25th August 2015, Demonstration Meeting

On the evening of Tuesday 25 August 2015, we had our demonstration meeting for this year. Students and prospective members came down to find out more about what the Toastmasters’ journey is like, gain a better idea about what happens at a chapter meeting, and register for membership. This year, the crowd was massive, filling up the greater part of LT 27 at Science, which is one of the largest lecture theatres in NUS; several of our speakers for the day cited that they had not had the experience of speaking in front of such a large crowd before.

The meeting has hosted throughout by lively emcees Tan Kang Rui (CC) and Elaine Sam (CC). It kicked off with a welcome address by our club President, Nathaddeus Tan ( CC,ALB ) and a very interesting and engaging explanation by Crispin Rodrigues (DTM) about the role of a Language Evaluator and several small, important, not-commonly-known details about certain words and their usage in English among other things. The word of the day, ‘amplify’, was announced, and the speakers were supposed to try to illustrate good use of this word in various forms, in their speeches. Next, our club Mentor, Wekie Tay (DTM) further lightened the atmosphere with his speech ‘Taking the Terror out of the Talk’, which helped set the mood for the guests to participate in the next segment of the meeting- Table Topics.

The Table Topics segment was hosted by our alumnus Darryl Lee (ACB,ALB), who enlightened the guests about table topics, including the fact that they were so called because they were topics pertaining to small, impromptu talk which commonly arise at a table setting, such as over a meal. After a demonstration by a club member, Hariom Jani, two guests braved the stage to speak on the table topics, which were on the theme of ‘life in NUS’, which was very fitting for the guests as it ensured that almost everyone should have something to say on the topics. Then there was voting for the better of the 2 guest table topics speakers and the winner was awarded a ribbon ‘Best Table Topics Speaker’ in recognition of this.

This was then followed by our prepared speech segment and speech evaluations. The 2 prepared speeches were on Project 1 and 2, as this should help the audience know better about what they would be doing soon if they joined as a member; the speeches were done by Ho Fuk Kin (CC), about his changing his major in NUS, and by Jaysree (CC), about the sugar in common drinks. Before the evaluations, two of our members, Jun Han (CC) and our former VP Membership, Christina (CC), shared with the audience about their personal stories, journey, and experiences with Toastmasters.  Then the evaluators, Sergio Rinaldi (CC) and Teo Hui Juen (ACB,ALB) respectively proceeded to present their feedback to the prepared speakers.

Finally, the Language Evaluator and the Ah-counter, Keerthana , presented their reports, as well as the timer Weizhe (who had in fact been announcing the time taken by speakers throughout the meeting as needed). Keerthana had been noting the pause-fillers used by the speakers throughout their speech and announced at the end which pause-fillers were used and how many times they had been used by each speaker. Not surprisingly, our club mentor Wekie Tay had managed to use the word of the day the most number of times of all the speakers. After these reports, Wekie delivered a lively speech on the value of communication, ‘How Communication and Leadership Can Help You Succeed’. Then club president Nathaddeus gave the closing address, summing up the meeting and inviting the guests to proceed outside to have some refreshments, mingle with members of the club, clarify any doubts, and register for membership.

It was a memorable demonstration meeting, made possible by the hard work of the EXCO and also of all the members who had volunteered to help out at the meeting in various roles. We signed up many new members and are looking forward to integrating them into the club and have them start speaking and improving, becoming better speakers, listeners, thinkers, and eventually leaders.

Written by : Ananya Das

Reviewed by: Neoh Tse wei