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The new exco 2011-2012 has just completed it’s first 4 months into the year and I wanted to provide a quick update in terms of what has been accomplished so far as well as invite feedback and suggestions from club members on how we can improve.

1. We actually started the new term by organizing a Project Day on July 16 with 6 speakers and we had our bitter-sweet moment with Toastmaster Li Dan acting as a TMD for one session which was to be one of the last occasions for many of us to see her before she moved to the USA in her new job. Our VPPR Adinda Praditya also launched our new look web site and we certainly look forward to new updates from him!
2. Next we had our July 30 Chapter meeting and we also had our Installation ceremony for the new exco. We had a big turnout of guests including senior district officers and DTMs. I also launched our vision and theme for the club, namely to strive and continue to be a President’s Distinguished Club and having Dynamic and Delightful meetings as our way to attract new members and retain existing ones. We introduced voting slips for those present to rate the quality of our chapter meetings in terms of those attributes and we received a score of 6.7 out of 10 as our first score.
3. In August, we held another Project Day on the 13th but our plan to have the speech contest was disrupted by the Presidential Elections on the 27th August and that was moved to the following month. We also received notification of the increase in TI dues effective October as well as the rebranding of the TI logo and the exco members discussed and sought suggestions from our past presidents. After deliberation, we then moved forward to align our club fee structure with the increase of fees also effective in October. We have ordered our new club banner and ribbons and expect to receive them in November, so members should see our new banner unveiled at the next meeting!
4. September Project Day was held on 3rd September and the following week, Sharanya ably organized the club’s Humorous Speech and Speech evaluation contests. Our club humorous speech champion was of course Competent Communicator Cheng Kok Beng and he went on to become Area B5 champion before finishing second in the Division B Finals. Clarence Cheong our new member finished 1st runner-up in the club speech contest and Vipula 2nd Runners-up. In the club Speech Evaluation Contest, Competent Communicator Vipula Manukularatne emerged as the Club Speech Evaluation champion with Terry Teng second and Tay Hong Kiat third.

   On September 24th, our Muslim members led by Division B Governor Azizah Bte Sapari helped to organize our Hari Raya Special Event and we had wonderful fun with the Saddiq twins as TMD and TTM respectively. Our VPM Flex Tio also presided over the New Members Induction Ceremony and we all had much fun during the event, so much so that our Dynamic and Delightful rating went up to 8.2. Sharanya Ramachandran also published her first newsletter for the club during the event and it was certainly a refreshing read. Well done Sharanya!

5. In October, we held our series of 4 Speechcraft workshops organized by myself and we had the help of many members and trainers that included Richard Sng, Andrew Chew, Patrick Sehoo, Michael Chang and Anand Jude Anthony. In all, we had a record 14 participants registered including 4 of our new members. The quality and energy from the Speechcrafters was simply amazing and many of us involved are inspired from the event. In between we also organized a Project Day on October 8th and of course we recently concluded our 85th Chapter meeting on October 29th.

What comes next?
For the rest of the year, due to the Semi-Annual Convention November 11-13, we will be having our 86th Chapter Meeting on November 19th. This is a bit unusual but it was also to space out the events in December with the Christmas and New Year holidays fast approaching. We will next be having our Outdoors event on December 3. This time we will having our Project Day in the afternoon followed by a barbecue where you may bring your family members and loved ones along (yes kids invited too J). For our Muslim friends we will have a halal food section as well. This will be held at the condo of 2 of our members at 61 Hume Avenue, Hillview Green Condominium function room, so do look out for our special invite! Next up will be the Chapter Meeting on December 17 which will be a special Christmas celebration Event.

The Club Needs You
As with any club, our success is dependent on you-our members. Here’s how we hope you can contribute:

1. Attend and support our events. We want to see more of you come and attend regularly, booking your prepared speeches with our VPEs-Yeh Ming, Joyce and Clarence or helping out as appointment holders-TMD, Ah Counter, Timer, Speech Evaluators or even to help organize our club special events (we need volunteers to help organize the December 3 outdoors event and Christmas special events.)
2. For those of you who have still not done so, please renew your club membership before the grace period runs out.
3. Help us bring in new members into the club and volunteer to be a mentor to our new members.
4. Give us feedback. Let us know what you like or conversely don’t like. I assure you the exco will always be willing to listen to feedback and improve.

We expect to reach our goal of nearing our President’s Distinguished Club goals in December itself but while that would be an achievement, the soul and spirit of our club is in all of you. Ever forward-ever upward-Excelsior!

Alan Ong, CC
President NTUA TMC
2011-2012

We would like to thank speechcraft participants for your participation in our concluding session last Saturday. Of course, this is not the end. You are cordially invited to join us as special guests for our regular Toastmasters meeting this coming Saturday, October 29th at 9 am.

We certainly had a great and fun time and Cheng Kok Beng led off with an Icebreaker which required everyone to relate a joke or interesting story. Our chief trainer DTM Richard Sng then covered the topic “Evaluate to Motivate” and then we had three speeches from our new Toastmasters who joined the Speechcraft workshop. With the theme of evaluation, we then had Terry Teng present a demo speech on Vocal Variety and she held everyone enthralled with her rendition of “My Wedding”. Speecdhcrafters then provided group feedback and evaluation on Terry’s speech.

Andrew Chew next came back with more on “Show What You Mean” and had Speechcrafters talk and act out with his bowling pin prop. Next, Flex Tio ably facilitated a Table Topics session with “Show What You Mean” as a theme with questions literally picked out from his hat. Trainer Patrick Sehoo did a competent Language Evaluation and then the organizer led the three trainers present to tackle questions from Speechcrafters.
Here were the winners:

1. Best Table Topics Speaker – Prisca Chong. Runner-up – Clarence Cheong
2. Best Prepared Speech – Foo Kok Jin
3. Best Introducers – Foo Kok Jin
4. Best Evaluator – Shahul Nilar

We also asked each of you to respond to a survey at the end and here is a summary of your responses:

1. Overall rating of Speechcraft Workshop (1=Poor 5=Excellent) 4.77
2. Most enjoyable workshop session: Sessions 2,3 and 4 (tie)
3. Most beneficial workshop session: Session 2 with Session 1 close behind
4. Overall rating of Speechcraft organization (1=Poor 5=Excellent) 4.77
5. Overall rating of Trainers effectiveness (1=Poor 5=Excellent) 4.85
6. Favorite trainers: Andrew Chew and Richard Sng
7. Would you recommend your friends to attend this workshop? (1=Unlikely 5=Definitely) 4.69
8. Are you interested to join Toastmasters? Yes 69.2%, Undecided 30.8%

And finally, here are some photos from this session, taken by Andrew Chew himself. Thanks Andrew!

Here were the winners:

1. Best Table Topics Speaker – Prisca Chong. Runners-up: Koh Lam Seng and Priscilla Chong
2. Best Prepared Speech – Lim Chuen Siang and Koh Lam Seng
3. Best Introducers – Prisca Chong and Josephine Pillai
4. Best Evaluator – Shahul Nilar

Next we had you doing your prepared speeches and it was a real eye-opener to see many of you delivering confident speeches with a number of you not using notes! Also thanks to our club members who helped out by doing the project evaluations.

Here were the winners:

1. Best Table Topics Speaker-Clarence Cheong
2. Best Prepared Speech (Organize Your Speech) – Foo Kok JIn
3. Best Prepared Speech (Icebreaker) – Lee Ee Kee

Thank you everyone for giving your support and and make this chapter meeting cum Hari Raya celebration a success, especially to Saddiq and Azizah for teaching us the hari raya greetings

“Selamat hari raya aidilfitri minal aidin wal Faidzin wal Maqbulin”.

Definitely we had lots of fun today. Besides, I would like to welcome our new member, Clarence and congratulate him for delivering his awesome P1 speech today. Last but not least, I would like to congratulate the following winners:

• Best Prepared Speech speaker, Alan Ong
• Best Project Evaluator, David Tan
• Best Table Topic Speaker, Cheng Kok Beng

And finally here are some photos from the meeting

View the complete gallery of the event. Hope to see you all again in the coming Project Meeting on 8 Oct.

To our guest evaluators Gee Shing, Steven and Kok Wah, thank you for a great evaluation and we hope to see you again at our Chapter meetings.

To our speakers, thank you for letting us see I.T. professionals in a different light, keeping us in suspense with Tall Tales and reminding us that plagiarism and misrepresentation is theft by another name but nonetheless.

A heartfelt thank-you also to Flex and Ravi the Timer and Ah-Counter for keeping a Watchful Eye and Listening Ear during the meeting.

And the winners for the segments include:

• Best Prepared Speech: Azizah Binte Sapari
• Best Project Evaluator: Wong Kok Wah
• Best Table Topics Speaker: Michael Wee

Do remember our next project meeting is on Saturday August 13th and we hope to see all of you there.

Here are some photos from the event.

View the complete gallery of the meeting.

NTUA Toastmasters Club President (Work Year 2011-2012) Alan Ong, CC

I have mentioned in my message to members on the first day of the new term about how great an honor it is to serve in this club. While we do not have the long tradition of some more notable clubs, we have members who have distinguished themselves and made a mark either in leadership at the divisional level such as Division B Governor Azizah or in competing successfully for honors in speech contests led by our very own Andrew Chew. I talked about my old school motto “Meliora hic Sequamor” meaning “Lead by Example” and the hope that as President, I and all our exco members will be able to set examples and chart the path for both our new members as well as more experienced members to achieve greater success not just in their speaking ability but in leadership as well.

Which brings me to the vision for this club? One word.

“Excelsior!”

For those of you who do not know Latin, it means “Ever higher”.

“Excelsior!”

From the inception of the club in 2004 we have been a Distinguished Club and a year later a Select Distinguished Club. We have not looked back since, achieving President’s Distinguished Club continuously since 2006. It is therefore not an option but for our club to strive to maintain these same highest standards. Yet if we are to strive ever higher, it is not enough just to remain distinguished. More importantly, we have to make the club one that all of you – our members-appreciate and resonate with and that we will have wonderfully dynamic and delightful meetings together in the months ahead.

“Dynamic, Delightful and Distinguished.”

This is our new aspiration for the club in order to strive ever higher. Think of it as our building blocks to achieve greater success as well as great individual success for our members.

Let me try to better define what I mean here. When we strive to be a dynamic club, I refer to three things. One-the principle of taking action to always strive ever higher. Two-high energy club meetings. Three-effectively run meetings. From a different perspective, Dynamism can also be used as attributes for our club members. Members who continually strive to improve. Vigorously active and effective members who participate and uphold the tenets of the new Toastmasters pledge when we joined this club. Namely-a commitment for self-development and also to provide a friendly and supportive environment for our members.

Who are the role models? To me DTM Johnny Teo is one such role model for the club. Not only has he served in leadership roles as President but he has also competed successfully for honors in speech competitions and rendered innumerable services to the club. He also has successfully achieved Distinguished Toastmaster status. Till today, our club only has one DTM. In order to strive higher we need more members to excel and achieve greatness. True, a title is meaningless unless one lives up to it. But the DTM title becomes a benchmark and an aspiration for success in our Toastmaster journey. We must therefore chart the path for more members to continue on after completing the basic projects and move forward to DTM status.

Maybe we will not be able to get another DTM in our ranks this term unless some of our visiting DTMs decide to join our club! However if we do not start the process of encouraging our experienced members to not stop at CC level but go beyond, we will not be able to see DTMs in the immediate future. So we have to start now. Our goal therefore is to churn out even more advanced Communicators. The closest we have to Johnny right now is Immediate Past President Michael Chang who will be pushing to complete his ACG and ALS titles in order to achieve DTM. So Michael, jia you!

After that we have a bunch of ACBs led by Anand, Division Governor Azizah, Area Governor Seng Cheong and our TMD Lay Ngor as well as Felicia. To them, I would say, please press on. And then we have about 16 CCs and CTMs including myself who obviously have much to do in order to catch up. These are the realities and I hope during our term we will be able to see an upward progression in these numbers.

Many members also shy away from doing their CL manuals. Besides Johnny, Azizah now has an ALS freshly achieved this month, helping the club with a DCP point. Congratulations Azizah! Michael again is the only other with an ALB and will probably strive to get his ALS soon-I hope. In terms of CLs, we have only five-Anand, Seng Cheong, Siaw Yen, Jermaine and Hing Yee. Talking to some members I think I may be one of very few striving to get their CL soon. There are many, many members however who have barely begun. I would therefore like to address this in the new term and provide encouragement, support and guidance for us to have a bigger pipeline of CLs, otherwise we will never be able to achieve having many DTMS in our club.

Which brings up the old building block of having delightful meetings and activities. I hope our members and indeed quite a number of guests have had the opportunity to attend our wondrous 7th Anniversary celebrations just last month. Till now, I have members ribbing me about the Ipad that our TMD Andrew Chew promised members that I had generously donated as a prize. For those of you who did not attend, all the prizes were booby prizes and the Ipad turned out to be a manual notepad with a nice I’ on the cover. Or the Chinese New year Celebrations and further back the Christmas celebrations-all joyous Chapter meetings that had the elements of fun, learning and camaraderie. Delightful meetings. If we can have these delightful meetings on special occasions , why not every single meeting? And can we get better and better?

With dynamic and delightfully planned meetings we will systematically attract newer members and also more importantly, have the majority of our members remaining active and engaged. And of course with more willing hands, the burdens of leadership is shared. Having a dynamic and delightful meeting is the responsibility of every member, not just the exco. Likewise having members continually improve towards attainment of the Toastmaster Communication and Leadership titles becomes a matter of personal motivation, and not though the goading of the exco. If we do this, we will always remain distinguished. President’s Distinguished.

That, fellow Toastmasters and guests, is the challenge that we would like to rise up to. A club that is dynamic, delightful and distinguished. Excelsior!

Of course with every vision, we will need to track progress. Each club has its own Club Success Plan and the DCP Goals are a key part of it. You may notice on your voting slips, we have a new addition. At the end of each Chapter meeting, we ask that that you rate our meeting. Was it dynamic, vibrant? Was it delightful and fun? There are many elements and there is always some subjectivity to it. But we would ask that you provide your assessment in a fair and objective manner your enjoyment of the meeting on a scale of 1 to 10. If you enjoyed our meeting more than you enjoyed watching Harry Potter or Sex and Zen 3D, please do not be afraid to circle a 10. And of course likewise if you find our program not as exciting or enjoyable for some reason do circle the number that represents a fair assessment of your enjoyment. At the end of the day, we will collect the results and analyze in our next exco meetings what we can do better.

St Thomas Aquinas the 13th century philosopher and theologian once said that

“If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.”

As the leader of the NTUA TMC ship, it is always tempting likewise to keep it in port. However we will only know our true worth if we sail out into the seas. Excelsior!

Alan Ong, CC

Kudos to TMD(s) Li Dan and Adinda for hosting the meeting with finesse and we certainly look forward to more.

To our guest evaluators Faizah & Rodrigues, thank you for a great evaluation and we hope to see you again at our Chapter meetings.

To our speakers, thank you for – reminding us to give more of ourselves to our loved ones; highlighting the type of airplane passengers & difficult customers to avoid; ways to improve our credit ratings and how to prepare ourselves for 4G…..

A heartfelt thank-you also to Sharanya and Han Lu the Timer and Ah-Counter for keeping a Watchful Eye and Listening Ear during the meeting.

And the winners for the segments include
- Best Prepared Speech : Terry Teng (1st session) Alan Ong (2nd session)
- Best Project Evaluator: Richard Sng (1st session) Rodrigues Crispin (2nd session)

Do remember our next Chapter meeting is on Saturday July 30th and we hope to see all of you here.

Yeh Ming
VPE1 Work Year 2011/2012

I am reminded that it is customary on this, the first day of the new term for the NTUA TMC Exco 2011-2012 to reach out to our members and make them be aware of the new incoming exco as well as highlight plans we will be rolling out in the coming months. But first I would like to express my thoughts for the coming term. To me, it is a great honor to serve and especially for a club such as NTUA Toastmasters Club where we have been a Distinguished President’s Club since 2006. We have many luminaries- our sponsor DTM Richard Sng; our very own DTM Johnny Teo; our Charter President Anand Jude Anthony; Division B Governor Azizah Bte Sapari as well as my mentor and Area B5 Governor Chua Seng Cheong. We also have a champion speaker in Andrew Chew and many other outstanding speakers-our tireless outgoing President Michael Chang, Siaw-Yan and Shahul among others. We are indeed a club that has made waves in the Toastmasters community in District 80.

It is therefore with some trepidation that we take the reins of the club and we hope indeed that we will be able to guide the club to greater heights. More importantly, we have to make the club one that all of you – our members- appreciate and resonate with and that we will have wonderfully dynamic and delightful meetings together in the months ahead.

My philosophy from my old schooldays was “Meliora hic Sequamor” meaning “lead by example”. Hopefully we will be able to live by our Toastmasters promise and by doing so, provide the pathway for at least our newer Toastmasters to follow the road towards Competent Communicator and Competent Leader and beyond. For our more experienced Toastmasters, we also need to provide avenues for further growth and hopefully we can set the foundation to have more DTMS in our club. While striving to improve our communication skills is important, I would also like to remind members that leadership skills are equally important. Even though we are non profit-sharing you can learn such things as logistics, finance, how meetings are conducted, advertising, marketing and public relations as well as sales (membership building), event organization and of course learning how to lead. These skills are developed over years and are not magically earned or developed. Here in Toastmasters, you have the opportunity to develop these skills and learning how to create a vibrant and effective organization that often you may not have the chance to do so in your own work organizations. Learning to collaborate and understanding the broader community of Toastmasters and competition for honors are all part and parcel of our Toastmaster journey and I would encourage our members to fully exploit the multi-faceted learning enabled within Toastmasters. This is important also from the perspective of club succession planning-unlike organizations where leaders may stay for a long time, the exco is renewed every twelve months and even at the onset of the new term, we have to be mindful of who we have in the club both able and willing to serve.

1. Here is our new exco for July 2011-June 2012

   President: Alan Ong, CC

   Vice President Education 1: Chong-Yeh Ming
   Vice President Education 2: Tan Chong You
   Vice President Education 3: Joyce Loke

   Vice President Membership 1: Flex Tio
   Vice President Membership 2: Ravi Koustuban
   Vice President Membership 3: Terry Teng

   Vice President Public Relations 1: Adinda Praditya
   Vice President Public Relations 2: Deepali Bhatt
   Vice President Public Relations 3: Sharanya Ramachandran

   Secretary: Ma Qing

   Treasurer: Han Lu

   Sergeant At Arms 1: Shariffa Zubaidah Chishty, CC
   Sergeant At Arms 2: Jane Leong

   Immediate Past President: Michael Chang, ACB, ALB

   Chartered President: Anand Jude Anthony, ACB, CL

2. Upcoming events (next 3 months)
   • July 16 Project Day and 1st Exco meeting/Club Success Planning
   • July 30 Chapter Meeting cum Installation of new Exco (please see attached flyer)
   • Aug 13 Project Day/Humorous Speech & Evaluation Workshops
   • Aug 27 Humorous Speech & E valuation Contest
   • Sep 10 Project Day
   • Sep 24 Chapter Meeting
   • Oct 1 Speechcraft Workshop #1

I hope to share more of my thoughts on our club vision and plans during our July 30 Chapter meeting, but for now, let me wish everyone a great weekend and we hope to see all of you for Project Day on July 16 and the Chapter meeting cum Installation of the new exco on July 30.

Alan Ong, CC
President, Work Year 2011/2012