The "Winning Speech Contests" Workshop - A Real Winner

Jonathan Moh writes on the workshop and the potluck dinner that followed :

(Workshop + Potluck + Meeting = Perfection)


D’Utama Toastmasters’ Club held its regular meeting on the 25th of February 2010 in Damansara Utama College. However, this meeting was spiced up with a few additions in conjunction with the Chinese New Year Celebration and the upcoming International Speech and Table Topic Competition.

The organizing team decided that a workshop was needed to help the members prepare for the tournament and DTM Siva agreed to conduct this workshop for the members. Furthermore, we had a potluck dinner during this meeting where the members contributed different types of food for this occasion.

Joanna Tong was the Toastmaster of the Evening (TME)

The one leading the charge was none other than one of our upcoming members Joanna Tong. She came up with the theme of the meeting “Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.” It was aptly named as the members were ready take the opportunity to “dance” during the upcoming competition for victory and glory. Public Speaking is like dancing as both require rhythm and finesse to bring the message to the audience effectively.

Siva is seen here conducting the workshop

The main focus of that night’s meeting was the workshop given by Siva. Siva stated that the main goal of the speech is to convince your audience, i.e. the judges and the people listening to you. Therefore, a winning speech must contain 3 main characteristics: it must be personal, emotional and entertaining. He stresses that the speech must be in sync with the values of the audience to touch them on a personal level. One of the ways we can do this is to share our personal experiences with the audience. According to him, we can touch both their hearts and minds and one of the best ways is through humor. We entertain the audience but at the same time we give them something to think about and to take back home. Finally, he also reminded us that anything can happen so we are to go up there and do our best and have fun while doing it. It was done in 25 minutes but the message rang through and through to the audience.

Everybody gets ready to loh ...

 Any Malaysian gathering cannot be complete without food. We organized a potluck dinner where every member brought a dish to share with the club so we had dishes ranging from noodles to jelly. To ensure that we have good luck for the coming, one of the members brought a Chinese New Year’s dish known as yee sang and the members had a good time tossing it. It was a good time as we got to know one another better as friends and fellow pilgrims on the same journey where no road is too long.

25th February was a meaningful night for of us who attended as it as everybody took something meaningful home that night, be it knowledge or the strengthening of a friendship. It is my hope that this night will be a precedent for more meaningful ones like that where we connect with each other and be edified through the speeches and example of our fellow Toastmasters.

For more photos of the night's meeting, follow this link : http://picasaweb.google.com/DUtamaToastmasters/DUtamaToastmasterCNYPotluckMeetingFeb252010#