As the first chapter meeting of this new academic year, I felt energised and motivated as I again heard familiar voices of toastmaster friends. Thanks to the initiative of a “Bring-A-Friend Day”, I also got chance to engage in chit-chats with some new friendly faces, who came as guests to explore NUS Toastmaster Club and kickstart their toastmaster journey.

Besides being the first, this chapter meeting also marked another momentous milestone for us: the number of rooms for a normal chapter meeting was increased from 3 to 4, as NUS Toastmaster Club grows to be vibrant enough for toasties and guests to fill up 4 rooms every chapter meeting!

The meeting in Function Room 3 brought to me unique learning experience on that evening. The Toastmaster of the Evening, Yunus, first energised the audience by starting with a warm welcome to guests. After that, the Acting President, Perry, impressed the audience by integrating his sense of humour into his welcome address. The Table Topic session was then handled by Jiaxu, who invited audiences to the stage to remark on the remarkable quotes quoted from esteemed NBA basketball players. The Prepared Speech segment that came afterwards was the showtime for four prepared speech speakers. The first project speaker, Michael, shared with us his insights into nicknames. The second speaker, Zhen Yu, delivered his project 2 speech on the importance of taking down ideas before forgetting them. Then came the third speaker, Weizhe, who activated every part of his body, because using body language is the objective of speech project 5, to make his story of being late for JC exam and learning the lesson afterwards visible and engaging to the audiences. The last speaker, the project 10 speaker Wenxi, reflected on an important decision she made to inspire people to follow their heart.

The end of the prepared speech segment marked the start of tea break. On that evening, Toastmaster family celebrated birthday for all members who were born in August with cheers, cakes and birthday songs.

Immediately after the break was the time evaluators went to the stage and gave feedback to individual speaker. All evaluators not only highlighted the parts the speaker had done well during the speech, but also suggested ways to further refine the speech. The chapter meeting ended with the timer’s report and ah-counter’s report, which reminds everyone to pay attention to time management and pause fillers while they speak.

With three first project speakers, and three more achieving their Competent Communicator on the evening, the evening on 18th August was an evening filled up with laughters and achievements.

Written by:
Yu Wenxi