On 1st August 2019, I was at
Astro@Radin Mas Toastmasters Club as Project Evaluator, my 22nd club
visit on the 32nd day of the Toastmaster year. The meeting opened with the installation of
the new Executive Committee, conducted by Area D1 Director Lim Chang Jing.
The New Executive Committee
Li Shan Shan, DTM, took on both
President and Secretary, a demanding double appointment for anyone to carry
simultaneously. Hendri Chandra took
Vice-President, Education. Jhony Chandra
took both Vice-President, Membership, and Treasurer, another double appointment
within the same small committee. Loy Hoo
Keong took Vice-President, Public Relations.
Tan Chian Huay took Sergeant-at-Arms.
A committee this compact, with two members each carrying two portfolios,
tells its own story about a club still building the bench strength to
distribute responsibility more evenly, and that is not a criticism. It is simply the honest state of a growing
club, carried by the people willing to double up rather than letting a role sit
vacant.
The Speeches
Li Shan Shan’s, DTM, presidential
address doubled as her own project speech, addressing Toastmasters mentoring, a
genuinely fitting choice for a new President to open her term with, given that
mentoring is the mechanism by which every other speech in that room eventually
gets better.
Jhony Chandra spoke on managing time,
drawing on his own younger struggles with procrastination. A speaker willing to admit a personal
weakness this specific, rather than delivering time management as an abstract
productivity lecture, gives the audience something they can recognise in
themselves.
Sam Chou spoke about knowing ourselves
before knowing others, a principle with real grounding beyond motivational
cliché. Socrates’ own maxim, “know
thyself,” inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, has anchored two and a
half thousand years of philosophy on this premise: that self-awareness is the
prerequisite for genuine understanding of anyone else, not an optional add-on
to it.
Naveen Giri spoke on change management, a
discipline where the research is unambiguous about the scale of the
challenge. Studies on organisational
change initiatives have repeatedly found failure rates in the region of 60% to
70%, driven overwhelmingly by poor communication and inadequate stakeholder
buy-in rather than flawed strategy. A
speech on change management delivered inside a Toastmasters club, an
organisation built on communication as its core discipline, is addressing the
variable that determines whether change succeeds or joins that majority that
fails.
The Rhetorical Devices Primer
Eric Tan, DTM, served as Language
Evaluator and opened the meeting with a short presentation on rhetorical
devices, deliberately timed so every subsequent speaker could apply the
techniques immediately rather than merely hearing about them in the abstract
after the fact. Teaching a tool and then
handing the room the chance to use it within the same hour is more effective
than teaching it in isolation and hoping it survives until the next opportunity
to practise.
The Evaluators and Results
Hendri Chandra, Ivan Lee, DTM, Lim
Chang Jing, DTM, and I served as Project Evaluators. Best Speaker went to Sam Chou. Best Evaluator went to Lim Chang Jing, DTM. Best Table Topics Speaker went to a
guest. A club that installs a new
committee and produces a Best Speaker win for a guest-attracting performance in
the very same session has started its term with genuine momentum, not merely
ceremonial box-ticking.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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