On the 28th November 2019, I
served as Ah Counter and Project Evaluator at AIA Toastmasters Club. Liang Ye served as Sergeant-at-Arms. David Low served as Toastmaster of the
Day. Frances Goh served as Timer. Eric Tan, DTM, served as Table Topics
Master. Linda Lee served as Workshop
Trainer. Cindy Gan served as Creative
Director.
The Speeches
Chng Pia Kim delivered a comprehensive
breakdown of planning a long car journey, covering mechanical preparation,
logistics, and the sort of practical tips that only come from having actually
done the drive rather than read about it.
A speech built entirely on lived experience carries a credibility no
amount of research alone can manufacture.
Joy Chow spoke on the difficulty of
motivating both her team and herself during her time on the Executive
Committee, and the underlying philosophy that kept her grounded through
it. Leadership speeches frequently drift
into platitude. Hers did not, because
she anchored it in the actual friction of the role rather than the tidy version
people prefer to remember afterwards.
Jack Sia gave a heartfelt account of the
need for proper succession planning, and the genuine difficulty of finding and
grooming the right people to take over.
He drew on his experience both as an executive and as a father, which is
precisely the right pairing. Succession
planning, whether in a company or a family, fails for the same reason in both
settings: nobody wants to admit they are replaceable until it is too late to
prepare properly.
The Workshop
Linda Lee conducted a workshop on speech
and drama, covering how to train mind, voice, and body in service of
delivery. The session was heavy on
practical exercises rather than abstract theory, with a clear thread running
through it: the same disciplines that improve a speech on stage also improve
credibility in ordinary daily interaction.
Most people treat public speaking training as a skill confined to the
lectern. Linda Lee's workshop made the
stronger case that voice control and physical presence are simply credibility,
deployed in a slightly more concentrated form when there happens to be an
audience watching.
The Evaluators
Linda Lee, Eric Tan, DTM, and I
served as the evaluation panel.
Evaluating a workshop trainer, a table topics master, and a fellow
evaluator in the same session, while also counting filler words, is not a light
workload. It is, however, exactly the kind
of layered responsibility that separates a club running on genuine discipline
from one merely going through the motions.
The Results
Best Speaker went to Chng Pia Kim. Best Evaluator went to Eric Tan, DTM. A meeting that pairs a practical road-trip
breakdown with a workshop on training the voice and body is not a meeting short
on range. It is a club that treats both
content and delivery as equally non-negotiable, which is precisely the standard
that keeps producing multiple award-worthy performances in a single evening
rather than a single lucky outlier.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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