This was our sixth Combined Chapter Meeting of The Open Alumni Toastmasters Club and Telok Blangah Toastmasters Club for the term July 2021 to June 2022, held on 18 November 2021.
Table of Contents
President’s Opening Address
The President’s Opening Address was given by Elaine Tan, ACB, CL, DL5, the President of The Open Alumni Toastmasters Club while the Closing Address was given by Wekie Tay, DTM, Club Coach of Telok Blangah Toastmasters Club.
Elaine was anticipating the arrival of Chinese New Year, the Year of the Tiger. She associated the year with the traits ofa tiger – strong, resilient, powerful. She reminded us to “repent” of what we failed to achieve last year and try to accomplish them this year. For a new beginning this year, we shall have a fixed zoom meeting link for all our meetings. This will eliminate the confusion and frustration that we used to have in the past years of not being able to login at the start of the meeting.
In doing so, she wish that from this year onwards, we would begin our meeting on time and end our meeting on time as well. Elaine believed that having a quality meeting will make our time together very pleasant.
Table Topics
The Table Topic Master for this chapter meeting is yours truly, Daniel Sun, CC.
I have prepared the theme: “If I Were A Rich Man”.
Many songs have been sung about a man’s fantasy of becoming rich. Most Chinese would have heard the Hokkien Song, “If I Have A Million Dollars”. However, the song that inspired me for this theme was the song, “If I Were A Rich Man” from the movie, “Fiddler On The Roof”, my favourite song in the movie, … then. The protagonist, Tevye, a milkman was frustrated with life and how he had been treated on the inside and outside of his family, he sang to himself, what he would do and how he would behave if he were a rich man.
The topics in the order that were selected and spoken on are as follow:
- If you were a billionaire, how would you safeguard the safety of yourself and your family?
- If you were a billionaire, would you date/marry celebrities?
- If you were a billionaire, would you make your wife to be sign a pre-nuptial agreement?
- If you were a billionaire, what would your daily routine be like?
- Which of the following company do you wish to be the owner of? Apple, Tesla, Google, Microsoft or Facebook?
- Where would you choose to live if you were a billionaire?
- If you were a millionaire, what would you do? And if you were a billionaire, what would you do?
- What would you do if you were to strike lottery?
If you were a billionaire, how would you safeguard the safety of yourself and your family?
Speaker: Yoong Ee Chuan, ACB, CL, MS2
Ee Chuan advised us that we should keep a low profile and not tell anyone if we were to strike rich suddenly. He then reminded us that the next day is Toto’s $5,000,000 draw. So he urged us to quickly buy a Toto ticket if we had not done so. Just in case if we happened to become a Toto winner, we should return to work the next Monday, and pretend that nothing had happened.
Personally, I do not know how do the ultra rich people ensure the safety of their family members and themselves. During the course of my teaching career, I have taught several grand children of a particularly very rich family and life went on the same for them. They had no body guards following them around.
If you were a billionaire, would you date/marry celebrities?
Speaker: Sazili
Sazili claimed that if he were a billionaire, he would be able to contribute to the life others and make their life happier, even though it has been said that, “Money cannot buy happiness.” In the case of celebrities, he will set up a company and through the company’s marketing effort, help to promote his celebrities and make them even more popular.
Sazili claimed that if he were a billionaire, he would be able to contribute to the life others and make their life happier, even though it has been said that, “Money cannot buy happiness.” In the case of celebrities, he will set up a company and through the company’s marketing effort, help to promote his celebrities and make them even more popular.
And yes, Sazili, you completely averted the question of whether would you date/marry celebrities.
Hmmm …..
If you were a billionaire, would you make your wife to be sign a pre-nuptial agreement?
Speaker: Elaine Tan, ACB, CL, DL5
Elaine said that she does not believe in signing a pre-nuptial agreement between two persons. With or without an agreement, it does not really matter. She felt that where relationship is concerned, it is built upon trust. It just does not go right with her to sign such an agreement. If you cannot trust that person, then don’t marry that person. Money cannot buy happiness, nor can money buy relationships.
Anyway, Elaine continued to say that being rich will not change her life much. Nevertheless, with more money she can afford to buy more things. So if she is rich, she would sponsor all the refreshments for our toastmasters club’s chapter meetings.
Well Elaine, you do not have to wait until you are rich to sponsor all the refreshments. You can start doing that now. Concerning the signing of a nuptial agreement with your fiancé prior to your marriage, you will be surprised how much your multi-million dollar company’s board members want to say about your marriage during the board meeting.
If you were a billionaire, what would your daily routine be like?
Speaker: Triggi Chan, CC, IP1
Triggi was of the opinion that there is no need for her to have any routine if she were rich.
She claims that she would have a butler to serve her and undertake all her tasks such as making reservations. If there is anywhere she wants to go to, she can be driven there. If the traffic is too heavy, she can arrive there with a helicopter. Perhaps, she would wake up early at 8.30 a.m., have breakfast and then exercise. (oops … I think you should exercise before eating and not the other way around). Yes, she would probably adopt a more healthy lifestyle taking up exercises and yoga.
She could fill up her time with many hobbies. She would read books out aloud, spend much of her time drawing all the things she would like to draw.
All of a sudden, Triggi remembered the people around her. She started giving consideration to spending more time with her family members and friends since she need not worry about keeping a job and earning an income. Otherwise, she would find more hobbies to occupy her time.
Well Triggi, if you are at a lost for knowing what to do with your time and money, may I suggest that you wake up in the morning, fly to Hong Kong for Tim Sum, take a train down to mainland China after breakfast to have hot pot for lunch, then fly to Paris for coffee.
Which of the following company do you wish to be the owner of? Apple, Tesla, Google, Microsoft or Facebook?
Speaker: Jane Pang, CC, CL, VC3
Jane was at a lost for choice. She wants to be the owner of all these companies.
Jane claimed that a very rich man, whom she could not recall the name of, said that when it comes to money and riches, you can have the best of both worlds, you don’t have to force yourself to make a decision.
So why limit our choices? Just be open and be positive. If you can dream it, you can have it. So let’s have faith and dream big! Jane also dreamt that the next night she would become the winner for the top prize for Toto.
Yes Jane, you can dream and can dream really big. After your dream, you will wake up to reality the next day.
Where would you choose to live if you were a billionaire?
Speaker: Noah Myo, PM1
Noah would want to enjoy life at a slow pace, living in a surrounding with beautiful scenery.
He wanted to be surrounded by very nice people, with a glass of wine at his side. As a lover of nature, he would like to explore the natural side of the world. Even though he would like to stay near to the nature, he still would not want to stay too far away from the cities. That was because he still want to have access to facilities and foods.
Another person, like Jane, who wants to have the best of both worlds. I suggest building a castle in the middle of the woods and have a helicopter at the top of your castle. From time to time, you can travel to the cities in your helicopter and sip your latte.
If you were a millionaire, what would you do? And if you were a billionaire, what would you do?
Speaker: Wekie Tay, DTM
This is Wekie Tay’s speech ad verbatim.
In reality, money is a number in your mind. It has a lot to do with how you perceive the world. You don’t have to be a billionaire, and yet you can also live richly if you choose not to define your life by numbers. However, if in this case we are talking about the numbers itself obviously a billionaire can create a lot more loads of things that millionaire cannot do, you can live around the world, eat a million times more food, travel to countries that are beyond and help a lot more people. Therefore, what is a big difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is the number of people you can impact.
Obviously, a person who can be a billionaire, will be able to impact a lot more people in their life. At the end of the day, if you were to reflect on it, we can only sleep on one bed, occupying so much land, eat so much food, even if you were a millionaire or billionaire, you cannot stuff yourself enough. In fact, the more you stuff yourself, you actually end up getting closer to the grave.
Therefore, what would I do. I’ll be helping out a million more people, if I were a millionaire. You’ll be able to help people by changing lives, for example, through education. When all of us are educated, we will be able to make leaps and bounds, and progress to the rest of the world. It is the ignorance of the people that creates a lot of mistakes of the world.
Therefore, if we can promote education, we can help the poor young kids with no parents to be educated, who knows that he will pay it forward. If you include the elderlies, that are not well taking care of themselves, who knows, they can go on to share their wisdom with the rest. Therefore, my dear friends, whether you are millionaire or billionaire, the difference lies in our ability to help a million more people when you are a lot richer.
Let’s start by becoming toastmasters, shall we? If you are a millionaire, build 10 times more Toastmasters Club, then make 10 times more speeches.
Hey! Wekie, you sounded like Tan Kah Khee or are you Tan Kah Khee reincarnated. At one point when Tan Kah Khee was facing challenges in his business and finances, someone advised him to stop making contribution to education until his business and finances pick up again. To that person, Tan Kah Khee replied, “I need not do business. I can get by each day just by eating a bowl of plain porridge with some peanuts. If I have to stop making contribution to education, then what is the point of me continuing in my business?”
What would you do if you were to strike lottery?
Speaker: Pek Chew Lian
Chew Lian wanted to be generous with her money if she were to strike the lottery. At first, she would give 20% of her prize money to the charity. Then she would keep about 40% to 50% of the prize money in her savings and spend the rest of it with her family.
Chew Lian believes in sharing and giving. She believes that money is meant to be used by helping people and helping people is very important to her.
It is not how much money you have to spend on yourself. Even if she would to strike lottery, she would continue to keep a low profile and return to work as usual, pretending that nothing had happened. Chew Lian would advise everyone to do likewise. Even if you should have lots of money, you still need to have a purpose for your life. She had seen people who have gotten rich and lived luxuriously, just to have their life spiralled downwards. That is something she does not want to happen to herself.
Prepared Speeches
1st Speaker: Chay Wen Liang, DTM, VC5
Pathway Project: Dynamic Leadership, Level 1, Project 1, Ice Breaker
Title: My Toastmasters Journey
Evaluator: Annabelle Yong, DTM
Wen Liang shared that he joined the Toastmasters somewhere in the late 2001 through a friend’s introduction to the SpeechCraft workshop. Besides the motivation of wanting to develop his public speaking skills, he had also the ideal notion of doing storytelling to people around him, in homes as a volunteer, or even in various activities and events.
Beginning at around 2002 and early 2003, he began winning in some speech contests, even in division speech contests. He even made it into the district table topic contest. During then, Singapore was in a district together with Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, and … another country that Wen Liang could not recall. The district contest was held in one of the South-East Asian countries where it was quite convenient to fly to and enjoy it as a holiday trip.
So Wen Liang began winning in some contests in the early 2000’s. He even emerged as the first runner-up in the district table topics contest.
That was also the year where Division Z was formed and Wekie Tay became the first Division Z Governor. As a division governor, Wekie was not allowed to compete. That created the opportunity for Wen Liang to win the speech contest that year.
In the year 2003, he also achieved his Competent Leader award and Advanced Communicator Bronze award. In 2007, he achieved his Advanced Communicator Silver award. He then took a break from Toastmasters between 2007 and 2011 to do other things and concentrate on his work. He eventually returned to Toastmasters in 2011 to complete his Advanced Communicator Gold and Advanced Leader Silver. In 2016, Wen Liang finally received his Distinguished Toastmaster award.
After having achieved the epitome of the Toastmasters award, the Distinguished Toastmaster award, Wen Liang embarked on his Pathways educational journey in Toastmasters. Other toastmasters had wondered why did Wen Liang do that because the new Pathways education is not what something every toastmasters who have been around for quite a while would choose to do.
Wen Liang then explained to us on why has he chosen to embark on the Pathway journey. It was mainly because he wanted to try something different. He feels that he is in the position where he can be seated at a position looking back at Toastmasters in the past and comparing what Toastmasters has become today and the direction it is heading towards.
Wen Liang then shared with us numerous things Toastmasters was like in the past, including some of the old Toastmasters magazine covers. He summarised by saying that Toastmasters is trying to become relevant and as for himself, he felt the need to become relevant as well. Wen Liang urged us to do likewise as well.
Wen Liang eventually ended his speech by sharing with us an old photograph of his toastmasters club with the old members during then, including Wekie Tay.
2nd Speaker, Triggi Chan, CC, IP1
Pathway Project: Innovative Planning, Level 2 Project 1, Connect With Your Audience
Title: The Power of No
Evaluator: Chay Wen Liang, DTM, VC5
Triggi began by reminding us of what we have heard about “The Power of Yes”. In her speech, she was bringing a contrast to “The Power of Yes” with “The Power of No”. She continued to tell us the following:
- “No” is one of the strongest words in English.
- Many people equate “No” to being negative.
- No means failure and rejection to many.
On the contrary, “No” can be a very powerful thing!
- “Yes” and “No” forms the couple, “Ying and Yang” (the positive and negative forces), though opposite to one another but also complements and empowering each other at the same time.
- The power of “No” helps us to restore the balance of our “Ying and Yang” in our busy working life.
Triggi cited a psychologist that our brain has been proven to react stronger to negative stimuli much stronger than positive stimuli. However, we are very apprehensive to say, “No!” to people because we want to please many people around us. Nevertheless, by saying “no”, we balance and empower our “yes” by strengthening our commitment and promise to the things that we said “yes” to. Someone who knows how to say “no” is someone who knows his/her priority, knowing what is important to you and your organisation.
Triggi told us that it is not because we do not have enough things to do but having too much on our plate. Saying “yes” to everything results in having more than you can handle and you end up performing poorly. Saying “yes” to the right thing, and saying “no” to what is not, you will build yourself a reputation of someone who means what he/she says and says what he/she means. We will then be able to give our best to what we commit our “yes” to.
iven too many tasks but given too little time to carry them out.
Triggi also said that multitasking is overrated. She cited a survey on programmers showing that they need a prolonged period to, so to say, “get into the zone”. These programmers take at least 45 minutes to achieve optimum concentration where they are most productive. Some programmers even said that they need at least a period of 2 hours of isolation in an environment of silence before they reach the peak of their performance.
Triggi also shared about Warren Buffet’s advice to to his pilot to write down his top 25 career goals and then telling him to work only on the top 5 and ignore the remaining 20 goals which would only distract him from his real goals.
Triggi likened us to animals that are very violent, biologically hardwired and risk averse, being risk averse to the point that we do not want to say “No”. Many people, especially successful ones, they may hesitate to say “No” because they have arrived where they are by saying “yes”, looking at opportunities, accepting offers, taking on bigger challenges. However, in order to live up to our promise and take ourselves even further down the road, achieving better results, we shall embrace the power of “No”.
Best Speakers
Best Speaker (Prepared Speech)
None, because both speakers exceeded the time limit.
Best Table Topic Speaker
Wekie Tay, DTM
Best Evaluator
Annabelle Yong, DTM
President’s Closing Address
The closing address was delivered by the Club Coach of Telok Blangah Toastmasters Club, Wekie Tay, DTM. This was his closing address ad verbatim.
A simple beginning allows us to set the right direction. In this very first meeting of the year, we must be reminded the importance of having a strong beginning. It is through that strong beginning, that we garner the momentum to get us to wherever we want in life, and I’m so glad that all of us we spent time tonight coming together as a family, Telok Blangah Toastmasters and The Open Alumni Toastmasters, together in this group meeting for so many years. And when we are reminded the importance of coming together, we support each other.
When we support each other, we remind each other that we are always stronger than ever. By coming together with the right motive, right intention, we gear each other towards the right direction. I am so glad tonight that we are able to put things through.
When you have the whole process of the ideas, it allows us to bring ourselves to a higher level, through the support of friends. Therefore, many people think that in Toastmasters we’re always walking a personal journey. I don’t think so. We’re always supported by people behind us. As for evidence by Wen Liang’s speech that the growth that he has encountered is because of a club and because of the various friends and network he has built in Toastmasters.
Just as Triggi reminded us that by saying no to the negative things, when we move forward to the new year, let us recall what we have been through for the past that going through the Toastmasters journey by saying no to negative things, we can begin to say yes to better things.
And tonight we have learned to be rich. Being rich doesn’t mean it has to be money. In fact R-I-C-H to me is “Releasing Intensive Charity and Humility”. It is by us understanding the need to go out and give, we become richer. We do not hold onto the minute dollars and cents, but by releasing it, we receive so much more through the sense of charity we feel that love. By being humble, we’re able to experience that the world is so much bigger than the way we are. Because many people think that they are bigger than others.
But I think by being smaller we realize there’s so much more in this world we can embrace.
Therefore my dear friends, let us begin the year strong, embrace what is to come, and take on stronger things that we have for the rest of the year. I love seeing all of you and I would love to continue to see all of you back in our future meeting for our next meeting, we will be having the club contest for both clubs. We do welcome you back to take part or to help out or even just clap along and support the rest of our friends. because it is truly by stepping up, we can step higher than ever thank you very much again. Wish you the very best of 2022.
Upcoming Event
The will be no chapter meeting but instead we will be holding our International Speech Combined Club Contest to be held on the 3rd Thursday of the month of February (17 February 2022).
Visiting Toastmaster
George Chew, DL2, Area Z2 Director, Choa Chu Kang Toastmasters Club
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