It's more than just winning a contest, It's about winning hearts

Most recently indeed Taylors University Toastmasters Club held their very first

Toastmasters International Speech Contest

A contest you say? well well well, what does this contest involve? Allow me to explain fellow readers:

An international Speech contest allows participants to write inspirational speech's as part of contest where by they are allowed to compete among their fellow toastmasters. You will first start of at your club level contest, and from there the winner proceeds to the area level contest, and subsequently the winners progress to the division level contest, district level contest until you finally reach the International level.

There is another category in the contest as well, and this is the Table Topics Contest. When a participant goes up, they are given a topic at random and they have to talk about it for 2 minutes on the spot. That's right, you hardly have much time to think!

The challenge in each of the contests are well defined. The prepared speech tests you on your ability to present your content in a persuasive and eloquent manner. The story of your speech is important and speakers give a lot of thought into its construction. The idea is to practiced what has been preached, after all this time learning how to improve oneself, it is then that time to test yourself and see how you fare in the communicating world. Where words my friends are most certainly mightier than the sword.

The table topics contest on the other hand, tests your ability with regards to extemporaneous speaking, quick thinking, command of the language and of course the ability to organize ones thoughts.

There are many role players involved in the set up of the contest. This includes:

Organizing Chair
International Speech Contest Chair
Table Topics Contest Chair
Time Keepers x2
Ballot Counters x2
Chief Judge and Judges(who remain unknown throughout the competition)
Sergeant at Arms and Assistant Sergeant at Arms
Toastmaster of the Morning (of course!)

All these role players work like clogworks to get the competition up and running. Without the other the show cannot go on.

I learned from my experience in this contest that there is a lot of preparation as well as procedure that goes into a contest. Everything we do is in consideration of equality and fairness to all particpants. From how we introduce the participants to how the table topics session is run.

All in all these are just the tip of the iceberg and but the mere techinicalities of the Toastmasters contest. But before we can even begin to explain how the contest went, it is better to understand the how the system flows.

Stay tuned to find out more on our contest and the results that we reaped.

Image Sources
Image 1: http://www.district31.org/contest_home.html
Image 2:http://www.toastmasters.org/MainMenuCategories/Shop/SpeechContestMaterials/SPEECHCONTESTRIBBONPARTICIPANT569.aspx


Signing off
Isabell Zubinsha
Vice President of Education
Taylors University Toastmasters Club

Meeting on the 12th of February

Greetings everyone,

While having the CNY spirit in us, Taylor's University Toastmaster Club will be having a meeting this coming Saturday on the 12th of February 2011. This time round there isn't any theme for the meeting at all. Club president, Stephanie Teoh will be providing some updates on the club members' this Saturday.

Meetings will be held at the usual time at 9.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. at LT 14. Should there be any changes to the location of the meeting do feel free to check out our Facebook page for any updates.

For those who are interested in joining our meeting do feel free to come to our meeting this Saturday and we hope to see you then.

By Timothy Kandilis

Happy Chinese New Year

First and foremost, Happy Chinese New Year everyone. Tis the year of the rabbit!

I hope this makes for an interesting blogpost because I managed to rumage around the internet for some pretty interesting facts about the Chinese Horoscope this year as well as some other random information.

personality traits of those born in the year of the Rabbit include:

• sensitive
• tactful
• home-loving
• refined
• long-living
• ambitious
• cultured
• well-mannered
• artistic
• considerate
• suave
• graciously hospitable
• modest

and that is just to name a few!!

Now for some other interesting facts. How about the many famous rabbits through our history! And yes i literally mean RABBITS:

• Roger Rabbit

• Bugs Bunny

  

• Velveteen Rabbit

• Peter Rabbit

• Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh

• The White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland

• Thumper from Bambi

Wow, I think its obvious rabbits have had pretty large impact on the entertainment industry especially when reaching out to younger children.

These characters have so many different qualities and personas yet one thing in common, They're ADORABLE!

Think you could come up with a speech relating to rabbits? Consider it. A simple subject such as this could be used in so many ways to mold a very interesting speech topic indeed. 

That's all for now from TUTMC.

Keep reading, and of course never stop "Pushing yourself to the Limit"



signing off,
Isabell Zubinsha
Vice President of Education

Recruitment Drive on 25 January 2011

Recruitment drive!! Beautiful, tall, young, fashionable, good smelling, gorgeous from the head to the toe, all handsome and pretty guys and girls mingle on the floor, all in search of a cool club to join!

Taylor's University Toastmasters club was there to be part of the hustle and bustle too, flanked by 2 gorgeous ladies Stephanie and Jillian at the booth set up by Taylor's. Without a doubt, it has been a successful event with curious students wanting to know more about the club. There were many clubs in action to capture the attention of passerby.

When a passer by comes to our booth, one of our friendly members will give a brief explanation of the benefits of Toastmasters club, after that get them to write their email for us. We will then update them on the coming meeting so that they can attend to decide if Toastmaster is for them.

The event was filled with colors and sounds as the wide variety of active student clubs display their costumes, art work, music and dance performances. The cool boys of Taylor's Beatbox club and break dancers did their performance that wowed the girls of Taylor's, as well as send the cool college boys shouting for encore! Taylor's Creative club was seen drawing beautiful chalk drawings on the cemented floor of the new Lakeside Campus. So as Taylor's Anime club is seen dressed in Japanese themed costumes to add to the variety of beautiful Taylorians.


By Leong Vincent
Photo credit: Daniel Ting

‎22nd January 2011 (Club Meeting)

Greetings everyone.......

Yesterday, on the 22nd of January 2011, we had our second meeting of the year and it went off with a bang with our theme "Summer in January". Everyone who came and participated in our meeting yesterday came decked out with their summer attire.



During both the president address and also the invocation address yesterday, Toastmaster Stephanie had a few treasured messages that she wanted to share to both the members of the club as well as to the guest. She mentioned that in times when we ever want to give up or are at the verge of giving up, we must have faith to keep on going as it will lead us to success.



The table topic session yesterday on the summer theme also saw participation from both our members and also the guest. Also, there were also great enthusiasm from those who participated in the table topic session yesterday as there some interesting topics that were given to the participant. Not only that, when it came down to the prepared speeches yesterday by our speakers yesterday, there were a lot of exciting and interesting speeches that were presented and boy did we enjoyed it. Some of the prepared speeches deal with their first experience, the Malaysian obsession, being able to come out from our comfort zone, being able to come home and so on.

Overall it was a successful meeting as we had fun and the enthusiasm that were shown through those who participated in yesterdays meeting and we hope to see you in the future.

Club Meeting on Jan 8, 2011

Hey guys! Taylor's University Toastmaster's Club is now back in action. We will be starting our first meeting of the year this Saturday from 9.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. Theme of the meeting this Saturday would be "The Birth".

On top of the usual meeting schedule, we will be having two features during the meeting itself.

(1) Time Capsule Activity

Upon the arrival of attendants, each of them (who include you if you're attending) is required to write down his/her goals to achieve in the year 2011 on a piece of paper provided. It could be anything, not necessarily about toastmasters. The papers will be folded and kept into a box. The box will then be sealed. During the last Taylor's TMC club meeting in 2011, we'll reopen the box again to see how far we've been achieving our goals.


(2) Official Visit of Area B1 Governor

Lay Kun, ACB CL will make her official visit to our club meeting. Charter certificates will be given out to all TUTMC members.


Well this is just the beginning. Stay tune and we've more exciting themes to come! :)

We look forward to seeing everyone of you there.

Details of the location are shown below:

Details of the meeting

Map to Taylor's University 

Words by

Stephanie Teoh

Charter President

The Earth starts another journey around the Sun

That's right my friends, the earth ends one journey around the sun and starts another one, this symbolises the end of 2010 and the beggining of 2011.

Indeed its amazing how fast time goes by. With that Taylors University Toastmasters Club will be ushering the new year with our first meeting for the year themed "The Birth" on the 8th of January 2011.

With speeches to look forward to, interesting table topic sessions and a time for us to come together again after the break, we hope to have a good kick start to the new year.

With that I would like to wish each and everyone reading this post

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2011 is expecting, and has only just given birth to its first few days and experiences.

Cheers to moving ahead and growth.

post by Isabell Zubinsha
VPE
Taylors University Toastmasters CLub