Magic Formula

Everybody is looking for the magic formula to achieve everything that he/she wants to achieve. How can I snatch that girl from the embrace of her boyfriend? How could I make millions of ringgit in one year? How could I make a huge impression like Loghan did? All the said dreams are actually being marred by the pseudo-effort of wanting to grab that elusive sorcery secret potion, the unevidential panacea, that fictional fairytale.

The only solution is to smack that head down hard, real hard, if not with a hammer, so that it goes through to your corpus callusom, to wake you up to smell the real coffee and get your feet firmly planted on the ground. There is NO magic formula damnit!! If you want to get that pretty girl you got to bite the bullet and trudge through with stiff upper neck and make that first move, if you want to earn your first million you got to hold the issue by the ball and do whatever it takes! If you want to speak like Loghandran you got to train like Loghandran!!!

Luckily for 12 of us, tonight’s (Monday 28 July 2008) Toastmaster demonstrated us just that. How to train and learn like Loghandran. Loghandran is training to become the first ever Malaysian to win the ultimate contest, Toastmaster World Championship Contest in Calgary on August 16, 2008. The 12 of us members and guests had the opportunity to watch Loghandran gave his championship speech, the exact words, the exact facial expression and the exact ‘awkward’ness in the speech that pitch our Malaysian treasure with the best from the whole world. He had finalized his speech for the contest and asked us for an open and frank evaluation of him. How’s that for a regular Toastmaster night?

In addition to that, Dr Devi our current Area W governor and past president of Sai Master TM made SD TM her first ever club visit since becoming the governor. Shows how important and significant our club is to the toastmaster fraternity.

The meeting went by smoothly, made interesting by the important people like Sew Chien, Soo Pon, Simon and Loghandran. The reason SD TM is able to maintain such a high benchmark on speech quality is because of the dedication and love poured by this bunch of people. We could never have survived and flourished had it not been the unenviable energy and determination sowed by them. SD TM rules!!!

Wait, there’s more! Weng Cheong crashed in his ice breaker, and did he wowed us! With such poise and readiness, delivering figurative speech never seen from an icebreaker, covering other skills only much later required, like a pro in an amateur court. So good it brought the best of the evaluator Simon, trumpeting as much praise as predictions of his future illustrious achievements, even proclaimed him as the next Loghandran.

To sum up the night, thanks for the great showing of courage to the 4 table topic speakers; Shah, Teck lee, Dr Devi and Simon. 3 other ambitious assignment speech by Mee Yee, who delivered her strategies to achieve 10 new members to SD TM and steadfastly grilled down the works in our brain, Teck Lee, who recounted his days organizing KLPAC outing, and myself, illustrating influenza in Malaysia.

Loghandran’s evaluation of Teck Lee was as usual, amazingly discerning and constructive. Thanks to Suresh, current President of Sai Master for his evaluation of Mee Yee. Also to Soo Pon who produced a strong and reflective feedback for me.

Indeed a valuable night I cherish. As most evaluator would say, which should not befits a minute writer like me here for its potential impact and at times, banality, but I am going to say it anyway “I am looking forward” for our next meeting.

regards

Lawrence Hoo

VPPR