Smiled throughout while typing this - 16 July 2019
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall - Confucius
Upon receiving the President’s Distinguished Club award for the first time in our 15 years of establishment, the millennials in my Toastmasters club got excited to celebrate our achievement along with an anniversary.
We were fueled by the desire to spread the joy (and sweat) on what it took in the term 2018/2019 to get us to where we are now! We agreed that the theme and key message of the celebration would be Wow! - as celebrated by Toastmasters around the world. We were efficient - a Wow! Organizing Team was formed and tasks were delegated, all within an hour!
Fast forward to the day of the event, if there was one thing we could all agree on, it was the FOOD! We believe food brings us closer no matter what your age. So, the first thing we did was to have breakfast together. (Baked sweet potatoes, juicy salted egg yolk chicken poppers and egg sandwiches, and for lunch, a variety of pasta, chicken paprika rice bowls and etc, yummy isn’t it?).
Gluttony over breakfast. Oh well.
After gaining some unhealthy calories, the celebration started with an encouraging invocation speech by our club Founder, Ramesh. Then, the team put together some solid, challenging games that tests the three basic language skills: speaking, listening and writing.
Game 1: The Ice Breaker
This game was meant to get the blood pumping! It involved all participants to form a circle and state three facts about themselves, two truths and a lie. Other members must then guess lie. With a hint of mystery in the air, it was also a aa-haaa moment for all of us as we found out more about each other.
Game 2: Idiom Charades
This game involved a team member to pick an idiom from the magic hat and act it out for the other team members to take a guess. The actors must be able to listen carefully as their team members shout out guesses. The purpose of this game was to indirectly prepare members to be familiar with idioms and maybe take on the upcoming Table Topics contest! (see what we did there?)
Game 3: Story starter This game involved teams to continue the story from a starter sentence. All starter sentence involved a member’s name. Each team filled in just one sentence and the story will be passed to the next team to continue until the 10th sentence.
When finished, all stories were then read aloud and the outcome was hilarious. We were in fits of laughter over someone’s strange obsession over body hair, having the need for 'Sex on the Beach' (thankfully they meant the cocktail. Or did they?) and the wish for an endless supply of Durians to fall from the sky!
All was fine and dandy until we came to the end of our celebration. Functional door gifts were shared and prizes for the best team camaraderie were given out.
Finally, a heartfelt video on our journey in Toastmasters since 2004 was played. There were tears of joy and emotional speeches shared by some of the seasoned members of club.
The generation which ignores history has no past – and no future – Robert Heinlein
Little did we know, we are where we are today because of the passion and relentless effort by our Founder and fellow seasoned members of the club.
Once upon a time, the club had almost zero funds to run the club and thousands of $$$ sometimes came out of their own pockets. There were also times where just three members wore multiple hats during a meeting. The club was on the verge of a shut down.
It was their passion, patience, progress and constant motivation that has led us to become a President’s Distinguished Club today. Their experience and stories carried weight and substance that humbled us all.
The celebration ended with awakened passion and renewed zest in practicing the club’s vision: To empower individuals to become more effective communicators and leaders. Till next time!
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