Times like this...

There were only 12 members attended the meeting last night (10 Dec 2009) because it's holiday season and most of the members have already turned on their holiday mode. Therefore, meetings during year end or beginning of the year will normally attended by less members and guests.


However, 12 members are always better than none and we have 5 speakers last night. Our Mdm. President Amy Hiew even completed her 10th Competent Communicator manual project to help us kill some time and to earn 0.5 goal, in the impromptu way. *bravo* She also bought a very nice cheesecake from Secret Recipe to share with us, everyone loved it.




Our humor session was actually a speech by TM Vanessa because she has so many funny stories about her helper at home and all of us laughed our hearts out and asked for more. Unfortunately, she was only allowed to speak for 5-7 minutes for a CC manual speech, we told her to do a part 2, just like what TM Jimmy did for his 7th CC manual speech about the benefits of coffee (part 2). Not a bad idea to do speeches, in this case, we will run out of topic or don't know what to talk about.




Not to forget that TM Alex who grabbed this opportunity to present his CC manual speech during his long holiday break and he gained plenty of confidence talking about the skills needed to speak publicly. I think he absorbed the skills while preparing for the speech, bravo to him too! Nonetheless, our VPM CL Ling also completed his ACB 9, which means we are one step nearer to achieve another goal! We look forward to his next speech.


I would like to take this opportunity to remind all that our next meeting which falls on 24 December has been canceled due to it's a Christmas Eve and almost everybody will be busy on that night. So the next meeting will be on 14 Jan 2010.


Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2010!


Regards,
Alice Kok
VPE 2009/2010
Sandakan Toastmasters Club

Training Meeting on 10th December 2009

If you did not attend the training meeting on the 10th December, you won't know what you were missing.

Table Topics Question: What will you do if you found out that you only have 6 more months to live?

You will probably expect some standard answer like: "I will treasure my remaining days and stay close to my relatives".

But not this lady, our Humour Master of the evening, Vennessa Lim:

If I only have 6 more month to live, the first thing that I will do is to look for a good, spacious and comfortable coffin.

I will take lots of photograph with my family members, so that they will always remember my face after I am died.

I will look for my enemy and ask them to forgive me. If they still don't forgive me, I will "make them to forgive me", if not, I will come back and look for them as a ghost. They then sure forgive me.

I will buy lots of junk food, and stuffs... so that my coffin is filled up.

Last but not least, I will make sure I "sleep" like this on my last day.

This "Christmas Cake" was a very delicious cake specially prepared by Madam President

...... It's call "High Fiber Cheese Cake". Don't be fool by the name High-Fiber.... It was very delicious.... highly recommended by Datuk Hassan!

"The best cake I have ever tasted in a Toastmasters meeting!" Datuk Hassan

Even our bakery specialist Averil Foo also could not resist the temptation and continue to enjoy the cake during the meeting session.... that shows how great it was.

5 Speakers presented their manual speeches during the meeting:

Alex Yong - CC 4 "The skills of public speaking"

Jimmy Leong - CC 7 "Benefit of Coffee"

Ling How Kee - ACB 9 "To join or not to join Toastmaster"

Amy Hiew - CC 10 "How to become the President of Toastmasters Club"

and last, Vennessa Lim - CC 4 "My family legendary maid"

In the photo, TM Alex Yong presenting his CC-4 project. The only command that I can give is.... He has improved a lot as compared to his previous projects. He is now very steady, confident and at ease. Congratulation to you Alex.

Due to technical problem with my hp camera, I am unable to capture more pics during the meeting. The meeting was fun-filled with lots of "silly jokes" from our humorous speech speaker.

Can't wait for the next meeting....

Upcoming Training Meeting ~ 10th December 2009

Dear Fellow Member of Sandakan Toastmasters Club,

Please come to support us on the forthcoming meeting on the following date/time/venue:

Date : 10th December 2009

Time : 7:30pm Sharp

Venue : Mark's Lodge Meeting Room

The following speakers will be presenting their manual speeches:

1. Ling How Kee ~ ACB 9
2. Chong Chan Yau - CC 7
3. Alex Yong - CC 4
4. Jimmy Leong ~ CC 7
5. JR Chia ~ ACB 3

and.... ACB CL Luna will be back all the way from Aussie to attend this meeting.

Don't miss the chance to learn and explore the possibility!

Please contact Norman Chin, 013-8633907 or Amy Hiew, 012-8185418 or Alice Kok, 0168264272 to find out the details.

Let's Start Sharing!

Have you ever wonder how to promote our beloved club more? To sponsor members more? To help others to speak more? To help others to get promoted in their job more? Well, since I am your VPPR for this term, I just wanted to do a quick share with you all. The information from this post is taken from the Toastmasters International's website on the 17 ideas on how and where to promote Toastmasters and they are via:-

1. Newspaper

2. Electronic Media

3. Local Government

4. Chamber of Commerce

5. Libraries

6. Corporate Publication

7. Employee Orientation

8. "Welcome to the Community" Packets

9. University & Community College

10. High Schools

11. Community Events

12. Proclamations by Politician

13. Billboards

14. Offer Speechcraft and Youth Leadership Programs

15. Create Club Business Cards

16. Use TI Bumper Stickers & Mugs

17. Wear your Toastmasters Pins

(You can read more on it from this article)

I hope everyone has a few a idea on how to stretch our wings further in the city of nature, Sandakan. Let us hold our hand and explore all the possibility together for another half of this term and beyond.

If you have any great ideas and you would like to contribute to help expand our marketability to help others to grow... you are more than welcome to share with us and let's make Sandakan Toastmasters Club, a club of everybody choice. Till then... catch up with you next meeting same time, same place! Cheers...

Sung Siew Gavel Club Installation

Hi everyone!! Is me... your VPPR, after missing from action. Luckily we got our lovely VPE, Alice to do the posting for me or else you will be missing a whole lots of fun. Now, is back to work... last Friday (6 Nov 2009) our very first Gavel Club in town has finally conducted the installation at Sandakan Hotel with smiles and thumbs up the whole night. They are the Sung Siew Gavel Club!! Sung Siew Secondary School was my former school - really proud of them. The whole installation was all fun, fun, fun, and more fun. What is the fun like? Well, we got talented singers, cool dancers, and even actors too.

I think I better stop writing and start showing you all the pictures instead, like I always said action pictures speak louder than words (sometimes). So, here it goes:-

The backdrop

Before the show starts... us with the teacher advisers

Group Photo

Donation to Sung Siew Gavel

The Members of Sandakan Toastmasters Club.... hmm.. someone is missing... where is Averil???

That's our VPE, Alice and Gavel's Secretary Kimberly

and that's me.. and the lovely President of Sung Siew Gavel Celestina

We were able to capture some nice videos too:-

Video 1: The Trio Dancers

Video 2: The White Masked Dancers

(half way done... too bad memory run low)

What's next? Don't forget to come & support - see you on 12/11/09, same time, same place.

Mailing List

Hello Members!



A brief update from Alice here.



I have added a feature in this blog called the "mailing list" where whenever there's an update in this blog, a notification will be sent to you. And how does this work? Easy, just key in your name and email address and you'll be probed to enter a code to verify your subscription (we want to make sure no prank subscription) and thereafter, you can enjoy the first hand news on the updates in this blog.

Easy? Let's do it now.



It's a little blue box at the right hand side -----> see it??

KL Genting 17th Semi Annual Convention

23 - 25 October 2009 was a magical weekend for me. Never have i thought that a convention would do wonders like that to me and to my fellow members. I'm just so glad that i was one of the hundreds delegates participated in this wonderful convention, i have no regrets of joining this trip. I believe the others are feeling the same too.


Magical day 1 began with the council meeting in the afternoon where the President and VPE were invited to attend, or rather were compulsory to attend. Therefore, me and Amy were in the council meeting while the others were comfortably settling down in their rooms and loitering around First World Hotel. However, no matter how they enjoyed their own leisure time, they came to look for us during the break and to be there for the award presentation of "President Distinguished Club". This award was presented to our IPP Norman for his term actually, but nonetheless, the glory was for all of us who have worked together to achieve this.




After that, we have to rush to get ready for the long awaited "Absolutely Magical Welcoming Night" situated in the Safari Disco where everyone has to dress up as something. Almost everyone dressed to the theme on that night, let's see what we have -


As much as i wanted to stay to continue to party with the Dracula, wizards, fairies, devils and etc, i was very tired and so did Vanessa, my room mate. So off we went back to our room and visited slumber land.


Magical day 2 began with the auspicious opening ceremony with some inspirational speakers such as Tan Sri Dato' Lee Lam Thye where he shared his view about 1 Malaysia and urged " Toastmasters in Malaysia to remain committed to their core values and principles, and speak their way to promoting a culture of peace, harmony and unity among Malaysians of every ethnic background in the spirit of 1Malaysia" (The Star Online, 28 October 2009). We were also honored to have Mr. Wong Yoon Keong, a re-known trainer who lost his sight and yet he is so passionate to motivate and share with others his experience and journey to become who he is today. He has also published a book titled "Live to Win" as an inspirational tool to encourage the community to live life to the fullest. Anyone who's interested to have a read, please approach me, the book is available on loan.


Followed by that was the plenary session where we have Roger Konopasek talked about "From sail boat to jet ski" where his confabulation presentation in explaining and emphasizing the importance of being technology savvy and how disruptive technology will hit us in the near future made an impact on all off us. Another speaker for the plenary session was Dr. Sarjit Singh Sidhu who talked about how our sub conscious mind could control us for who we want to be. For this, our very own VPM Ling How Kee was invited on stage to demonstrate how he was persuaded to fall asleep in front of him. Dr. Sarjit Singh even jabbed a needle through his cheek and he has no feeling at all!


I apologize for not being able to tell you about the run offs for the contests because i was lured to go wander around First World. Period.


Magical Day 2's dinner was known as "Gala Night - Sharing the Magical Moment" and it was a night to remember for all the award recipients and our very own Datin Grace was being awarded the "Select Distinguished Area Award" for her term as the Area K2 Governor. Congratulations to her on a job well done!






That was truly an enjoyable and memorable night. Nonetheless, i must said, the whole award presentation was mind bobbling because you'd be amazed by what the award recipients have done to serve the clubs in their respective areas. This served as a constructive motivation to all of us there.



Magical day 3 began with the Humorous and Evaluation Speech Contests Finals and followed by the closing ceremony. It was truly an eye opener experience for us to witness how the finalists spoke their way to the finals and they totally deserved to be on the stage on that morning, regardless of whether they have won or not. I know i have said this too many times but this is what Toastmasters is about, it helps you to be a better speaker, in every way that you speak and in every level that you are at. So if you are just speaking in your own club, you are doing good, you know. But if you have got the motivation and ambition to step on the bigger platform, by all means, go ahead! All of us in the club will be the pillars to support you.




The winners for the Humourous speech contest (from left): Karina Rajah (Div E), 2nd runner up. Ruby Ahmad (Div S), 1st runner up for HC. 4th on the left, Marianna Pascal (Div A), Champion for HC. Our District Governor DTM Richard Chong in the middle.

The winners for the Evaluation speech contest (from right): Mary Barton (Div W), 2nd runner up. Rozanah Yunos (Div K), 1st runner up and 4th on the right, Asha Suresh Chand (Div N), champion.


Without us realizing the time, came the closing ceremony. It was very obvious that the organizing chairperson Gerald Quinten has led an excellent team because what we have for the past few days were truly amazing. The organizing team and its sub teams have done a tremendous job by devoting their time and efforts in making this Magical Convention a success. The convention was ended with the famous song "We are the world" and everyone was holding hands with each other to form a huge circle which symbolized 1 family. It's truly that Toastmasters is 1 big family and regardless what skin color or hair color you have, you are a member in this big family. To me, it was a spectacular and touching moment.




After bidding goodbyes to our fellow delegates, we left with a heavy heart. Although joyful time has passed and we can never turn back time, we brought back countless invaluable memories and experience in our heart.


Therefore, we look forward to the Annual Convention in Miri next year!




Your VPE who's still suffering from post-Genting-convention syndrome,

Alice Kok

A little update

Hello! It's Alice here again. Since i'm the one holding all the photos from all occasions, i shall share the photos and do a little update at the same time.


For the past month, we have attended the installation dinner of Kota Kinabalu Advanced Toastmasters Club and in conjunction with that, the Division K Humorous & Evaluation speech contests. Both functions were great and it's always good to meet up with fellow toastmasters from other clubs.

From left: Enoch (KKTMC), Rozana Yunus (champion for Div K Evaluation Speech Contest)and Sophiana (champion for Div K Humorous Speech Contest), Amy, Alice and Jasmine (KKTMC)


We also took this opportunity to meet up with the members who have transferred to KK, they were Melissa, Lily and Alex. We have a great Italian dinner at Grazie upon the recommendation from Enoch and everyone laughed their hearts out that night.

Till the next update.

Training Meeting 29 October 2009

Hello Members!

It's your VPE Alice here.

It's been a while since i wrote on this blog as most of the posts were done by our VPPR Shane Ho. Since i've got all the nice photos with me,i shall be the one who update this post.


We have a great meeting last night because our Area K2 Governor Eleanor Pang, ACG was here for her official club visit and we were also very honored to have our Division K Governor Datuk Hassan, ACG and District 51 Rest Mentoring Chair Datin Grace, ALB,ACB presented in the meeting. Imagine that.....it's almost like a council meeting already!


We have CL Ling How Kee as our Toastmaster of the Evening and he has prepared a special warming up session for us to mesmerize our childhood by playing a game when the music stopped and whoever was holding the mic on his/her hand, he/she would have to sing a kiddy song. Shane, Vanessa and Amy were the "victims" and they sang, no kidding! Times are bad now, all of us need to do something before we are awarded with any prizes and the prizes for them was - pure canola oil.



We have 2 speakers last night and they were JR Chia and Datin Grace. Now, i would like to take this opportunity to urge you to start looking at your manual and plan your next speech. As Datin Grace said "you pay TI dues and club fees and you are not going to get nothing, you must make your money worthwhile". Yes, members, i know the fellowship in the club is excellent, but you have got to make progress and improve yourselves, intellectually and emotionally. We would love to see everyone gains something from the club, besides the beautiful friendship. Therefore, please call me or approach anyone of us to make your first step, begin with taking up simple role and make yourself comfortable speaking little by little in the meeting. Trust me, it helps, because we learn by doing.


As usual, we ended the meeting with a group photo of the night!





Our TME for the next meeting is JR Chia, the meeting date is 12 November 2009, same place, same time. See you there!

Area K2, Humorous & Evaluation Speech Contest

Yes, the club did it again! Sandakan Toastmasters Club has successfully organized the Area K2 Humorous Speech & Evaluation Speech contests on 27 Sept 2009, with participation from Sandakan Toastmasters Club, Pidato Toastmasters Club and Tawau Toastmasters Club. The results are as follows:-

Humorous Speech:-

1. Grace Yong - Pretty Woman (Tawau Toastmasters Club)

2. Shane Ho - A Date with a Toastmaster (Sandakan Toastmasters Club)

Evaluation Speech:-

1. Norman Chin (Sandakan Toastmasters Club)

2. Grace Yong (Tawau Toastmasters Club)

The winners with the organizing committee

Yeah! Contest Chair, Area K2 Governor Eleanor Pang presenting the winner's trophy to Norman.

Members waiting for the contest to start

Organising Chairperson Luna in Action

It was a great morning and we even had members of the public who walked in to see how the participants have benefited from the Toastmasters training.

Mooncake Gathering - 26 Sept 2009

It was another GREAT night for gathering... and the theme was MoonCake gathering. Well, let the pictures do the talking for this time:-

Cool... right? For those who didn't manage to turnup, look at what you have missed!