1st Training Meeting of Year 2011

The first training meeting of year 2011 was successfully held on 13th January 2011 at Mark's Lodge Hotel Function Room. It was indeed a good start for the new year as there were about 6 new members attended the training meeting.

Apparently there were two "'Norman Chi"s in the room.

The club's president, CC Alice Kok was the Table Topics Mater. Her table topics consists of questions regarding how members spent their new year's eve, new year resolution, chinese new year and so on, which went well with the New Year theme meeting.

Hasdayana, a dual members of Sandakan Pidato Club and Sandakan Toastmasters Club, presented her ice breaker speech, entitled Getting to Know Me.

From her speech, we all know that she is a very active person and she happens to be the granddaughter of DTM Datuk Hassan's cousin, who also presented his CC7 speech AGAIN!!! entitled Research Your Topic.

He advised the members that the main source of a topic is from your personal experience. Besides that, other people's opinions (OPE) must be also taken into consideration.

The meeting ended with a humour session conducted by CC, CL Shane Ho sharing his first experience when he did his ice breaker speech. He assured to the new members that getting nervous and sweat palms are very normal. He also advised to the new members to get the momentum going once they have started doing their speeches and one day other people will notice there are positive changes in them.

Hopefully, the new members will DARE TO SHINE and become a better communicator, listener and leader in the future.

District 87 1st Semi-Annual Convention

The first ever semi-annual convention of the new District 87 was held in Jakarta, Indonesia on 26th to 28th November 2010. Five members from Sandakan Toastmasters Club participated in this unforgettable event.

The 'gang'...

The flight from Sandakan to Jakarta pratically took the whole day ... Morning flight from Sandakan to Kuala Lumpur and after that, evening flight from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta. We arrived in Jakarta with grumbling stomachs... Division K Governor, Datin Grace Chiu treated us dinner at the hotel that we stayed in and where the event was hold. Mercure Hotel at Ancol.

The dinner costed almost ONE MILLION Rupiah. Huh... *Wiping sweats on forehead...* 20 pieces of 50, 000 Rupiah notes gone... just like that...

The next morning, after we had our breakfast at the hotel's cafe, Division K Governor attended the District Executive Council Meeting while the rest explored one of Jakarta shopping malls to see what it could offer to us. Mangga Dua shopping mall.

Trying to squeeze ourselves at the back seats of the taxi. 



After that, everyone headed back to the hotel to doll up to get ready for the 'Welcome Night' Dinner at the City Hall of Jakarta. All the delegated boarded hired buses, escorted by the local traffic polices. For the first time in our lives, we kinda felt like some sort of VIPs or royalties.

Yup... Toastmasters members know how to party hard...

The very next day, educational workshops were conducted. There were four speakers. The first one was Tantowi Yahya, a local TV persona turned politician. He shared his amazing experiences in how he became succesful.

The next speaker in line was Hingdranata Nikolay, who is the first licensed trainer of Neuro-LinguisticProgramming (NLP) under teh society of NLP. He is also the the CEO and Master Trainer at NLP Indonesia and INSPIRASI Indonesia, currently one of the most well-known popular training instituitions in Indonesia. He emphasized that each and everyone of us have a 'theme' in our lives. For him, it is 'happiness'.

The third speaker was non other than Papa Gerald Green, with his educational session entitled "What They Didn't Teach You in School". One of the most important things that the some teachers tend to neglect is the importance of listening. Papa also shared his funny childhood stories during the school days.

The educational session ended with DTM Dunstan Chan, past District Governor, being the last speaker of the day. It was started off by an interesting introduction by a MC dressing up as some kind of French guy.

And here he came, dressed up as a cool Arabian fatso.

DTM Dunstan Chan entertained the audience with one of the famous stories 1001 Nights, how a lady postponed her execution by her husband, the King, by telling him stories every night without ending the stories. The King was so curious on the ending and thus postponed his wife's execution.

His daring 'Dare to Shine' vest...

He taught the audience how to use stories in doing our speeches. We may make a little bit of twist and alterations in the stories, don't really need to follow excatly like the original stories. After this educational workshop, CC Jimmy Leong was immediately inspired and presented his first ACB speech once he returned to Sandakan.

Straight after the educational worshops was the Gala Night Dinner. IPP Amy Hiew received her President's Distinguished Award.

Look how happy she is...

Not forgetting Division K Governor, Datin Grace Chiu won the first runner up for the best dressed.

 

Datuk Hassan from Sandakan Pidato Club also received his DTM award.

On the last day of the convention, the evaluation and humorous speech contests were conducted. Everyone enjoyed the convention so much. The money spent on the air flights and accommodations surely worth it. After the convention ended, the members spent a few days at Bandung where they spent money like nobody's business until they had no money left for breakfast at the airport. The Division K Governor once again saved the lives of the poor hungry souls of Amy, Amy's kids, Jimmy, Winnie and Vannessa...

There is a new website for the new born district 87. Check it out for more information:

http://www.district87.net/