A Time of Happiness

December is a happy time where companies evaluate performance and contribution. Goals and targets are also set for the start of the New Year. Rewards are also given for the previous year's effort. Have you done any review recently on your own performance? That is not just limited to your professional work but also in your own resolutions or goals that you may have set up for yourself, at the start of the year.

In 2003, Bennett Burrus, became one of the oldest high school graduate from Richmond High School, at the age of 97! To her, it marked the fulfillment of a dream that she had since almost 90 years ago. That was ever since her education was cut short in the fourth grade. This dream could have continued on as an unfulfilled dream, until she decided to begin taking action in fulfilling this dream.

Have you fulfilled the resolutions that you have set at the start of the year yet? Have you started to work on fulfilling these resolutions?

I want to share with you a fable called The Crow and the Pitcher.

A Crow, half-dead with thirst, came upon a Pitcher which had once been full of water; but when the Crow put its beak into the mouth of the Pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it, and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it.

He tried, and he tried, but at last had to give up in despair. Then a thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher.

At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him, and after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.
What's the moral of this story? Little by little does the trick.
Fellow toastmasters, we can reach our goals just by doing little by little. Have you already started to realize your dream? What's your toastmaster's goal for the New Year?

Start achieving these goals by doing your projects, by being an appointment holder and doing them, little by little, but consistently. That is the surest way to reaching your goals.

Carpe MOMENTO! Let us seize the moment and enjoy every moment of this wonderful year!

Club News for December 2008

The following Members have completed their projects in our last December meeting. Congratulations!

Elton Lim - our newest member for completing his 3rd project

Joan Wong - for completing her 8th project. Joan's speech was voted the best prepared speech of the evening.

Change can happen!

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.

Life is a Series of Presentations

According to Tony Jeary, the author of the book, "Life is a Series of Presentations', daily life is actually a series of making one presentation after another. Every time you talk to someone, you're making a presentation; whether the person is your wife, your boss, your children or even the coffee seller at the kopitiam. Every human interaction is a presentation. So every time you talk to someone, you're presenting yourself, pushing your image, trying to convince them to see you in a special way, trying to persuade him or her to see your point of view.

As described in the book, Tony Jeary is a well known coach to America's top CEO's. He says that great presenters have a few things in common:

* careful about their appearances
* prepare their presentations
* understand skill and hardship are important
* study the audience to understand it's members
* seem emphatic and caring

To master the skill of being a great presenter requires a level of 'unconscious competence.' This level means that it's second nature to you and comes naturally. But how does one get this skill? Tony Jeary described in his book the essentials needed in becoming a master presenter. Example of these essentials are: know your audience, find out the purpose of the presentation, do your homework, conquer your fear, lead the audience gently and be flexible. Tony writes that one should develop habits based on these essentials and to practice these presentation skills to both large and small audiences.

We believe this level can also be achieved by joining Toastmasters! Getting this skill requires a program of communication and practice that Toastmasters have in abundance. By joining Toastmasters and diligently completing the manuals allows anyone to achieve this level of 'unconscious competence'. Great presenters are in fact great communicators! We believe that Toastmasters is an easy way to achieve the skills mentioned by Tony Jeary. So don't waste time, be a master in life by being a successful presenter to all the people in you life. Join Toastmaster now or if you are already a member, continue doing your projects.

Contest Winners of Area S3 Humorous Speech & Speech Evaluation

Fellow Toastmasters!

Thank you to all who made our Area S3 Humorous Speech & Speech Evaluation Contest a resounding success! It was an afternoon filled with laughter and insight from the speeches of our contestants.

It is with great pleasure that I announce to you the Winners of the Speech Contests.

Area S3 Humorous Speech Contest
Champion: Michael Leong (Braddell Heights 2)
1st Runner-Up: Cheng Wei Yi (Braddell Heights 2)
2nd Runner-Up: Jun Peralta (Toastmasters @ The Serangoon)

Area S3 Speech Evaluation Contest
Champion: Benjamin Cheng (Braddell Heights 2)
1st Runner-Up: Cheng Chia Yi (Braddell Heights 2)
2nd Runner-Up: Georgia Tan (Punggol)

The Champions of both contest will represent Area S3 in the Division S Humorous Speech & Speech Evaluation Contest on the 18th October 2008!

Let us give the contest winners and participants our warmest support!

Once again, thank you for your support!

Daryl Neo
On behalf of Organising Committee
Area S3 Humorous Speech & Speech Evaluation Contest 2008/09