Happy New Year to you All.
2010 promises to be a FABULOUS Bali Toastmasters Year.
It started with a BANG, literally, as the electricity went out soon after we convened and began our dinner.
In Toastmasters one of the things a leader quickly learns is to stay CALM and COOL no matter what happens. So a quick phone call from Miranda to Carolina (LINA) Wijaya from SECTOR Bali Beach Golf Course secured us a conference room at Sector to conduct our meeting.
THANK YOU SO MUCH LINA, you saved us from having to cancel our meeting when we have the most members present!
After finishing our dinner in the dimming twilight, we packed our bags and Toastmasters paraphernalia and headed towards SECTOR, which was conveniently located a mere 5 minutes away.
As it happened, Thursday Night Salsa at Sector was also happening… translated: live band playing at full volume....but our show must go on.
So in spite and despite of the loud Salsa beat playing next door and a late start, Ina Jones, the club president, opened the meeting with great spirit, reminding us that this was a perfect opportunity to practice projecting our voice to rise over the commotion of the music.
Hence, loud music and all, Toastmaster SURYA Paramartha as our first prepared speaker gave his first Toastmasters speech ever, the ICE BREAKER. He delivered a well prepared speech about his life prior to the life of a salaried man now working at his father’s recruitment agency. Usually quiet and timid Surya regaled us in his fluent English the detailed account of his first passion, MUSIC. It was hard to imagine the clean-cut, well-groomed Surya as a longhaired rocker. Well done, Surya! Congratulations on a well executed Ice Breaker.
Surya was evaluated by CC ELLEN, a last minute replacement for Toastmaster Amran who at the last minute could not make it to the meeting. In delivering the verbal evaluation, Ellen was all joy and enthusiasm, which of course was a joy to behold.
The second speaker was Toastmaster Candra ADIputra, giving his 4th speech project after a 6 month absence. His speech title is THE PRINCE, a discourse on the book by Niccolo MACHIAVELLI under the same title. He enthralled and shocked us with the controversial Machiavellian views and approaches to life and politics. He kept the audience at the edge of their seats with jaws hanging as he deliberately and expertly steered us to adopt his personal views on the subject. Well-prepared, technically superb and highly captivating, Adi’s speech showed his growing maturity and mastery as a great speaker. Being a seasoned debater, in the past Adi’s speeches had been strongly influenced by debating techniques, resulting in a rather theatrical and overpowering delivery. He managed to par this down while still retaining the positive aspects, making his recent speech simply eloquent, elegant and truly enjoyable. Bravo Adi!
His speech was evaluated by CC OLGA who did a wonderful evaluation full of praises and encouragement.
Toastmaster MICHELE Cempaka did her 4th speech project titled ENERGY. Having done 3 speeches in quick succession, Michele continued to demonstrate remarkable improvement as a highly gifted speaker. Her well-written, well-prepared speech was delivered with poise, confidence and charm. Her gentle manner did not distract from the strength and power of her message. She succeeded in leading the audience to participate in a short energy meditation while the loud music continued to roar outside.
Michele was evaluated by CC Cakra who got carried away evaluating that he went over the allotted time.
Toastmaster RESKI, the fourth and last speaker, chose the topic DETECTING BREAST CANCER for her 7th speech project. Being totally awesome and courageous for choosing such a delicate subject, she shocked us further by instructing all of us, men and women, to stand up and examine our breasts. Toastmaster ADI was beside himself with embarrassment as we were directed to examine our breasts thoroughly. He found it hard to believe that breast cancer could inflict men as well as women.
Reski was evaluated by CC Strong, who evaluated with such flair and humor while thoroughly enjoying reconstructing the breast examination scene to drive his points home.
Given the choice of four such gifted speakers and such diverse interesting topics, understandably it was a tough decision to choose a winner. However, the audience votes decided that Toastmaster ADI was the BEST SPEAKER while CC Strong was voted the BEST EVALUATOR .
Next was the TABLE TOPIC Session, led by Toastmaster COK RATIH, our celebrity dancer extraordinaire.
Choosing the general theme GO GREEN, the questions revolved around environmental issues, with the exception of our guest EVIE HATCH, who, being a fellow Balinese dancer like Cok Ratih was given the question about Legong Dance. Evie did not only give a perfectly reasonable answer, she also spoke eloquently, confidently and with a lot of poise and charm. Deservedly, she was voted the BEST TABLE TOPIC SPEAKER.
Other Table Topic Speakers were VAUGHN HATCH, FAISAL, ELLEN, and a father-daughter duet STRONG and STEFANI who had us laughing in stitches with their comical responses.
Finally, as a part of her Competent Leader projects, Miranda gave a presentation from the Toastmasters Leadership Excellence Series titled MOTIVATING PEOPLE. Understanding the art of motivating people is one of the most valuable skills a leader must acquire. She gave many examples and analogies to illustrate the points. The audience was then asked to identify their own primary motivators.
TOM (Toastmaster of the Meeting) Ina did an excellent job MC-ing and leading the meeting, showing complete ease, good humor and complete control over the unusual situation. By being the TOM she had more opportunities than anyone else to use the word fabulous, our word of the day, thus used the word liberally with such glee. Though inconvenient and distracting, the loud music didn’t seem to seriously bother any of the other leaders and speakers, everyone doing their jobs whole-heartedly and superbly.
All in all, the atmosphere remain positive throughout, everyone was in jolly good spirit during the meeting that ended at 10pm, and left the meeting feeling SIMPLY FABULOUS – definitely an auspicious beginning to a great NEW YEAR.
Once again MANY THANKS to LINA from SECTOR for her quick decision that made this meeting possible.
And for all of who attended, THANK YOU, for making this meeting a truly FABULOUS MEETING.
For those who didn’t come but wanted to come… what are you waiting for? Join us at our next meeting, January 21st. Stay tune for further notification and updates.
Toast to you all!
Miranda Suryadjaja, CC, CL
VP Education
