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.

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

DDYPC TMC Election - Office Bearers 2009/10

They say leaders are not born overnight, but I beg to differ. Election does just that!

DDYPC TMC held its election on 21st May to choose the 7 officers to take up the stewardship of DDYPC cum this 1 July 2009. It was a tough contest as all the seats had at least 3 nominations to the post, and at times, the members were asked to re-vote as they could not reach a majority consensus.

It gets more interesting as the members also had the opportunity to listen to the nominees’ quick 2-minutes speech, and their eagerness to serve the members.

Alas, we are proud to bring you the new club officers, as follows:

President: Stefanie Khaw Sui Lynn (PED/ PEC)
VP of Education: Tunku Indra b Tunku A Mutalib (PMU/ PRD)
VP of Membership: Ivan Pei Lai Hung (XD/XPG)
VP of Public Relations: Azlan Mohaideen (DD/ DPG)
Treasurer: Khairul Fadhli b A Kassim (PMU/ POM)
Secretary M Muaz Azman (DD/DFE)
Sargeant-At-Arms Mardhiyah bt M Bakir (R&T)

Congratulations all.

We can all expect a great year ahead of us with these credible people to lead! Our big THANK YOU to the outgoing committee for your effort and hard work to ensure the club’s success. It was not easy to become a charter committee, but all of the officers have done well in building up the momentum of the club.

But all the hard work would not have paid off without the support from the members. YOU can make it happen! Let’s strive towards achieving a SELECT Distinguished Club this year, and a PRESIDENT Distinguished Club the year ahead!