What Can We Do During These Times?

We have the recession, and we asked what the government of this country could do for us.

And so the government has responded in the 2009 budget by giving Singaporeans:

• Additional GST credit

• Service and Conservancy Charges Rebates

• Tax assistance to households

• Increase in additional CFP housing grant

• Financial assistance for students and a few others….

We have jobs instability, and we asked what our company could do for us.

And so our companies responded by offering the employees to retain our jobs:

• Using the Job Credit Scheme and/or

• Shorter work week

• A pay-cut across the board

We have our Toastmasters club and we asked what the club could do for us.

Our Club provides:

• a conducive environment where members meet up once a month to practise public speaking techniques

• Mentors to guide you through your Competent Communication manual, which is a series of 10 self-paced speaking assignments designed to instill a basic foundation in public speaking.

• a chance to learn leadership skills by taking on various meetings roles and serving as officers at clubs and district levels, and by working in the Competent Leadership manual and the High Performance Leadership program.

• a feedback process by asking members to evaluate one another presentations.

Despite all these offers of solutions, we often question if what they have done are enough.

We always feel that the government should do more... our companies should do more and our club should do more too.

More never seems to be enough.

We have the recession, and we asked what the government of this country could do for us.

We have jobs instability, and we asked what our company could do for us.

We have our toastmasters club and we asked what the club could do for us.

You see, there is never an "ENOUGH" in life. Our success in life depends on how we respond to life's challenges. We have a choice. We can decide to continue to passively wait for things to happen, or decide today to be proactively seeking to make a positive difference to our life. It is only by doing so that we can create a positive and bright future together.

Let's us start to ask ourselves, "What can I do better?"

Let's not ask what the club can do for us but what we can do for the club.

And how exactly can we do so? We can by:

• Faithfully attend the monthly chapter meeting

• Completing our Competent Communicator Manual and/or the advanced manual

• Learning leadership skills by taking on various meetings roles and serving as officers at clubs and district levels

• Learning from a different perspective by evaluating members.

Let's start to embrace challenges together and contribute!

February Club News

Let us praise a number of our members who achieved significant milestones in our February meeting. Congratulations to Joan for completing her 10th project. Congratulations as well to Dave who did his first project. Congratulations also to Edison who bravely did two projects in one night.

We wish to thank our club members like Mike, Peng and Jun who served as evaluators. We also thank Madeline who served as the toastmaster of the evening. Also the club was honored to have a pioneer member attend the club meeting - Asha.

Happy Chinese New Year!

We wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009. The incoming Year of the Ox is generally considered a fruitful year. From our club perspective, this year maybe the best time to work on your projects and grow into a more confident communicator and leader.

So prepare for an exciting year ahead!


Club News for January 2009:

In our last club meeting, one of our new members Emmanuel did his first project and Joan Wong also completed her project 9. Let's congratulate them on a job well done.


We also welcome our newest member Dave Tang who participated in club activities like table topics. Congratulations also to Mike Chia who was voted the best table topics speaker of the evening.

All in all, it was a good start of the year for all.


How to be a Good Conversationalist


Have you ever come to a social event like a party and felt awkward? Do you have problem striking a conversation with complete strangers? Do you have trouble having a conversation with people you don't know?

Many people think that the art of good conversation is to speak in an interesting and arresting fashion, to be noted for your humour, ability to tell stories and your general knowledge of a variety of subjects. Many people feel that, if they want to be better at conversation, they must become more articulate, outgoing and expressive. They must become better talkers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The most important skill is listening, to learn about the other person. So try not to dominate the conversation. Try to let the other person speak more and listen to him. So the trick is the art of asking good and well-formed questions.

Ask Open ended questions. These are questions that attempt to let the other person talk more. These are questions that do not require an simple answer of YES and NO. Ask questions that begin with 'WHAT', 'HOW' and 'WHY'. This will encourage the other person to speak more.

The art of good conversation centers very much on your ability to ask questions and to listen attentively to the answers. You can lace the conversation with your insights, ideas, and opinions, but you perfect the art and skill of conversation by perfecting the art and skill of asking good, well-worded questions that direct the conversation and give other people an opportunity to express themselves.

In order to be an excellent conversationalist, you must resist the urge to dominate the discussion. The very best conversationalists seem to be low-key, easy-going, cheerful, and genuinely interested in the other person. They seem to be quite content to listen when other people are talking and they make their own contributions to the dialogue rather short and to the point.

Some helpful tips in having successful conversations:
- have a positive attitude
- believe you will learn something
- believe you can offer something as well
- know about current events
- listen always to the other person

Developing effective conversational skills is an investment in your future. By improving your conversational skills you talk with confidence. You have the ability to talk to almost any person attracting friends and business clients twice the rate as you would without such skills.

(To view presentation materials used in Advanced Project by one of our members, please double click on the link below.)

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcj9g43c_27cd5sr7fq

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.