Hello hello, everyone!
He’s been a guest at our club for 3 years (3 years!) now, always too young for legal requirements. His humble public speaking career kicked of at Maktab Sains’ gavel club. His first visit to the Brunei Speakers’ Club planted seeds in his abilities. As those seeds took root, he worked his way up to the gavel club’s vice presidency and presidency. Now (finally legal!) standing ovation to Farhan for finally sharing his icebreaker speech! The seeds have borne their first fruits. Public speaking has given no-longer-veteran-guest Farhan a voice. He has potential and if the Brunei Speakers’ Club continues to nourish him, he will no doubt develop his own alluring aura in public speaking.
From a basement in California to now having at least 292,000 members in at least 14,350 clubs worldwide including four clubs in Brunei. Toastmasters is here to stay as an open university! Genevieve shared an engaging 15th anniversary speech for the Brunei Speakers’ Club. Congratulations on achieving your Advanced Communicator Gold award, Genevieve! From her experiences growing with Toastmasters in Brunei, we all learned to enjoy our experiences here, to take out valuable lessons, and to savour our moments here. When we speak from our hearts and personalize our speeches, we will truly engage our audience, fellow Toastmasters!
Luck and ambition go hand-in-hand if you are to achieve your goals. Any aspiring musician must always perfect his craft until he gets his lucky break. Whether you are looking for the perfect decadent cheesecake or looking to find a buyer for your lemon of a car, your lucky break will never come unless you first put in the hard work to make it happen. You must keep tacking left and right tirelessly until you are walking straight to your goals. Having the right support helps too. Thanks for the reminder, Chris Woo and Nick.
A couple of dilemmas need to be sorted out among our fellow Toastmasters. We can easily be influenced by sappy ’80s teen romance and Toastmaster Adidas wants us to differentiate love at first sight and love after many sights clearly. Bobby on the other hand is at such a loss on having a work-life balance. How can the two entities be separated when they are in fact one and the same?! If anyone has insights on these matters, please do share them!
Chris Ng and Immediate Past President Stuart are two sanguine clams. Chris Ng was all smiles when he reminisced his birthdays. From buying Lego sets to buying his Toyota Prado, he has certainly made something of himself. Our best Table Topics speaker, Shawn entertainingly shared why Stuart retired happy. From his club achieving all Distinguished Club Program points to his members winning district speech competitions, money just cannot buy these wondrous experiences!
When all fingers were pointed at him during the great missing spectacles caper, Jack was an icebreaker speaker being torn apart by overly-critical Distinguished Toastmasters. His mum defending his honour until his innocence was proven reminds us to always love mum no matter what. Confidently delivered, Jack. Remember to take advantage of your stage, Table Topics speakers and be wary of those unconscious hand movements! Boom! Thank you, executive committee members (including Stuart) for kicking off our term with a bang and thank you members for your support! I look forward to a fulfilling and fruitful time ahead with all of you!
Yours truly,
President Hazwan