It is our second meeting held at the Progresif HQ at 7.30pm. The minute the modern-looking meeting room is opened, the first thing you would see is the members huddled together enjoying the company of each other. The meeting room gradually filled up with the members while they helped out one another to set up the room from the meeting slides to the timer device, to the word of the day, to the Toastmasters banner. The meeting room was soaked with static adrenaline from the excitement and effervescence. Particularly, as this specific meeting’s role players mostly consisted of new members and members from Brunei Speakers’ Club.
The word of the day was “agog”, synonym: trim, eager and excited. Its definition is: Very eager or curious to hear or see something. An example of its use would be: “Everyone was agog when Shahu spoke fluently in Japanese.” The thought of the day given by the Toastmaster of the Evening was, “You’re always one decision away from a totally different life”. The Toastmaster of the Evening explained how this specific quote despite it being common sense, and it being just like any other inspirational quote, deeply resonated with her. She counted back on the many times her 30 mins nap turned into a 5-hour “nap”. Or the many times her 1 more episode turned into a binge-watching of an entire TV series. Or the many times the “I will do it tomorrow” turned into a “never.”. So she asked herself and the audience, how efficiently are we using the time we are given? We are free to use our time however we choose. If we are capable of making decisions, we should also be capable enough to suffer their consequences, What decisions have you made today? Are they for the better or for the worse?
For the Table Topics session, the theme set by the Table Topics Master TM Sarah Mohi, who is one of our newest members, was “Weird Questions”. In the end, the Toastmaster of the Evening, Shahudha Abdulla won the Best Table Topics Speaker ribbon for the question, “What is the most irrational way you sustained an injury?”. She talked about how she had fractured different parts of her body, 7 times in the most absurd ways. One of the times was when she accidentally sat on her index finger while she was reading a book, the other time was when she was 9 years old during Children’s Day when she slipped on a slippery floor in school fracturing her ankle and the other time was when she was running down the stairs and fell on the very last step on her arm, fracturing her left arm. These were some of the most ridiculously mundane ways she was tied down by a plaster, 7 times in her life.
Moving on to the Prepared Speeches session, the first speaker was Pranika Lama, ACS, ALB attempting the Effective Coaching Level 1, Evaluation and Feeback, with a speech titled “The CAT”. The speech is about CAT which stands for “Communication Accommodation Theory”, it is the way we as communicators how we attune our communication style and behaviour depending on whom the communication partner is. Where in some cases we “converge” as speakers where we shift our speech pattern to resemble speech pattern of the partner. While in other cases we “diverge” as speakers where the speech pattern of the speaker is accentuated between himself and the partner.
The meeting ended with the President Nabil Abd Kadir, asking the new members whether they are receiving the guidance they need as a new member. Four new members replied earnestly on how all the members are very supportive, giving feedback and most importantly how each evaluation session has become their breakfast for further improvement. The President further announced an AOB, he mentioned how we as a club, and how we as members thirsty for constant progression should seek knowledge outside our club. Hence, he proposed the members to visit other clubs more often starting from that week itself.
Lastly, the TME would like to thank all the roleplayers who have made this Toastmasters session a success. They are:
Table Topics Master: TM Sarah Mohi
Table Topics Evaluator: Salih Jamaludin, CC
Grammarian: TM Kelvin Lim
Ah Counter & Who Said What: TM Ari Jeffry
Timer & Tip: TM Shakir Zufairy
General Evaluator: Rano Iskandar, ACB, ALB
Cheers,
Shahudha Abdulla
Toastmaster of the Evening
Photographer: Dalton Lim
Proofreader: Liyana Sidek
UBD Toastmasters Club 