Learning to Like Evaluation

In Toastmasters, the philosophy is that no speech is perfect – even the best speaker can improve. As a result, there is a lot of feedback going on. Members evaluate each others’ presentations – even brief Table Topic responses, which only last two minutes. In Toastmasters, we always offer suggestions for improvement. If all you got was praise for your speech, how would you improve? If you truly want to improve your skills, you must learn to give and receive helpful evaluations. Here’s how that works in Toastmasters:

-Keep in mind that evaluations are by nature subjective. They are opinions. But when many people offer the same opinion, you’d be wise to listen.
-Toastmasters evaluations are constructive, meaning they tactfully offer suggestions for how your next speech can be better. Our “sandwich approach” uses an encouraging comment, a suggestion for improvement, and ends with another encouraging comment. The speech topic itself is not evaluated, but the structure and delivery of it is.
-They also are kind, keeping in mind the experience and sensitivity level of the speaker.
-Most importantly, Toastmasters evaluations are practical, making your feel good about your contribution to the meeting but also addressing specific challenges to work on for the next speech.

Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Why don’t you do what millions of novice and nervous speakers have done: Visit a Toastmasters meeting!

Yours in Toastmasters,

VPE Norman Chin

A winsome meeting

Last night's meeting was indeed a winsome one, every one enjoyed a cheerful, merry and pleasant evening where there were lots of laughters from the table topic session, the speeches and nonetheless, the humour session.

We were glad to see CL Lawrence Chong, ATMB Anne and TM Ha last night as they were missing in action for quite sometime. Welcome back! TM Ha even came prepared with his speech, which was very educational about the topic of inflation. As usual, TM Charles embarked on his CC speech 9 and he persuaded us that "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure", we should take care of our heart.

Some snapshots from the meeting:-

Amy was conducting a warming up session with her belly dancing skills, as a result of that, TM Charles was suffering from a waist ache... 0.O

The Table Topic Master, CC Davina chose her best speakers - TM Charles on "Do you believe in the existence of Spiritual?" and CL Amy on "Love is Blind" where both of them had tackled the topics smoothly with their own life experience, fascinating! Followed by VPM Janet presenting a token of appreciation to TM Charles for bringing in TM Chong S.Y. and finally, can you see who's in the last photo? All the long lost member, (from far left) - TM Ha, ATMB Anne and CL Lawrence were here!

See, i told you the meeting was winsome. See you in the next meeting on 8 May and the TME is TM Alvin Leong.

xo Bulletin Editor, Alice xo

psst...

What does July mean to you?

In our club, it is a beginning of a brand new term *

* Brand new team of committee members + An incoming President + New awesome fun in the club + New sets of goals + Fun + Fun + Fun

Before that, there'll be an Installation, yes you heard me right, there will be an installation to welcome the brand new term and its committee members and it's certainly a once in a year event that every toastmaster should be anticipating.

Therefore, make yourself available for this significant event that will be held on 19 July 2008 at English Tea House and of course, bring your friends along to witness the event and have a fun evening with us. Oh...did i mentioned what is the theme?? Start to prepare something vintage (attire) and your afro (if you have one) i would say and polish up your cha-cha, soul, agogo, twist etc .....get it? Get it??

YEAH.... It's going to be "Swinging 60's & Oldies 70's" !

Stay tuned for more information or call me or Norman or leave a comment if you really, really, really want to know more about the event.

Xo Alice Xo

Meeting the proverbs.

Thanks to the ebullient toastmasters who attended the meeting last night and made it a success, pad yourself on the back and hope to see you again in the coming meeting. Those who could not attend, it's alright, i am sure we'll see you soon. 

As usual, the air conditioning was gelid making us wanted to bring along our winter clothing to the meeting next time -_- 


There's always multifarious way to conduct the table topic session, you could have a theme, rather than just a compilation of questions. TM Charles used "proverbs" as his themes to probe fellow takers to elaborate more about each proverb asked, which gave fellow takers the most flexibility to tackle the questions. Some talked it through with their own life experience, some explained it with their best knowledge while some spoke with their heart. No matter how they chose to talk about the topics, they were all good and we certainly had learned a thing or two. Take sometime and think about how would you go about these proverbs? 

1.  A stitch in time saves nine
   
2. Diligent is the mother of hard work
   
3. Penny wise, pound foolish
   
4. Put all your eggs in one basket
   
5. All that glitters is not gold
   

Do you know the meaning of all the above? Otherwise, seek first to understand them and then to be understood because it's always good to leap before you jump. 

Er... enough said, that's all i know and don't come after me if it's wrongly said *runs for cover* 

xo Bulletin Editor, Alice xo 

That's the spirit.

There were some emails exchanging words of encouragement between Madam President, TM Charles and DTM Eleanor and i thought the wordings from the email were very warm though we could not touch them but they have certainly touched my heart, in such a way that we are all strangers (to some extent) to each other and this club is not even generating any profit for each of us and yet, we see past the initial surface of a materialistic world and truly delivering the spirit of Toastmasters Club - to enhance and embrace self development which, in turn, made us so encouraging to each other and self inspiring.

It doesn't matter if TM Charles succeed in the next level or not, the importance is, he gained some invaluable experience, knowledge, exposure and he has certainly tried his best and he is happy about that.

And that's also what a Toastmaster feels after delivering a speech, inevitably we are being evaluated for the speech we do and of course, no one likes to be judged. However, we learn to construct a positive mindset to learn through the process and not to take it negatively. Learning is a lifelong process and there will be many obstacles during the way, but we just try to enjoy every moment of it and do not let critism worry us.

It's not the end result that matters, it's the process that is important, just like enjoying the fireworks.

Last but not least, try to keep busy doing something, because a busy person never has time to be unhappy. So, let us start looking at our speech manuals and plan for the next speech!

xo Bulletin Editor, Alice xo

p/s: Our VPPR Melissa has started a personal blog and if you wanna know what's her where-about, you can click here.

Up and about...

~Marvelous March~

To sum up how the month of March '08 had been for the Sandakan Toastmasters, I would say it had been, Fruitful (as quoted by Alice), simply Amazing and certainly Rewarding...and I hope the club will keep the momentum going...

In March we had the Area k2 Level International Speech and Table Topic competition which was hosted by Sandakan Toastmasters on 22nd March, 08 in Mark Lodge, Bandar Indah. My appreciation to Tawau Toastmasters for travelling all the way to attend the competition.

Lunch @ Higashi Tei

So for International Speech, we had ACG Datuk Hassan (Champion) and CC Melissa from Sandakan Toastmaster and TM Linda (1st runner up) and ACB Vera Yap from the Tawau Toastmasters. As for table topic, we had TM Charles Chong (Champion) an CC Melissa Betsy from Sandakan Toastmasters as well as TM Linda and Vera(1st runner up) from Tawau Toastmasters. Congratulation to the winners and the champion will represent Area k2 to compete in the district level.

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12th Annual Convention held in ShangRi-La Downtown Hotel
29th & 30th March, 2008

It's the time of the year again where annual convention was held and members hailed from various areas and clubs to meet in one venue. Convention such as this would usually include the usual programmes; council meetings, workshops, fellowship dinner and of course the highlight of it all, the District level competition (Although the fellowship dinner could be a highlight as well..:)

Overall, the convention was amazing. Kudos for Kota Kinabalu Advance Toastmasters Club for organizing a successful convention. I am sure all the present Toastmasters had a great time. We had the opportunity to listen to DTM Stanley Joibi speaks on NLP(Neuro Linguistic Programme). Now people, the concept is actually quite simple than the terms. It's all about knowing your mind is powerful as it determine the rest of your actions. The second distinguished speaker was DTM Geoff and he spoke on how the 15th Advance Speech Manual could help enhance your career. The International Theme fellowship dinner; needless to say, it was fun and amazing. We were entertained by humorous lip sync performances, crooners who took up the mic for karaoke sessions, and areas performances which saw talents from toastmasters such as dancing, singing and acting! That should break some modern myths that say all Toastmasters do is Talk , talk and er....Talk.

District 51 International Speech and Table Topic Competition

This one deserved a topic heading of its own.;)

Table topic: Better Safe Than Sorry

Very apt topic. Each areas' presentatives took on the topic quite well. Result:- TM Charles Chow of Sandakan Toastmasters (Champion), TM Jasmine Leong of KotaKinabalu (1st Runner Up) and TM Elizabeth Sim (2nd runner up).

As for International Speech, now, let me 1st say that all the speakers were seriously good. I mean really, really good. It goes to show that Toastmasters have really made and mould them into fantastic speakers.I was inspired from all the speeches. Of course, at the end of the day, only one gets to represent the District to compete in Penang Convention. Thus, Result: DTM Lim Mui Len -Put the Baggage Down (Champion) and AC Shahar Banon (Don't Give Up)

All in all, March had been simply Marvelous. Now comes April. Let's Make April Amazing!!

Cheers,
Cc Melissa , VPPR

P.S. I MISS SANDAKAN TOASTMASTERS!