中壢英語國際演講會 Chungli Toastmasters Club

It was a comfortable night; it was neither hot nor chilly. But where’s everybody? The meeting started late.

President Gary gave us a good thought, he talked about it’s close to the end of year, what else we haven’t accomplished in terms of our new year’s resolutions in the beginning of the year. Toastmaster of the evening was still Emily, our beloved Division E governor, she demonstrated the spirit of service by serving as TME in 2 consecutive meetings. Two important helpers of the meeting were Charlie, our new member, he served as a Timer; Griffy, a new father, served as an Ah-counter.

After that we had a warm-up session, it was led by our EVP Jason. In this warm-up session, we played a word guessing game. We learned some Xmas vocabularies in this game too. Such as sleigh, Virgin Maria...

After the warm-up session, our first speaker was Miranda, our new blood, a lovely new member. She delivered her C2 speech. “How to Find a Good Job?” She told us some useful tips for finding a good job. Her hard work on preparing the speech paid off, she was the best speaker tonight. Good job, sister.

Next speaker was Diego, another new blood, he did a one-month backpacking in India. He delivered his C4 speech, “ How do I survive in India?” He shared us about his tips of traveling to India, for example how to make a bargain with the Tut-tuk drivers. (Taxi drivers)The speech was humorous. We were glad that Diego survived. Thumbs up to him.

The third speaker was Ilona, she joined Toastmasters for 2 years. Tonight she delivered her A2 speech, “My Secret Weapon”. In her speech she introduced her secret weapon for writing a speech draft—“Mind-Mapping”. It was new to most of the audience. Keep going girl.

Tonight, we were lucky to have a 4^th speaker, Rebecca Sung, who has multi-identities, her mother club is Legend, dual in YZU, as well as dual in相見歡. This time she came from 相見歡, the mandarin club. Thanks to her touching and funny speech. We learned that a speech could be fun and elegant. Thank you for coming over. (Ps. Congratulate to Rebecca, she won the third place in Division E mandarin humorous speech contest)

 After a short intermission. EVP Alan hosted the table topics session, the session were about the new technologies. James won the best table topics speaker by saying that iPad changed his life. When he was in the toilet, his movement was constrained, he found that with iPad could do anything. Now we know why James compeleted a high level in Candy Crush.

Next session was hosted by our new but senior member Nailing, she led 3 senior members to give the speakers valuable suggestions.

The first evaluator was Gary, he loved Miranda's speech. He gave Miranda a high compliment, for Miranda's performance excelled her speech level. He suggested Miranda to separte her speech into 3 points, so that audience can catch her idea more clearly. Judging Miranda's performance of tonight, Gary thought she would have a great future in Toastmasters.

Next evaluator was Eddie, IPP. He enjoyed Diego's speech. In Eddie's opinion, Diego made a great progress. He was comfortable on the stage. He sucessfully catched audience's attention. However, it would be even better if Diego paid more attention on pronunciation and body languages.

Next evaluator was James, the past Division E governor. James not only gave Ilona valuable suggestions, but also shareed with her the 4 elements of a successful speech. James suggested Ilona could show off her CC achievement to stress the effectiveness of the secret weapon-mind mapping. He also expected that Ilona to get ACB in next year.

Nailing closed the evaluation session by giving us some more suggestions. Such as, she'd like to receive the Agenda by e-mail. Even now we have an automatic system, it would be more humane to receive it by e-mail too. The meeting started at 7:20 p.m. instead of 7:00 p.m., we should pay more attention on time management. One more suggestion that she suggested that it would be nice to have a meeting theme, that way, the TME won't have to introduce the speakers/session masters in the same way.

Thank you Nailing, we shall pay more attention on them.

Later, as usual, president Gary asked guests to give us feedbacks. We've got a good news that one guest Julia would like to join us in next meeting. What a nice ending!

Trophies:

Best Speaker: Miranda

Best Evaluator: James

Best Table Topics Speaker: James

Best Session Master: Nailing

Words from president:

"Knowledge is a treasure, but practice is the key to it."

Editor: Ilona