1/7/2009 - The first toastsmasters meeting for our ING Leadership Club has just came and gone... but the dust can hardly settle. And yea, I know, not only you cannot believe it.... even I can't believe it myself. Me, a toastmasters? Ha Ha. Someone like me ,who can write a lot, is usually the quiet or soft-spoken type, the shy type.... If I go to a party, you'll see me slowly blending with the wallpapers. Yes, I can be very very verbose when I write, (my good friend Gina will call it verbal diarheoa), there's usually not enough words for me to write if there's a word limit. However, when it come to speeches, boy, I am done for. I mean, where do people find the words to say after the usual niceties like, "Good evening, it's good that we have nice weather tonight to conduct this party." (even though it looks like rain outside but I just use the same line over, because I do not carry a whole black book of "pick up lines" like the guys often do.)
Anyway, back to the meeting...It was two hours orientation by the Division W Governor and other mentors who are going to help us get the club going for the first 6 months and after that they believe that we can stand on our own two feet. Wow, there were a lot of information or just one meeting. And we were given some demos on how we can train to give impromptu short speeches and also give slightly longer prepared speeches. It's all like a course in public speaking and yours truly being an advocate to learning something new was like a young girl given a new toy.
Ok ok, bad analogy. Perhaps I should say it's like a young kid on their first day at Kindergarten. Remember how fun Kindergarten was, With all the teachers making learning fun and all your friends who doesn't have any care in the world? And all the kids were eager beavers in learning new things. And oh, remember the teabreaks where they serve milo, cakes and koko crunch? And in some kindies, they even have show and tell. And the "table topics" (impromptu speeches) in toastmasters are pretty much like show and tell. You can talk basically about anything, because the main thing that they want to teach you is to "speak".
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the meeting was 2 hours but it didnt really feel long as the energy level created by those experienced Toastmasters were excellent and everyone went home feeling that they could somewhat benefit from the program. Well, I was quite skeptical at first because I didnt believe anyone can help a quiet person like to talk like Anthony Robbins or Obama. I mean, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, can we?
However, after watching how dedicated the mentors and other volunteery council members are, I was sold. These people are very motivated and they dont profit monetarily which is what earned my respect! (But I still wonder where they find so much time, and energy and how they get so motivated... hmmm....).
Well, there's still much to learn and much to practise. As for now, it's just the beginning of the journey and we learn a new thing a step at a time...and that's what makes our journey more pleasurable, more meaningful and more colourful.
Cheers to all who are embarking on this new journey. :)
Anyway, back to the meeting...It was two hours orientation by the Division W Governor and other mentors who are going to help us get the club going for the first 6 months and after that they believe that we can stand on our own two feet. Wow, there were a lot of information or just one meeting. And we were given some demos on how we can train to give impromptu short speeches and also give slightly longer prepared speeches. It's all like a course in public speaking and yours truly being an advocate to learning something new was like a young girl given a new toy.
Ok ok, bad analogy. Perhaps I should say it's like a young kid on their first day at Kindergarten. Remember how fun Kindergarten was, With all the teachers making learning fun and all your friends who doesn't have any care in the world? And all the kids were eager beavers in learning new things. And oh, remember the teabreaks where they serve milo, cakes and koko crunch? And in some kindies, they even have show and tell. And the "table topics" (impromptu speeches) in toastmasters are pretty much like show and tell. You can talk basically about anything, because the main thing that they want to teach you is to "speak".
Anyway, to cut a long story short, the meeting was 2 hours but it didnt really feel long as the energy level created by those experienced Toastmasters were excellent and everyone went home feeling that they could somewhat benefit from the program. Well, I was quite skeptical at first because I didnt believe anyone can help a quiet person like to talk like Anthony Robbins or Obama. I mean, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, can we?
However, after watching how dedicated the mentors and other volunteery council members are, I was sold. These people are very motivated and they dont profit monetarily which is what earned my respect! (But I still wonder where they find so much time, and energy and how they get so motivated... hmmm....).
Well, there's still much to learn and much to practise. As for now, it's just the beginning of the journey and we learn a new thing a step at a time...and that's what makes our journey more pleasurable, more meaningful and more colourful.
Cheers to all who are embarking on this new journey. :)
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