Photos @ 08 Feb 2011

Report by Angeline Lee, VPE

Dedication to Excellence

Undeterred by the fact that the first and third Tuesday of February were public holidays, Friendship members met up on the Tuesday after our Chinese New Year holiday break. As much as we love public holidays, we were adamant not to be derailed from our journey of  “Dedication to Excellence”, our meeting theme.

To add to the festive celebration, members and guests of Friendship came dressed according to our RED dress code. Grace also brought fortune cookies for our delectation and Chee Hoe provided Chinese New Year songs.

From L: Susan with her guests Daphne, Abe & Dana. 

Also in the picture are VPM Chee Hoe and Treasurer Wai Yee

From L: Past President Tony Lim, VPPR Alexandra, Grace Tan & Marian, President of TTDI Toastmasters Club

True to our meeting theme, first-timer TME Wai Yee had done ample preparation for her role and received an accolade (word of the day) from General Evaluator (GE) Jack Lim, visiting from AFC Toastmasters Club.

Table Topics Master (TTM) Grace Tan decided to do away with the usual Table Topics routine. Each one of us received an ang pow from our generous TTM. Six lucky recipients automatically qualified as Table Topics speakers when our ang pow contained money instead of new year’s greetings.

Split into two teams, the Men Team consisting of Ben, Abe and Dana persuaded us that marriage is better than singlehood. It was the perfect moment for Ben to give us the happy news that he will be ending his bachelor days soon.

The Ladies Team consisting of Jessica, Angeline and Alexandra spoke on why singlehood is better than marriage, with Jessica hilariously explaining that men can’t be trusted. Alexandra’s passion shone through in her well-crafted speech that if we are lucky, we will find our one true love. For those of us who are single, we have the choice to give love to many people e.g. orphans and those less fortunate than us.

In his “Chinese New Year Blessings” speech, Ian told us that this year, he is celebrating Chinese New Year with his new family, Friendship family ! Each of us is a blessing to each other, he said.

Ian with his speech evaluator Ben Fong

For Alexandra, her speech on “Set Yourself on Fire” had inspiring stories of Aung San Suu Kyi and Thomas Edison. Explaining that the fundamental of excellence is passion, she persuaded us to do everything with passion, to feel it and live it.

During our break, we had a loh sang session, which was made possible by Immediate Past President Ben Fong who had thoughtfully provided the loh sang dish.

IPP Ben Fong preparing the lou sang dish

Among other things, we wished for health, wealth, career and family !

After our brief break, the meeting resumed with the Evaluation Session. GE Jack informed us he will be reporting on the good, the bad and the ugly. As we had an unusual Table Topics Session, we also had an unusual Table Topics evaluation. Instead of one evaluator, we had two evaluators, Jessica and Chee Hoe.

Timer Emily with Table Topics evaluator DTM Jessica and evaluator DTM Oi Wah, both visiting from MAICSA Toastmasters Club

For the speech evaluation, DTM Oi Wah was most impressive. Our GE commented that her speech sounded as if it was prepared a few days ago even though it was an impromptu speech. Her inspiring and motivating evaluation speech for Alexandra was a perfect ending to Alexandra’s speech which had the objective to inspire the audience.

For his general evaluation report, GE Jack was full of accolades for our newsletter, our Friendship blog and our Friendship Facebook page. His eloquent manner of speaking impressed Wai Yee’s two guests.

Thank you, GE Jack

The awards for our “Dedication to Excellence” meeting went to
Best Table Topics Speaker – Alexandra
Best Prepared Speech – Alexandra
Best Speech Evaluator – DTM Oi Wah

Alexandra with her Best Table Topics Speaker award & gift, courtesy of TTM Grace Tan

DTM Oi Wah wins the Best Speech Evaluator award

We have had a wonderful festive evening, with our Toastmasters and non-Toastmasters guests. As Ian had said, Friendship family members are indeed a blessing. We look forward to many more wonderful meetings in the Rabbit lunar year !

Group photo