A fairy tale came true

When we first started to brain storm for this event, it seemed like a task so difficult to excel, the organizing committee fell into the quandary that made us once so burned out and exhausted trying to collaborate with interested delegates coming from far and near. Before we realize the pain, it was all happening in front of us, like a fairy tale came true.

In the afternoon, delegates seated themsleves in one of the tri-lingual workshops hosted by DTM Low Yat Seow, DTM Richard Gontusan and DTM Lee Chye Ewe and DTM Jacob Yan and Lui Lep Ming where all of them are marvellous speakers.

At night, the kingdom of Toastmasters was conquered by King Chye Ewe and his Queen, Eleanor. His majesty had brought so much joy and fun to its people and they truly earned the plaudits bestowed on them on a job well done! I believe most of them are still swooning today when mesmerizing what happened that night.

Yes, the long awaited and most talked-about Div K 13th Semi Annual Convention was held in Sandakan on last weekend. To match with our theme, we turned ourselves into "Queens" and "Princess" and not forgetting Kings that night and some gentlemen even think that they should genuflect before the Queens and so they did! People were astonished when the VIPs were marching in with either beautiful princess or handsome prince by their side while they waved their hands gracefully to the people before they were led to be seated in the nicely decorated long table to enjoy their meal and the other programs of the night.

Throughout the night, there were laughter and pictures snapping from every corner of the ballroom because some of them were so happy to meet up with their mates from far and near and some of them were even happier to mingle around and get to know members from other vicinities. One of the highlights of the event was of course - Performance by the 3 clubs. I'm sorry i couldn't limn the performance of the Sandakan Pidato and Mandarin Toastmasters Club because being one of the performers that night, i had to get ready for our Club's performance. So, someone please tell me about it and i can fill in the blanks here.

Then, there were 4 very gung-ho toastmasters sneaking in very mysteriously from the back stage and appeared in front of the crowd and presented a very sensual yet subtle "Arabian Folk Dance" aka belly dance. Talking about the dance, i have to stress that we had only 10 hours of practice so please forgive us if there's any shortcomings and thus, maybe it's a not-so-perfect dance. However, we learned something from it and that's to ENJOY the fun of doing it and we bonded with each other better than before. I hope that the crowd enjoyed the dance as well as we did.

Another highlight of the night was when lucky draw turned into "not-so-lucky" draw. Well, one can always view things from different angles, it was maybe embarrasing but it was also fun since everyone laughed so hard. I suppose everyone was happy then. Soon after that, it was the Best Dressed King & Queen Award time. Queen Eleanor won with a landslide victory while our King Norman was the Best Dressed King. Guess what? Sandakan Toastmasters Club won the Best Performance too, speaking of which, the prize is still in VPE Amy's house??

No matter how all of us didn't want it to end, the clock has to strike 12 and after that, we turned into Toastmasters who have to attend the speech contest on the following day. I have never been to a speech contest held in a convention before and it was really an eye opener for me. The speakers spoke amazingly well with their natural gestures and facial expression and on top of that, they really served as a motivation for the others to improve or to learn more about public speaking skills. The winners for the speech contests were:-

Evaluation Contest:-

1. Shahar Banon Hassan (KK)

2. Elizabeth Sim (Brunei)

Humorous Speech Contest:

1. Stuart Lee (Brunei)

2. Sophia Chia (KK)

When the speech contest ended, it also meant the convention had came to an end. Everyone left with a heavy heart but sweet and joyful memory. As for the winners, albeit happy, they are starting to prepare for the District level contest which will be held in Bali Convention on 14-16 Nov 2008. Anyone going?

p/s: Excuse the small photos above as i "stole" them from Lee Chye Ewe, you can click here or here to view more photos at your leisure.