Kowloon Toastmasters Club

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KOWLOON TOASTMASTERS CLUB
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Club Highlights

Dec 2018 International Speech and Table Topic Contest
Nov 2018, Workshop - Seize your Audience's Senses with Your Storytelling
Dec 2018 Xmas Party
Aug 2018, Workshop - Humorous Speech Made Easy
July 2018, Workshop - The Formula of Effective Evaluation
9th Sep 2017 Anniversary Party ...
26th Feb 2017 Spring Dinner and Speaking Class Graduation Party.
Theme: Back to School
28th Sep 2016 Toastmasters Pathways Workshop by Molly Yip (DTM)
Toastmaster International will launch a brand new educational program in 2017. Molly, who is the ambassador of Toastmaster International, told us how would that affect new members and existing members.
20th Aug 2016 16th Anniversary Party
Kowloon Club Sweet Sixteen party – Good friends enjoyed delcious food, wine, card games, lucky draw, Olympic games togehter. Lots of fun and laughters! Susanna won the title of Goddess of Gamble in the evening!
10th Aug 2016 Workshop by PC Chan
On 10th Aug, in our meeting, we have a very educational workshop by PC Chan. Toastmasters not offers us opportunities to brush up our speaking skills but also our leadership skills! PC gives us very useful clue on how to do it easily!
25 May 2016 Workshop by Alex Mok
In the 25 May meeting, Alex Mok, our club’s treasure, presented his workshop with the title – How to captivate your audience in the first 180 seconds? Would it be wonderful when you speak, the audience listen? The question is how to get audience’s attention amidst all the distractions. Alex’s provided five proven techniques in making the audience listen to you. 1. Silence – A moment of silence can effectively command audience’s attention 2. Keywords – Use of appealing keywords can raise audience’s interest. 3. Numbers – Statistics and numbers can tell a startling story more than words. 4. Change of state – You can keep the audience’s attention by changing their state of mind among seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking of your points. 5. Benefits – Audience will follow you if you sell them the benefits. Alex walked his talk and definitely captivated the audience. Thank Alex for his sharing that benefits all of us.
23 Mar 2016 Workshop by Holly Ho and Roberto Fong
In the 23 Mar meeting, we had an educational yet entertaining workshop presented by two English teachers, Miss Holly Ho and Mr Roberto Fong. Both of them are highly regarded in Toastmasters for their language proficiency and encouraging speaking style. The workshop title was ‘Impactful questions to magnify the message’. Holly and Roberto just injected new insights in the use of questions in speeches. Questions attract attention. Questions evoke thinking. But few are aware that questions can magnify the message of a speech. In the workshop, they conducted a number of thought provoking exercises in the workshop. Finally, they illustrated their points by showing us some winning speeches by World Champion speakers who were truly impressive. “Have you ever done something stupid?” “Have you ever met someone that drove you crazy?” “Have you ever fallen at your feet?” The workshop was well received. Thank Holly and Roberto for their sharing and support to KTM.
27 Jan 2016 Evaluation workshop by Nanna Man

Evaluation is a core element in Toastmasters learning. Members learn and improve from feedback given by fellow members. Giving evaluation also benefits the evaluators in learning how to give comments in a constructive way. In this club meeting, we had an award-winning speaker, Nanna Man, to share her insights in evaluation.
Nanna said that even a novice speaker could be an evaluator and we could evaluate a speech in three levels.

Level 1: Evaluate according to the speech project objectives, comment on both content and delivery and sandwich good points and room for improvement.
Level 2: Tell how you feel about the speech, give reasons and then suggestions
Level 3: Comment from your own perspective as an individual

Nanna’s approach is direct and effective. The evaluators in the meeting applied these techniques in their evaluations effectively. Both novice and experienced members benefited a lot from Nanna’s workshop. Thank you, Nanna.

9 December KTM x TGIT x WFTM Christmas Murder Mystery Dinner Party

2015 Christmas Murder Mystery dinner was an extraordinarily wonderful party. It was the very time in KTM history hosting a Christmas party with other clubs and there were not just one club but two! They were two of the best clubs in town –
TGIT (an advanced club) and Wayfoong Toastmasters Club (a corporate club).

The event has drawn a total of 61 participants! Full house!!! More than 20 members from the 3 clubs formed the amazing acting crew. Their creativity and impromptu acting skills rocked the stage. With the extremely hard-working and thoughtful organizing team, the party successfully brought a memorable, entertaining and joyful Christmas to all the members and guests.

Please click –>here<– for more event pictures:

25 Nov 2015 Storytelling workshop by Irene Chen
In the 25 Nov meeting, we were pleased to have an experienced Toastmaster, Ms Irene Chen to conduct a workshop on storytelling. Irene is highly regarded in Toastmasters for her speaking skills and enthusiasms in sharing her experiences. When introducing Irene, Berthold, the TME, said, ‘Anyone who does not know Irene must be a newcomer to Toastmasters.’ Irene took an interactive approach in conducting the workshop. Through her demonstration, the key elements of storytelling were presented to the audience clearly. Members were then invited to present their stories putting what they learned into practice. Finally, Irene introduced the ‘six word stories’. One example is: ‘She married rich and divorced richer’. It is amazing that six words can tell a story full of humor and inspiration. The workshop was effective as well as enjoyable. It is clear that mastering the key elements of storytelling can energize and move people.
30 Oct 2015 Halloween Joint meeting with GAP Toastmasters Club
On 30 Oct 2015, our club had a joint meeting with GAP Toastmasters club. The meeting theme was ‘Halloween’. The meeting was SPOOTACULAR. Thanks to the organizing team in preparing the props – creepy headbands, vampire costume, blinking horns, the wine, snacks etc. Some members were passionate enough to dress up in full Halloween gear. The venue was turned into a hellish playground full of vampires, ghosts, devils and angels. Both presidents started the meeting with some ‘ghost talks’ and set a terrifying yet funny tone for the meeting. The TMEs then conducted the table topics, prepared speeches and evaluations sessions with some light-hearted transitions in between. The table topics master heated up the atmosphere with some scary questions. Even our GE played trick or treat by giving out candies from her pumpkin bowl after her evaluation. Everyone had a good time. The meeting ended in high spirit followed by the after-meeting chit-chat dinner. Thank again to the organizing team from both clubs. The meeting was truly spootacular and ‘edutainment’.
14th October 2015 Meeting Highlights

Regular Meeting on 14th Oct 2015 all came with a sudden bombarding of humorous sayings one after the other, strung up together to form a bout of rain rolling down upon us. We felt the raindrops. We felt the hearty laughs.

‘The more you are surrounded by mobile phones, the more you get used to them and the more you will soon get fed up with them. Walk on. Walk on. You will never walk alone. And the twist —–, by Molly: Walk on. Walk on to the Jockey Club. You will never win’ were words of wonder highlighting the evening. Of course, raindrops kept falling on our head. We got wet and we got drunk in the laughing sounds, feeble, soft down into everyone’s minds.

Meeting started with the President’s stimulation, followed by MC Molly’s agitation, Speakers’ wonderful performance around the theme: Without Mobile Phone and finally spiced up by Dave Cheung’s breaking tradition Workshop on Vocal Variety: free hand- writing scripts, free transition process.

Dave’s eloquence in English, in-born skill of sounds mimicking and sense of humor together made him all successful in bringing the gist of vocal variety to the audience, freeing oneself like a horse galloping in a vast green pasture.

‘Stay tuned to the upcoming great events of KTM and enjoy this rest of the wonderful evening,’ rounded up by our lovely President.

Brain Gym for Table Topics Workshop by Mr Roberto Fong 23 Sept 2015
It was a special evening because the workshop “Brain Gym for Table Topic” conducted by Mr Roberto Fong rocked the stage. Under the instructions of Roberto, everyone’s brain was put in the gym doing exercise. In toastmasters, it is known that table topic session is always challenging. Roberto guided the audience to handle it with a dynamic and systematic approach. Indeed, he did not only share his smart ways of handling table topic questions wisely, but also gave everyone tips on how to enrich the ideas. Every member’s brain was beefed up in the meeting as we all practised the skills and techniques throughout the workshop. In the beginning, Roberto introduced an important concept, pre-stage preparation. Every audience needs to be ready psychologically that they will be picked by the Table Topic Master. With a mental preparation, we will be more acceptive to any challenges. Then, Roberto explained the essential but easy approaches to tackle table topic questions. The three approaches introduced were Past, Present and Future, Pros and Cons and What if. When you are lucky to be selected, one of these approaches will help you organize your thoughts easily. Roberto conducted the table topic section with different levels of difficulty which gave a good demonstration of how to be a table topic master. Some members accepted the challenges and demonstrated the different approaches one by one. Roberto gave them some pointers right away. Everyone performed well which showed the effectiveness of these approaches. Last but not least, Roberto also shared what we should do in the post-stage to consolidate our learnings. This made the whole workshop very complete, organized and well planned. This was no doubt a useful workshop to all members and guests. The skills and suggestions are solid and attainable. Now, with the skills learnt in the workshop, we are ready to go! Thanks should be given to Roberto’s excellent presentation!
5 September 2015 15th Anniversary party of Kowloon Toastmasters Club
Kowloon Toastmasters club is 15 years old in 2015. This is an important year of the club. For a person, 15 years old is the transition time to change from a child to an adult. Kowloon Toastmasters Club has grown to be a mature club with outstanding speakers and leaders. To celebrate this great moment, the Vice President Public Relations, Bruce Chan found a great cafe and organize a big party. How could this event be complete without inviting all past presidents and members? We were delighted that lots of new and old members came share the joy with us. History of the club was captured on a slide show. That brought us all the happy moments and memories of the past. To warm up the audience, the party was started with a quiz. It was really proud to find that all the participants could answer all questions about our club correctly. They really understood and remembered everything about Kowloon Toastmasters Club! After that, it was the performance of our outstanding speakers. Our new members broke the ice and introduced themselves, followed by entertaining and winning speeches from our president and members. All the audience had their thumbs up. The highlight of the night was the interview with the past presidents. They were very enthusiastic to talk about the stories that happened during their term of service. Some were humorous and some were sentimental. There were also great responses from the audience. With delicious food and nice wine, all the participants enjoyed chatting with old friends a lot. Immersed in the warm and friendly environment, the event was ended with laughter and applause. Indeed, Kowloon club is like a home to our members and the success of the club is attributed to the contribution of the current and past presidents, and committee members. Thanks should be given to our president and committee members who supported the organization of this party and also our immediate past president, Nanna Man, who helped to contact most of the past presidents and members.
In-house Humourous Speech and Speech Evaluation Contests
(26 August 2015)

The KTM In-house Humorous Speech and Speech Evaluation Contests came to an end last Wednesday. All contestants had amazing performance on stage. Continuous laughter was all over the room during the Humorous Speech Contest whereas quality feedbacks were given during the Speech Evaluation Contest. We were very happy to see that all audience, members and guests, enjoyed the evening so much.

There’s no doubt that lots of time and effort is needed to prepare such a big scale of contests. Recruiting judges, contestants and facilitators, inviting demo speaker, designing promotional posters, printing certificates, ordering medals, and so on. It’s certainly not an easy task but everything is possible as long as you put time and energy onto what you want to achieve. And of course, collaborative effort as well. With the help and support from KTM members, the contests were held successfully.

Special thanks should be given to the Contest Chair, Mr Eric Suen, and the MC, Ms Venus Hui for their time and effort on preparation and their outstanding performance throughout the contests. Without the hard work of all the facilitators, the contests would not have been so efficient and organized. Let’s give another big round of applause to each and every one of them.

In-house contests are a stepping-stone for all members to move forwards in toastmasters’ journey. The champion and the first runner-up will represent the club to join the upcoming area contests. Let’s take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners and wish them all the best in the coming contests.


Results are as follows:

Humourous Speech Contest
Champion: Susanna Wong
1st runner-up: Leo Lo
2nd runner-up: Alex Mok

Speech Evaluation Contest
Champion: Alex Mok
1st runner-up: Nanna Man
2nd runner-up: Susanna Wong

Advanced Ice Breaker Speakathon (8 July 2015)
1st meeting of this term, the Advanced Ice Breaker Speakathon, was a great success. Laughter was all around. There were more than 50 honorable members and guests. What an excellent start of the term! What’s special about this meeting was that speakers and evaluators were from different toastmasters clubs. This was a good example of how different toastmasters club members could work hand in hand to create a fruitful, educational and enjoyable evening for everyone! The highlight of the meeting definitely was the evaluation session. It was challenging not only because all the speakers were champion speakers, but also because they did not know whom they would evaluate, not until the moment they were called upon to the stage! Another highlight was the new member induction. Here, in Kowloon Toastmasters Club, all members, new and old, are always encouraged, supported and empowered to challenge themselves and at the same time enjoy the fun!