Meeting Minutes July21
Meeting Theme: Habits Toastmaster: Kyle Zhang
Meeting Minutes by Chris Tang
Highlight: Toastmaster Kyle emphasized the need for practice in order to improve. Repeatedly practicing something will build your ability to do something very well. With that in mind, Kyle encouraged visitors would return again and again to Global Communicators to develop their speaking skills.
Table Topic session hosted by Simon Liu which was based on the book “7 Habits of Highly-Effective People”. Simon added an addition 2 “habits” and allowed speakers to take their pick and speak about whether or not they embraced the specific habits.
1, Tessa responded to “Stereotype thinking about a diploma” and spoke about the not necessarily reliable relationship between earning a degree and a better life. She brought an example Bill Gates, who did not finish his degree at Harvard. A degree is not necessarily important as Tessa stressed that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
2, Vivian responded to “Be proactive” and said that if one wants to do something, he / she should just go out and do it. Don’t worry about failure. Be independent!
3, Rolf amusingly expressed his disdain for the book and responded to “Begin with the end in mind”. He explained he is a lazy person and amid many chuckles refuted the suggestions of the book.
4, Scorpio responded to “Put first things first” and reasoned that time is limited. You must manage your work in the present.
5, Liu Bing elaborated on what he had learned from his time serving in support roles at Toastmasters. His favorite role is timer because he felt that by working in the position, he too could learn from those successful time managers and improve his speech time control skills.
Prepared speech session:
1, Issa in her speech entitled “Snap! ERP” spoke about Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). She wanted to explain what she does at her job. ERP is a way to manage companies that are growing quickly by consolidating its resources into an integrated and uniform system.
2, CK told a poignant tale called the “Apple Tree” about the kindness that a tree showed a boy who at each stage of his life needed one of the tree’s resources and eventually reduces it into a stump. CK likened the relationship to parents and children and wanted people in the audience to remember to return the love of their parents.
Evaluation from GE or other evaluators:
From General Evaluator Liu Bing called for feedback from the audience and distributed evaluation forms to the audience before the prepared speeches.
Table Topic Evaluator Lili praised Tessa’s use of structure in her speech and encouraged the audience to build a beginning, body, and ending in their speeches. Lili also encouraged Scorpio to add examples whenever she could in her speech.
Prepared Speech Evaluator Cindy recommended Issa to use simple words in her speech.
Other interesting points:
Only two new members were present for their induction into Global Communicators. Congratulations to Andy Deng and Young Yang!
Next week we’ll have an evaluation competition. Hope to see you there!