BTC MEETING Sep. 3, 2009
Word has POWER!
Our Word of the Day: AMAZING proved this theory. Used often by almost everyone present, very quickly it become the reality of the meeting.
It was an AMAZING evening, went overtime till 9.30 yet nary a dull moment!!! The theme of the day was island style, which is Bali Toastmasters official dress code. Ina was in sarong, Miranda, Olga, Suzanne and some of the guests came in bright tropical colors. Strong was in board shorts and barefooted.
We had 18 people attending. Gung Sri from Renon became our newest member. Another enthusiastic and eager-to-learn member... YAY.....
President Ina started the meeting with concise, yet in depth explanation of the roles for the benefits of the new members and guests... TOM Suzanne led the meeting with gusto, enthusiasm and great poise.
Miranda opened the Prepared Speech session with a project from her Advanced Communication manual, a dramatic speech, titled LAUGH NOW. She invited the audience to try a fake laugh that very soon became contagious and real. As was required from her project, she successfully added a variety of dramatic elements to her entertaining speech. Ida Wijaya did an excellent job as her evaluator. Praising Miranda's overall delivery and topic, she suggested that Miranda could further dramatize her gestures to make the speech more entertaining.
Next came Ribek, doing a speech for the very first time with his ice breaker.
This is an AMAZING event. Despite his struggle with the English language, we all witnessed and were able to greatly appreciate his effort to give his very best. He spoke slowly and clearly, conquered his fear and nervousness as he stood in front of us, delivering his speech with a lot of smiles without hardly using his notes. His story was about his sad experiences from not understanding enough English when he went abroad. And this had made him very determined to learn. His first triumph after joining Toastmasters was asking a question at a conference he attended recently, and to be cheered by his friends for this accomplishment.
Bravo Ribek!!! Bravo Toastmasters!!!
Tjie Strong evaluated Ribek, praising him a lot for his herculean effort. We all agreed with him.
Ribek was voted Best Speaker and Strong Best Evaluator.
Due to last minute cancellation by Reski who was supposed to give her 6th speech, Olga Jafar, the past president, the founding member of Bali Toastmasters Club stepped in and gave a very interesting and entertaining speech titled: The difference between Sinterklas and Santa Claus. Olga was such as a wonderful story teller, her grandmotherly mien and soothing voice was perfect for the speech. The audience was totally taken by her story. She also crooned a couple of Dutch songs usually sung to children around Christmas.
What is AMAZING was her ability to deliver such a wonderful speech with such short notice. She gave an excellent example of what experience and repeated practice at Toastmasters over time could produce.
She was evaluated by another first timer, this time as an evaluator, Cok Ratih. Cok Ratih had studied hard and seriously for this role, and despite her trepidation she gave a very good evaluation of Olga's speech, just the way an evaluation should be given. Brava, bravissima, Cok!
Cakra Sudarsana concluded this session doing his Advanced Communication project; the speech was called 'Energy of Life'. For his project he was required to present and sell an idea to the audience. He promoted the importance of learning the techniques of acquiring life energy, i.e. Kundalini and Reiki for a healthy body, mind and spirit.
He masterfully guided the audience through the understanding of the energy to the practical application of it in daily life, concluding with an offer to open the audience's chakras for free.
Cakra was evaluated by Miranda, who's duly enthralled by the expertise and the artistry with which the speech was given. Again the mastery from having done more projects than anyone else in the club really showed. Each project is always more challenging than the last one, thus the learning and growth never stops.
The Table Topic Master, or Mistress, of the evening was Noni. She took everyone by surprise with her explosive introduction and control of the session. She was highly animated and enthusiastic. She raised the already high-level energy of the meeting to yet several notches again. She introduced a new way to motivate the audience to take on the challenge of impromptu speaking by referring to those willing as lottery winners, as the lucky ones.
She threw several questions in reference to everyday challenges such as what to do when there's earthquake, fire, plastic bags etc. Maria from Hongkong, one of the guests, won Best Table Topic speaker, with her story about the way Hong Kong government tackled this issue.
Special mentions from VP Education of the role takers go to.... EVERYONE:
Suzanne D'Angelo once again set a new standard of excellence as TOM (MC). She was smooth, entertaining and very attentive to details. True to the objective of the role, she set the tone and the mood of the meeting. She controlled the entire meeting by keeping it fast pace and purposeful. So that even though the meeting went 30 minute overtime, there was no sign of boredom or anxiety from the audience.
Ina Jones, the Club president who took the role of GE (General Evaluator) of the meeting was very thorough, pointing to things that wre praiseworthy and those that could still be improved.
She was assisted by those new to Toastmasters yet no less thorough and effient:
-Amran Hidayat, who as first time TIMER came up with his very own effective time-recording system
-Govinda Rumi, a third time guest, was very thorough as Ah-Oh Counter, demonstrating excellent listening skills
-Anya Nabila, a frequent guest, managed ballots like a pro.
Jerry Jones, our Sargeant of Arms absentee made his infrequent visit to the club, straight from the airport after a very long trip from Saudi Arabia. In the Very Jerry way, he made his presence felt with positive comments and suggestions. In regards to the recent earthquake in West Java, he suggested that we do as best hazard prevention as we can by doing these three things:
- Have fire distinguisher device in the house: the red can, containers of sand, woolen blanket
- Have your medical kit always ready and in easy reach
- Always have a second exit other than the door in each room
A set of very simple advices that most of us know we should do but often do not, so thank you Jerry... and it's always wonderful to have you among us.
It seems like excellence breeds excellence. During this meeting it became obvious that one person's excellence motivated and spurred the next person's excellence - and this energy just built and built to create a great vortex that affected and consumed everyone present.
It was one of the best Toastmasters meetings I've attended. It was very high quality meeting, yet, it was so much FUN and CASUAL. Having experienced it, and seeing how each member enjoyed learning, growing and improving, I'm confident that QUALITY and FUN will become our modus operandi.
Would you want to have a taste of what we had?
Come to our next meeting. Stay tuned to the Bali Toastmasters Club updates!
Toasts!!!
Miranda
No comments:
Post a Comment