Prime time for rhyme

Tonight is a prime time for rhyme,

Because doing speeches are no crime,

Fun and laughter

with Toastmaster Awfa,

To great heights, we’ll soar and climb.

Our meeting tonight was filled with poetry as TM Awfa opened the meeting with rhyme after rhyme – all original too! She told the story of her grandfather who passed away recently. His age might have been mature, but his heart was young to the end.

Awfa wanted to bring that spark of youth to tonight’s meeting and I’d like to think she did. One of her tactics was by introducing our role players with poems to ignite our inner child.

Starting with the Table Topic wizard, Rano Iskandar, ACB, ALB. After casting Rano casted his magic spell on us, Awfa called upon our Table Topics Evaluator, Syatrah Roslan, SR2, with a Bippity-Boppity-Boo! Next to the shore was our seashell-selling, show-stopping Grammarian, Rahmat Tarsat, CC. Rahmat didn’t just bring seashells with her though, but also, the Word of the Day – APPOSITE! Apposite means appropriate and I thought it was apposite that our next role player should be TM Sophiana Chua as our Ah Counter and Who Said What, because far from stuttering, she knew just what to say! Next in line after Sophiana was the tick-tocking hickory-docking Gerald Goh, CC, ALB. And fee-fi-fo-fum finally, our General Evaluator, Nabil Abdul Kadir, CC! Phew!

With our line up all poised and prosed up, it was time to move onto our Prepared Speeches, featuring our one and only TM Jidun Dollah, with “Get a Health Check-Up”. Our Speech Evaluator, Hazwan Kamarulzaman, ACB, ALB introduced the project of tonight – the dreaded CC9: Persuade with Power! Jidun’s objectives for the speech was to convince us to action with credibility, logic and emotion.

Jidun began by stressing how health issues can happen to anyone with no distinction. He told the story of a healthy young man who was overcome by a heart attack with no warning. That young man was later revealed to be his very own brother! Jidun stressed the availability of health check ups at institutions available at every neighbourhood and how affordable they are – ranging from $1 or the price of one Nasi Katok to $5 or one Starbucks Latte. Jidun ended with a metaphor of how you would bring your car for a check-up, so why shouldn’t you bring your body for a check-up too? What powerful words! I don’t know about Hazwan, but I was certainly persuaded!

Next were the Table Topics session and our Table Topics Master came on board with the theme of “The Fountain of Youth”. Our Table Topics speakers tonight are :

Describe one person that makes you feel young. (He chose Ling Ling because of her hugs!)

How to feel youthful? (He said to let children make the decisions for you!)

Which feature of your body makes you feel young? (He says body image is decided by society so you would have a better piece of mind if you didn’t care at all.)

Describe a movie that makes you feel young. (He said “Avengers: Infinity War” and was very excited in describing the movie for us.)

How to make yourself look young in photos? (She said it isn’t about looking young, but looking slim – and a good photographer is essential!)

How to be young? (She said to change your outlook on life and you’ll feel happier and younger too!)

All our speakers spoke beautifully, but there could only be one winner and the ribbon went to Pranika! She dedicated her acceptance speech to Allen – because he really does have a way with the camera! Joining Pranika in the ranks of Best, is TM Sophiana as the Best Evaluator of the night! Her even pacing and her clever questions kept us at the edge of our seats as we tried to get our answers just right.

But the meeting isn’t over just yet! We had quite a few AOBS tonight, and our President, Aziman Nasir, also took the chance to show off our new slides. A few things were brought to light, namely :

1) Reuben Chin, ACB, ALG will be recruiting members who are interested in the initiative of achieving 100 Bruneian Toastmasters. Right now, our numbers are in the 60s. We want to press on into the triple digits! If you want to help us attain this goal, please do contact Reuben. I’m sure he would welcome the help!

2) Gerald and Hazwan judged at the OGDC Science Show Competition last Saturday and enjoyed themselves immensely. Gerald said he was infected by the kids’ enthusiasm and love for science, while Hazwan loved having the opportunity to apply the feedback he learned at Toastmasters.

3) The Workshop on “How to Sell Your Story” has been taken by Ling Ling.

4) There is an opportunity to judge a PTE Tutong Public Speaking competition in September. Another opportunity to give back to the community and show everyone what Toastmasters are made of! Please do contact Rahmat if you are interested.

5) There will be an initiative to visit UBD Toastmasters on the 23rd July. UBD TM has been wonderful at supporting BSC every meeting and it would be great to return the favour. Please do contact Ling Ling if you are interested.

With all that said and done, our President reminded all of us of the value of commitment as our club is kept running by dedicated and loving members. With a great bang of his Gavel, he signaled the end of our second meeting of the term. Our next TME is Rahmat! Please do show our support by contacting her for roles. With that, it’s been another great meeting. See you all next week!

Written by Lai Ling Ling, PM2

Photos taken by Aziman Nasir ACB, ALB