In September 2008, there are reports of at least three infants that died and more than 50,000 sick, from prolonged drinking of the contaminated milk in China.
On September 15, Lehman Brothers, an investment bank in USA, filed for bankruptcy. Within days, AIG, the largest insurer in the world, announced threat of bankruptcy. This marks the start of a global financial market crisis with Dow Jones, Frankfurt stock index, Nikkei stock index, LSE, SGX, Hang Seng, all falling by 30% to 50%.
Last Wednesday, Barrack Obama, wins the election and becomes the 44th President of the United States of America. He is the first black leader of the country.
Last Sunday, in Singapore, once able to shop non-stop for hours without need to stop for rest, Estelle, my wife, now suffers from backache and tired feet from 30 minutes of shopping.
In China, once a leading producer of foodstuff, now all china food products are ordered out of the shelves. In the global front, a year ago, people are still spending money, now, people are saving, companies are retrenching. In US, it was Bush, now it’s Obama. In Singapore, Estelle, wonder shopper in her 8th month of pregnancy, is now a tired shopper with an extra 11 kg on her.
What does all this tell us? Change can happen!
Whether you realize it or not, managing Change is the key to life, at work or in leisure, in businesses, and even for a toastmasters club. Some basic questions that we can ask to deal with change are:-
What works well and needs maintaining?
What doesn’t work well enough, and needs changing?
For many of us, we come here to master our fears of speaking to a crowd. Some come to learn how to interact with people, how to make small talk. Some come here to learn how to be better communicators, better leaders. While we come here for many different reasons, the primary reason for coming here is to learn by doing and from one another.
For this, we are introducing, starting from this month, 2 new changes to our activities.
1: Newsletter
We have now issued issue 1 of our club’s very own newsletter. For the 1st newsletter, we shared an article by Tony Jeary, titled, Life is a series of presentation. It shares that to be a great presenter, we need to reach a level of unconscious competence.
The idea is to share with you good articles, good quotes and ideas. The idea here is simple, we want you to send any interesting quotes or articles that you come across and send it to our club email theserangoontmc@gmail.com under the title [Article to Share] / [Quotes] / [Anedocotes]. We will do simple editing and send it out to benefit our members. In this way, we can improve ourselves and our way of life through collective sharing and learning.
2: Evaluation at Chapter meeting.
Next, we have evaluation at our chapter meeting. Tonight, we are trying something different. Usually, evaluation is done by an evaluator. Today, we will do group evaluation on the speaker. All of you will become an evaluator.
Jun has volunteered himself to undergo the group evaluation. At Toastmasters, it is not just about making speeches, it is also about learning to give constructive suggestions.
However, many of us do not try before we claimed we have never done it before. But the truth is that, we have! When you listen to a speech, you automatically evaluate whether it is good or bad.
That's human nature! So tonight, you have an opportunity to experience a no pressure group evaluation on “Brave Jun”. This is to encourage some of us here who have never delivered an evaluation to have a first experience of evaluation. So do participate.
Fellow toastmasters, we are in this world where change is a constant and we are constantly evolving.
The changes that I have shared are like a patchwork quilt of little things, and each of us are the little thread that holds them together to make a beautiful quilt.
Let's work together, Let us learn together and embrace change positively.
On September 15, Lehman Brothers, an investment bank in USA, filed for bankruptcy. Within days, AIG, the largest insurer in the world, announced threat of bankruptcy. This marks the start of a global financial market crisis with Dow Jones, Frankfurt stock index, Nikkei stock index, LSE, SGX, Hang Seng, all falling by 30% to 50%.
Last Wednesday, Barrack Obama, wins the election and becomes the 44th President of the United States of America. He is the first black leader of the country.
Last Sunday, in Singapore, once able to shop non-stop for hours without need to stop for rest, Estelle, my wife, now suffers from backache and tired feet from 30 minutes of shopping.
In China, once a leading producer of foodstuff, now all china food products are ordered out of the shelves. In the global front, a year ago, people are still spending money, now, people are saving, companies are retrenching. In US, it was Bush, now it’s Obama. In Singapore, Estelle, wonder shopper in her 8th month of pregnancy, is now a tired shopper with an extra 11 kg on her.
What does all this tell us? Change can happen!
Whether you realize it or not, managing Change is the key to life, at work or in leisure, in businesses, and even for a toastmasters club. Some basic questions that we can ask to deal with change are:-
What works well and needs maintaining?
What doesn’t work well enough, and needs changing?
For many of us, we come here to master our fears of speaking to a crowd. Some come to learn how to interact with people, how to make small talk. Some come here to learn how to be better communicators, better leaders. While we come here for many different reasons, the primary reason for coming here is to learn by doing and from one another.
For this, we are introducing, starting from this month, 2 new changes to our activities.
1: Newsletter
We have now issued issue 1 of our club’s very own newsletter. For the 1st newsletter, we shared an article by Tony Jeary, titled, Life is a series of presentation. It shares that to be a great presenter, we need to reach a level of unconscious competence.
The idea is to share with you good articles, good quotes and ideas. The idea here is simple, we want you to send any interesting quotes or articles that you come across and send it to our club email theserangoontmc@gmail.com under the title [Article to Share] / [Quotes] / [Anedocotes]. We will do simple editing and send it out to benefit our members. In this way, we can improve ourselves and our way of life through collective sharing and learning.
2: Evaluation at Chapter meeting.
Next, we have evaluation at our chapter meeting. Tonight, we are trying something different. Usually, evaluation is done by an evaluator. Today, we will do group evaluation on the speaker. All of you will become an evaluator.
Jun has volunteered himself to undergo the group evaluation. At Toastmasters, it is not just about making speeches, it is also about learning to give constructive suggestions.
However, many of us do not try before we claimed we have never done it before. But the truth is that, we have! When you listen to a speech, you automatically evaluate whether it is good or bad.
That's human nature! So tonight, you have an opportunity to experience a no pressure group evaluation on “Brave Jun”. This is to encourage some of us here who have never delivered an evaluation to have a first experience of evaluation. So do participate.
Fellow toastmasters, we are in this world where change is a constant and we are constantly evolving.
The changes that I have shared are like a patchwork quilt of little things, and each of us are the little thread that holds them together to make a beautiful quilt.
Let's work together, Let us learn together and embrace change positively.
