27th January 2015 – Expressing Creativity

Hello, Toastmasters and our lovely guests who attended!

Our word of the day, ‘camaraderie’, set our meeting’s tone. Our members’ growth is healthy with new members shining on stage and everyone enjoying a jubilant evening. Speech after speech, the camaraderie grew.

KARMA. Supatra’s spoon story showed us the yin and yang of life. What goes around comes around. “To steal a spoon for her?” her friend thought. “Yes, this stolen spoon will steal Supatra’s heart!” her friend was certain. When we steal, nature has its ways of righting a wrong. While celebrating a festival afterwards, the spoon thief lost his apartment keys in a pond. Supatra’s heart? Not successfully stolen. KARMA. Well done on your expressive ‘Your body speaks’ speech!

Stuart delivered his ‘Speaking to inform’ speech convincingly. His creative presentation slides on our communication methods shed new light on how we connect with each other. Intrapersonal communication, interpersonal communication, physical noise, psychological noise, and semantic noise are just some facts about communication. It was an informative presentation, Stuart, and we look forward to your next one.

What lessons could we learn from the outstanding Toastmaster, Reuben? Creativity can be learned and luck can be earned. Many of us may not have innate creativity, but we can learn to apply the creative process. In life, we can’t just sit around waiting for our lucky breakthroughs. We must remain tenacious as we pursue our goals. Our lucky breakthroughs will come when our continued efforts earn them. Zainal the host and Reuben the guest entertained us with their interview show.

Old people and animals. Old people! Seng Yee is surrounded by them! Being bombarded with incessant complaints about sore knees and gout reminds Seng Yee that all of us must start exercising and exercise often. Jordan the Aquarius – child of water – loves animals. Choosing which pets to care for is always challenging with a superstitious mum who says ‘no’ to four-legged organisms. Such is life.

Life after university for Jack is still all about learning. He actively learns in our Toastmasters clubs, and in his current job which a fellow Toastmaster offered him! Speaking of jobs, Ashavan shared interesting insights to his career working in oil and gas wells. There is well analysis; there are daily targets, and there is production maximization. Kudos on braving Table Topics for the first time!

Congratulations, Yasmin, for taking home the ‘Best Table Topics Speaker’ ribbon! You shared a touching story on coping with our hardships in life. We could all appreciate our loved ones whom we often talk to and learn from. Life is hard when they are gone but we can appreciate them by letting their experiences and insights continue to move us forward in life.

Keep up our club’s strong camaraderie, fellow BSC-ians! Thanks to your support, our members are learning to shine on stage. Huge round of applause for first-time Toastmaster of the Evening, Gerald, and first-time Grammarian, Derby, who showed that first-timers can be creative on stage!

Contest season is upon us once more, fellow members! On the 24^th of February 2015, the Brunei Speakers’ Club will be holding its Table Topics and International Speech contests. Any member keen on enhancing your speaking skills, please contact Hazwan, Allen, or Reuben. Any member keen on helping our club and other Toastmasters clubs run the contests, please contact Hazwan, Allen, or Reuben too. UBD Toastmasters club will hold its contest on February 22^nd 2015 and OTTERS Toastmasters club will hold its contest on February 25^th 2015.

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that is creativity.”

 

Written By

Hazwan Kamarulzaman

Photography By

Dalton Lim