enjoy and we proud of.



Pohlin
TME for 080808
Vice President of Education