On 14th November 2019, AIA
Toastmasters Club held its chapter meeting.
Zhuo Shu Zhen, DTM, served as Sergeant-at-Arms. Eric Tan, DTM, served as Toastmaster
of the Day. Gerald Ong, DTM, served
as Table Topics Master. Mandy Poon
served as Timer. Linda Lee served as Ah
Counter. Liang Ye served as Creative
Director. Penny Radcliffe served as
Language Evaluator.
The Theme, Set and Delivered
Zhuo Shu Zhen, DTM, wowed the crowd
and explained the theme for the meeting: “Investing in Our Future.” She invested in learning how to be a more
effective communicator, a decision worth more scrutiny than it usually
receives. Communication skills are one
of the few investments with no market volatility, no liquidity risk, and a
compounding return that follows a person into every room they walk into for the
rest of their career.
Eric Tan, DTM, gave his own take,
as Toastmaster of the Day, on investing in our future. For him, investment runs three layers deep:
in ourselves, in our personal development, and in our networks. Jack Sia, in his opening address as President,
spoke about the club’s shared values.
Aspiring to be better requires investing in ourselves and in our
relationships, because AIA Toastmasters, at its core, is in the business of
relationships.
The Maiden Speech
David LowHung gave his maiden speech,
stating three goals: to speak better, to lead better, and to mentor
better. He wants to improve his ability
to speak off the cuff and sharpen his interactions with others. His personal motto, to aspire to inspire
before he expires, is the kind of line that sounds glib until a person commits
to living up to it in public.
Dragon Boats as a Leadership
Laboratory
Gordon Kwok gave a presentation on dragon
boat racing, walking through the mechanics of how a paddling team is structured
and the values the sport instils around team building. Dragon boat racing offers a genuinely
instructive metaphor for organisational leadership: twenty paddlers must
synchronise stroke rate exactly, because a single paddler out of rhythm slows
the entire boat rather than merely underperforming individually. Few sports make the cost of poor coordination
this immediate or this visible.
Servant Leadership, Backed by the
Data
Frances Goh expounded on her leadership
style. To her, leadership is
service. She told the story of her
former colleague, Samantha, known for caring for her team beyond simply
tracking production numbers, and never asking for anything in return. When Samantha finally needed her team’s help
hitting a number, she asked directly, and her team finished among the top three
for the year. They did it for her.
This is not a sentimental anecdote
standing alone. A meta-analysis of eighty-five
studies covering 16,803 participants confirmed servant leadership produces
measurable positive links to satisfaction, commitment, creativity, and
performance, alongside a measurable negative link to turnover intentions. Samantha’s team did not perform because a
spreadsheet demanded it. They performed
because years of unreciprocated care had built exactly the kind of trust the
research says predicts discretionary effort when it finally gets asked for.
A Friend’s Final Chapter
Cindy Gan told us of her time in the
oncology ward, where she reconnected with her long-time friend Evelyn, a cancer
patient there. Evelyn was extremely ill,
yet retained her bubbly personality throughout, which is its own form of
courage. Evelyn had worked as a sales
executive in the advertising industry before her diagnosis. Her treatment was fortunately covered by her
insurance, though by the time she was diagnosed, the cancer had already reached
Stage 4, having begun in her lymph nodes before spreading to her breasts and
intestines. This experience became the
catalyst that led Cindy to eventually become a financial services consultant,
converting a personal loss into a professional purpose that continues
protecting other families from facing the same gap Evelyn’s own coverage,
thankfully, closed for her.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for taking the time to share our thoughts. Once approved, your comments will be poster.