Division P Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contest - 5 September 2009

The Div P Humorous Speech & Evaluation contest ended with a blast. I must say that the Organising Chair, Sabariah with the help from ExxonMobil did a fantastic job organising the event. The room was packed and there weren't just enough chairs to accomodate the overflowing attendees.

The Division contest last Saturday saw 5 contestants for the Humorous contest, and another 7 for the Evaluation contest. They were Ahmad Salahuddin (MIM KL/Area P1), Mark Pui (PWC/Area P3), Mas Rizal A Rahim (TMIKL/Area P4), Kumar Tharumalingam (Tiger/Area P2) and Shazi Sultan who was actually the only female Humorous contestant this time around.

For the Evaluation contest, again we had Ahmad Salahuddin (MIM KL/Area P1), K Gobinath (Telekom/Area P1), Sirajudeen Abu Haniffa (CPA KL/Area P2), Vanitha Rangganathan (Ambank/Area P2), Terrence Stanley Dass (Melia/Area P3), Ivan Cheng (ITC Bintang/Area P4) and my very own club member, Mardhiyah M Bakir (DDYPC/Area P4).

The result were as follows:

Humorous Contest

WINNER - Kumar Tharumalingam (Tiger TMC/Area P2)

1^st Runner Up – Mas Rizal A Rahim (TMIKL/Area P4)

2^nd Runner Up - Ahmad Salahuddin Ahmad Fakhri (MIM KL/Area P1)

Evaluation Contest

WINNER - Sirajudeen Abu Haniffa (CPA KL/Area P2)

1^st Runner Up - Ahmad Salahuddin Ahmad Fakhri (MIM KL/Area P1)

2^nd Runner Up – Ivan Cheng (ITC Bintang/Area P4)

We even had a lovely surprise from the District

Governor himself, who managed to come to the contest with the TLI chair, Sandra. THank you!

Congratulations winners, and all contestants!

The audiences eager to hear the result of the contest.

And drum roll please.........

Eagerly awaiting the result of the Evaluation contest are our District Governor and the lovely Division Governor.

Contest Chair, Hakim Hamzah announcing the result. Gulp..

The 2nd Runner Up - Ivan Cheng!

Congratulations from members of Area P4!

Ahmad Salahuddin was our double winner. His POWER evaluation won him second on the

Evaluation contest, and his long title speech may have

well earn him points from the judges :D. He was third in the Humorous Speech Contest.

Our very own Div P winner - Sirajudeen. Besides getting the trophy and certificates all the way

from US (which our lovely Div Gov had to pick up all the way from KLIA), he also earn himself a free RM430 Annual convention ticket to Genting! Do us proud.

Wait, there's more. Odyssey Bus Line is sponsoring 2 return ticket to Singapore. How great is that!

AND THE RESULT FOR THE HUMOROUS SPEECH CONTEST WERE:

Our sole representative at the Humorous Speech contest - Mas Rizal of TMIKL was first RUnner Up. If only Daniel was around to see his dad's speech, I'm sure he would be equally proud as we were!

ANd yes, our winner! Kumar Tharumalingam from Exxon Mobil (caution: just because Exxon sponsore the venue, there was no such biasness!). This guy had us laughing from the very start. Indeed a great speaker. Congratulations, and fly the flag high!

And yes, as the winner, he will also get the convention ticket and the BUS TICKET to Singapore courtesy of Odyssey!

If you missed the fun, don't worry. We will bring the contest to your home, by providing you the dvd of the whole contest! Its up for grab for only RM15!

Organising Chair, Sabariah wrapping up. A job well done!

The Area Governors, Choi San and Hakim Hamzah

Message from our beloved District Governor, Ritchie. 2 minutes on the clock, and he did quite well considering its an impromptu speech. I was quite impressed with the statistics that he produced on Division P.

Ritchie, you should be an Engineer instead!

The much-awaited dialogue session, where some members did have some very good ideas for us to execute.

ANd yes, THE wrap up picture. Area P4 members capturing the winning moment with our very own winners for the Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contest. Congratulations!

(btw, this post is so haywired in the blog. Not sure whether I can fix this!)

suhanasidik@ toastmistrez.blogspot.com

Maxis Toastmaster Club Humor & Speech Evaluation Contest - 4 Aug 09

I was first introduced to toastmaster when I had dinner with a close friend, Wong@Aiman and a colleague of his, Azlan Supian. His enthusiasm about Tony Robbins and active involvement with Maxis Toastmaster caught my attention. I planned to further expose myself and visit Maxis Toastmaster, as at that time, Maxis meeting was held right next door, in the Maxis Tower.

Well, that was two years ago. A year later, I was re-introduced to Toastmaster by the MCOBA clan, which led to the setup of our very own PETRONAS DDYPC Toastmaster Club.

Now after two or so years, I was invited again to the roots of all beginning: Maxis TMC for the Humor & Speech Evaluation Contest. So obviously, it brought great memories to me about my so-called ‘discovery’ into toastmaster.

There wasn’t many that I know, but I do recognize a good friend, Maxis TMC Past President, Benny Tan. The Organising Chair, Peter Loh was also warm enough for meet and greet. But there were of course some other very good friend: Hakim Hamzah, Sabariah Jusoh, Almunirah Anuar, Ganesh Sangaran, and my very own club member, Muaz Azman.

What turn out to be more interesting was the fact that Maxis TMC is also one of those targeted clubs for the PETRONAS scholars to reside and complete their so-called KPI to PETRONAS. You see, ALL PETRONAS scholars are required to sign up for a toastmaster club and complete a certain no of speech requirement as part of their scholarship deal. A great way to ensure that the scholars are not just smart, but can speak confidently as well.

I particularly liked Munirah, a scholar who was brave enough to take part in the humor contest and went on to tell us jokes during the break… Extremely like her confidence!

Benny who talked about losing his luggage during a trip to Bangkok was crowned champion, while the very easy-going Wan won the Speech Evaluation contest. Indeed a great challenger for the coming contest.

The complete listing of all the winners are as follows:

The winners of Maxis TMC Humorous Speech Contest
Champion: Benny Tan
1st runner-up : Nurul Asyiqin
2nd runner-up: Nurmunirah

The winners of Speech Evaluation Contest
Champion: Wan Chee Weng
1st runner-up : Benny Tan

Congratulations all. Will definitely visit again :D.

suhanasidik @ toastmistrez.blogspot.com

Some pictures:


Some very impressive awards.


Some very eager audience.


Benny, myself and Almunirah.

Congrats Benny. Not bad eh. Winner for the Humor Contest, and the 1st Runner Up for Evaluation.

Chief Judge, Hakim Hamzah receiving certs from Org Chair, Peter Loh

Myself taking photo op with the PETRONAS scholars. Munira on the left side.

Winners. Congrats!

Some other role players

Maxis TMC members and guests

Great job guys!

Putra Toastmaster Club Meeting - 3 Aug 09

I was late, and that surely is not a good toastmaster trait. Not that I didn’t want to leave early, but the boss held me up for what seemed to be an important meeting at 5pm (which later at 530 pm I was told was not happening).

Making my way to University Putra was not a big deal as I am quite familiar with the road leading up to UPM, but it’s more of finding my way INSIDE University Putra that troubled me. And as I have suspected, I lost my way and wander around asking just about anyone the location of Bilik Pengurusan Sains.

That’s the thing about universities in Malaysia à it’s HUGE. There is no logical way for you to walk from one faculty to the other unless you are thinking of shredding that extra fat off. Luckily VPE Dr Zaidan came to the rescue, and even waited at the front of the building to escort me in.

I felt slightly embarrassed going into the meeting room, when GE Prof Wan Zin was already in action. He even took the liberty to introduce me as the Area Governor for the club, “better late than never”. We exchanged smiles, and crack a few jokes as I introduced myself to the members.


The amazing fact about Putra Toastmaster Club is that they organize their meeting on a WEEKLY BASIS. Talking about sheer commitment there, and probably the main driver behind this is the Past Div Governor himself, Prof Wan. There was quite a good crowd about 12 or so of us, but the laughter and warmth felt like I was surrounded by double that no.

As one by one of the evaluators went to the front to give their comment and highlighted the speaker’s speech, I instantly felt at ease. But at times, I was feeling rather lost at some excerpts of the jokes made by the speaker. Oh well, it was my bad. I could have come earlier and listen to the speeches.

But I got my objectives done. Get to know the members, and seek representative for the coming Area P4 contest. Good job, Suhana!

And when I made my speech, I forgot to mention one interesting fact that people caught off later when I gave away my card. “Oh, our President Prof Sidek is your father?”. “Erkk.. no… Though Binti saya sama.. Hehe…”.

Overall, the bunch were a good crowd, and looking forward to see them again when I become the GE next week.

suhana sidik @ http://toastmistrez.blogspot.com/

Ps: Fingers crossed. Hopeful that the boss would let me go off earlier :D.

TMIKL 31st Anniversary Dinner

Hey there,
A new event is coming up soon on 15 August 09 - TMIKL 31st Anniversary Dinner.

For those unfamiliar with TMIKL Toastmaster Club, IT IS the OLDEST club in Malaysia. The club is richly laced with culture and tradition, and the upcoming 31st Anniversary will carry the theme “Born 1978, Still Going Strong”.

The event will feature many exciting games, with lots of prizes/lucky draws and we are indeed very happy to present to you the man who did Malaysia proud last year by winning First Runner Up in the recent World Championship of Public Speaking, DTM Loghandran.

A definite must to those who are interested to get to mingle around and meet new friends, with an extra advantage of being able to hear from DTM Logandran himself about his championship experiences and sharing some tips on how to become a better speaker.

So, why wait? Tickets are limited. Give me a call today.

Cheers
Suhana Sidik
Area Governor P4
Hp: 013-333 1675

suhana sidik @ http://toastmistrez.blogspot.com/

For your info ... yummy..
Main Course
Pumpkin Soup with Chili Oil
Roast Chicken with Black Pepper Sauce
Wok Fried Squid with Onion & Chili
Fish Fillet with Saffron Cream
Stewed Lamb with Potatoes
Buttered Vegetables
Lasagne Alforno
Mee Mamak
Steamed Rice

Appetisers
Tomato & Basil
Pomelo Salad / Coleslaw
Garden Greens with Assorted Dressing
Bread Roll & Butter
Coffee or Tea
Nyonya Kuih
Fresh Fruit Platter
Mini French Pastries

err.... tempting already....

IEM TMC Contest

I’ve always wanted to attend the IEM Toastmaster meeting, highly driven by the fact that two of the members (Ismail Omar, Nik Zaki) are close friends whom have always been supporting me as the Area Governor and the compelling need to return the favor, and most importantly, my background as Engineer (though not registered) has somewhat been the driver for me to ‘return to the root’.

So on Thursday, I decided to finally set the GPS to Bangunan Ingenieur (its French for Engineer) in PJ. Took me a whole 63 mintes trying to secure the building which is located above the big Pizza Hut on Jalan Timur, but hey, being me, getting somewhat lost is nothing new. So, I kept humming to the Westlife CD I had on the player while listening to the GPS repeatedly telling me that I am already here when I made the full circle of nowhere (oh, the building was a bit covered la.. Not my fault). Grr…
When I arrived, the Organising Chair Robert Ram and the Contest Chair, Intan were already there to welcome guests. I am lucky to get to know these 2 from the Area P4 Installation the other day, cause over the past few weeks, they have been a great toastmaster buddy and friend in need :D.

The line up for the contest were as follows:
3R Speakers – Ridzwan, Robert, R Ken
Evaluation Speakers – Ridzwan, Ismail Omar, Robert

Interestingly, the 3 Humor Speakers had the 3-R factor since their names started with R. Pretty much a big coincidence there (or planted :p).

Ken who has only been with the club for 1 month is only doing his second speech, but he did well. He managed to crack some very good jokes which I thought was both original and humorous. Ridzwan, who talked from his past experience was spontaneous and funny just being himself. The eventual winner, Robert was the confident type and he delivered his speech elaborately which worked well with his content.

For evaluation, the club’s President, Ismail Omar took the stage filling in the third empty seat though he has not recovered well from illness. That’s the toastmaster spirit there Mr President. In the end, Robert was again crowned as the champion for the speech evaluation contest.

In the end, I made a number of new acquaintances, and reconnect with old friends. Got plenty of exercise from big laugh big jokes as well.

Looking forward to see these guys advance to the next level.

Till then. Suhana Sidik @ http://toastmistrez.blogspot.com

Chief Judge

TM Intan Masayu with their Area Governor, TM Suresh

Ken with his cert for 1st Runner Up (bring Barbie next time yeah. hehe)

Robert - the proud winner of BOTH the Humor Speech AND Speech Evaluation Contest

PETRONAS ESU TMC - New kid on the block

Watch out guys. There will be a new toastmaster club in town, the PETRONAS ESU Toastmasters Club!

DTM Azmi has been diligently working on establishing a new club for PETRONAS (there’s 2 already based in the Twin Tower, my very own DDYPC and the CSvD) and asked me to tag along to the club’s second meeting on 21 July 09.

I am indeed very pleased to know that we will have a sister club joining us soon, and seeing some very familiar faces whom I have worked with in the past was a great pleasure indeed.

So yeah, I stalled on having lunch with Stef and Mas yet again, so I was feeling the guilt of having the need to postpone. In the spirit of toastmaster, I decided that perhaps I could I invite them to come for the meeting instead. As the President of DDYPC (Stef) and President of TMIKL (Mas), they were very much delighted in welcoming a new club in town, close to their heart. In fact, myself and Mas took part as the speech evaluators and Stef as the table topic evaluator. Our very own member, Atim whom Stef brought along bravely took the stage as one of the table topic speaker of the day. Bravo!

I was more than happy with the set up, especially when I was made to understand last year that as part of the scholarship agreement (or something like that), students who are currently being sponsored by PETRONAS will need to register for a Toastmaster Club and complete a certain no of speech. So, the move by the enforcer (ehem ESU Exec) to enroll themselves with the program should be applauded. This is what we say, ‘Walk the Talk’.

I think the meeting held was a definite success, even more with some visible management support attending the meeting. There were some very good speakers noted, those of whom I think would make a GREAT speaker if they were develop even more.

So yeah, very much looking forward to see the club gets chartered. Good job guys, and Good Luck! We’ll be supporting you.

Suhanasidik review @ toastmistrez.blosgpot.com



PICTURES:


Atim as the first table topic speaker, talked about how she helped pioneer DDYPC TMC. Hard work eh that time.. hehe...




More table topic



Kak Yus on table topic. Funny as always :D

Stef evaluating table topic. THis girl amazes me cause her technique on evaluation is amazing.

Me doing an evaluation.

Mas doing the evaluation. He is very sharp and over the year, has been helping me improve my speech with his very constructive evaluation.

The bossess...

Potential members..

Yours Truely....

And yes, i evaluated you!

District 51 - Top 6 in the World

Congratulations!

Firstly, District 51 achieved the President Distinguished District. Well done…

Secondly, I am proud to mention that District 51 has just emerges 6th Best in the World!

It’s a proud day for all of us indeed. Keep up the good work guys. Perhaps we’ll be the Best 3 this term, if not better.

suhanasidik @ toastmistrez.blogspot.com

TMIKL Humor & Evaluation Contest (Area P4)

I missed competing in a speech contest, but I guess that’s just one of the only apparent disadvantages of being an Area Governor.

I attended the TMIKL contest tonight, feeling quite nervous with my first assignment as the Chief Judge.

I competed in the Humor Contest last year, and came out 2nd in the Area P4 contest. The one thing I learned from competing is that for a Humor Contest, you need to speak from experiences cause that is the very thing that would tickle the audiences with. I was single last year, so it was obvious that my choice of topic was in the selection of man. The two contestants that we have from TMIKL, Mas Rizal and Ismail Omar did just that as well. They spoke from their experience in life and we could easily relate well to some of their stories.

I was seated at the corner of the room observing these two speakers from afar, feeling overwhelmed. Contesting as a speaker, and judging another speaker are two separate tasks that complement each other very well. I learnt instantaneously that to be a good speaker, you need to learn how to observe others and study the criteria that good speakers are judge upon. It’s about gaining enough knowledge on speaking skills, some what like cracking the mystery of how to become a better speaker! In the end, with the judges notes that I held from the studying I did the night before, I learnt a lot more observing the contestants spoke about their topic.

The second part of the session, the Evaluation Contest saw the participation of 5 eager contestants: Mas Rizal, Elizabeth Xavier, Emily Tan, Richard Toh and Ismail Omar. The very warm Elizabeth Xavier, a very experienced toastmaster and longtime member of TMIKL emerges champion. 1st Runner up goes to Mas Rizal and newbie Emily came out 3rd.

We may only have 2 contestants for the Speech Contest, but it was a tough fight nevertheless. Mas Rizal was crowned Champion of the Humor Contest.

To all the contestants, again as I mentioned in my closing speech, at the end of the day, there is no such thing as losers. Everyone is a winner! They won their very own battle of courage in which they came out bold in front of some 30 other audiences and spoke confidently. Indeed toastmaster gave that confidence and knowledge to better themselves.

But you know what, audiences were winners as well! They chose to come to the event and learn from these good speakers. Isn’t that just great?

As Area Governor, I was definitely happy with the fact that TMIKL took the initiative to organize the contest earlier. Both winners, Mas Rizal and Elizabeth now have longer time to prepare themselves for the 13th August Area Contest. So perhaps, we could very much have a very high expectation for these two. All the best guys!

My only regret was that i had my camera with me, but i didnt snap any pictures of the event (but not when the contestants are competing of course). Argh.. my bad. Maybe i'll do a better job next time.

To the rest of you, don’t forget.

13th August Area Contest is coming up real soon ~~~ See you there!

suhanasidik @ toastmistrez.blogspot.com

Division P TLI #1 @ Stamford College

While the world still mourns the sudden death of Michael Jackson (and emmm... you remember Farah Fawcett?), Division P decided to carry on still with the TLI #1 training. The event was held yesterday, Saturday 4th July 09 at the much-appreciated Stamford College as the sponsor for the venue.

Though both the District Governor and the TLI Chair are not able to join us due to work commitment, they still left us messages passed through the LGET. DG Ritchie in his note, mentioned about the dedication for excellence through individualism.

*But let me get this opportunity to congratulate the DG Governor, Ritchie and LGET, Thanni for recently achieving DTM and ACB respectively! It was indeed a great start to a wonderful year ahead for both of you, and US as well!

I was put in charge of Registration with a new-toastmaster, Gerard who seems very excited about his very first exposure to toastmaster. There were about 130 toastmasters who attended, a good number for us to manage throughout the day.

We started off with the Welcoming Speech by our Beloved Division P Governor, Dr Caren Lee who successfully launched our Division P blogspot and facebook, followed by a brief Ice Breaking handled by TLI.

LGET Thannimalai

Next was the Distinguished Club Programs presented by LGET, ACB Thannimalai who flew all the way from Penang and were given a 'not-so-friendly-tour' by the taxi driver before arriving on time to the venue. When he asked the members about the vision of toastmaster, one very active members who happens to be the President of Semarak TMC volunteered to recite the vision which he has memorised. I was simply stunned, cause this indeed describe the level of commitment he has on toastmaster. Well, do you know what the mision of a toastmaster club?

Ok, i cheated. I had to googled this up: "The mission of a Toastmasters Club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every member has the opportunity to develop communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth".

Then, the excos were asked to break into groups based on their club respective positions. As the Past-VPPR, i was asked to coach the VPPR of the respective clubs and share with them my experiences as the VPPR of DDYPC. I've also managed to slot in some best practices that i've seen in other clubs i've attended and keep reminding the participants that as VPPR, we are the brand of the clubs! But it's true isn't it? VPPR does all the Public Relations work and we are the one heavily tasked to visit other clubs and promote our very own clubs, so however we portrayed ourselves, that is how people would see the club that we represent. Maybe i'll do a more detail write up about this soon.

The 1 hour session seemed just nice for the sharing session with some very good questions from the participants, but who can deter themselves from the sumptous mihun goreng & pisang tea-break that awaits us.

When we started again at about 430 pm, there were 3 electives to choose from. NK Valli is the facilitator for the Motivating Achievement session, DTM Sum Chee for the Competent Leadership session and DTM Dr Arul for the High Performance Leadership session. I decided to join the Motivating Achievement session as 3 of my club members are already attending the CL session, and HPL is something i'm already doing. So perhaps, we could just swap notes later and perhaps, i could just get the personal tutoring from Sum Chee about CL.

When we came back to the auditorium, DTM Francis was waiting to talk about Membership. His excitement and dedication is indeed a great asset to Toastmaster, as throughout the year, Francis is able to sponsor more clubs and attract more toastmaster members than any other Toastmasters i've known. At the end of the session, we had very interesting questions for the District Council Members (whom have pledged 24/7 availability for toastmasters).

Two announcements were made at the end -

• ACB Hadzrin (AG W2) - Come for the Papa Gerald and Siva's workshop. A session not to be missed by all!
• DTM Azmi - Toastmaster Convention coming up pretty soon, and KUALA LUMPUR is the host! It will be our very last semi-annual convention, so why dont we fill up the seats in Genting and use this opportunity to meet up more exciting toastmasters (or the way he puts it, if you are single, hey, why not meet other singles as well :p)?

Thank you Division P for a wonderful session. To those who have missed this session, dont forget to sign up for Div B training next week 11 July in Segi College. Earn the 1/2 points for your clubs (or none if you missed this last training).

Till some other time....

Myself with the Div P Governor

Attendees: Stef (DDYPC), Kuok Sum (TTDI), Hadzrin (Kelab Pidato), Syidi (AMbank), Ivan (DDYPC), Sum Chee (Telekom)

Myself with the lovely Munirah (MCOBA)