The Toastmaster Journey of Suhana Sidik: 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....