Talk of the Town

March 18, 2009

Minutes of Meeting 16 March 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — anztalkofthetown @ 2:18 pm

Toastmaster minutes of meeting

Word of the day

Nano – very small element

TableTopic

1.       Funniest story

a.       Speaker: Jasmine

2.       Scariest story

a.       Speaker: helen

3.       Angriest story

a.       Speaker: wilmar

4.       Happiest story

a.       Speaker: Jessica

5.       Cool moment

a.       Speaker: Chris

6.       Saddest story

a.       Speaker: celina

Prepared Speeches

1.       Real estate

a.       Speaker:Kumar

b.      spoke about the real estate as investing. He focused on three issues: security, performance and leverage and he concluded that residential investment is one of the best investment vehicle.

2.       The origin of the moonlight festival

a.       Speaker: Amelia

b.      Amelia spoke about the origin of the moonlight festival. How the great emperor ti qin, have ten suns, each of whom has a turn to give warmth to the earth. At one point in time, the sons disobey the rule and played in the sky; causing scorching heat to the earth, and Hou Yi is sent to kill all but one. He was then punished into becoming a mortal.

3.       Icebreaker speech: My life as a failure

a.       Speaker: Al bradke

b.      Al spoke about how his life as a failure ends up what he is today. He used to believe that he is a great writer that is yet to be discovered. While studying bachelor of creative arts, he started to playwright some drama unsuccessfully. That follows many stints as a social worker, working as a call centre, psychiatric prison.

4.       Learn to play musical instrument

a.       Speaker: Ken Brandt

b.      This is Ken’s final speech at toastmaster as he has to leave the club for other personal reason. He talk about how everyone should learn to play music because of six and the half reasons: help reading skills, helps self discipline, helps teamwork, helps relax, helps accomplishment and finally it’s fun! The centrepiece of his speech is his play with the trumpet (which he concludes as the last half reason).

Winners

Speaker: Al bradke

Table topic: Ross

Evaluation: Ben

General Issues

After the voting completed, Tram is elected as a VP Education.

 

March 8, 2009

Toastmaster Minutes of Meeting 02 March 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — anztalkofthetown @ 2:17 am

Table topics

1.       I have been doing some study and I always get bored and fell asleep. So how do you motivate yourself to study?

a.       Speaker: Sam

2.       I was just been reading a book by Donald Trump, it’s called the art of the deal. Inside it there is a favourite section called ‘a week of my life’. I am fascinated by the story that he picked up calls to close deals and now I want to hear the story of the ‘week of your life’.

a.       Speaker: Jess

3.       I never cook, I always eat outside and whenever I eat outside, I always love 1 person to accompany me. Usually I have 2 options: a close friend or a distant friend to keep in touch. If you were me, would you consider having a lot of lunch & dinner with somebody close to you or friends who are not very close, but you want to keep in touch?

a.       Speaker: Helen

4.       A few months ago when I applied for a job at a major consulting firm, they asked me 1 question in the application form which fascinates me. The question is: what’s your greatest achievement? I was thinking nothing really great has happened to me for the past 24 years of my life and so I decided to save up some money and do something majestic: climbing Mount Everest. Now, assuming that you are not satisfied with your current greatest achievement, what’s the 1 thing that you would do to be your greatest achievement?

a.       Speaker: Amelia

5.       Imagine that you are on a blind date, with somebody very.. very.. very … boring. You’ve got nothing in common, and it was an awkward ten minutes of silent as both of you are crunching your food down the throat. What would you do to make the conversation interesting?

a.       Speaker: Alan

6.       As you know that Pac brand have just retrenched 1800 employees last week. Imagine that you are a Pac brand employee, you are working on the 20th floor and your decision to be made redundant or not is going to be decided tomorrow. It’s 5 o’clock and you are just about to go home. You stand by the lifts and waiting there patiently. As the lift door opened, you see you CEO standing there about to go home as well. You’ve got exactly 1 minute to convince her that you still deserve the job. What would you do to get your job secured?

a.       Robert 

 

Prepared Speeches

Speaker 1: Robert Lu

Topic: How to get things done

Robert about how he get things done following 3 simple steps: Start now, don’t make too high expectations and constantly monitor the process.

Speaker 2: Sushma

Topic: The power of now

Sushma speak about her quarter life crisis. She continued to feel worried and has tried several things include meditation and yoga. She mentioned about the importance of the book that she’s been reading called: the power of now. It made her experienced the difference by feeling the present moment instead of looking forward and backward.

Speaker 3: Selina

Topic: Icebreaker speech on the luckiest girl in the world.

Selina claimed that she’s the luckiest girl in the world by illustrating 3 stories of her life. Firstly she mentioned that she’s the third child in the family even though the chinese government imposing hefty fine of the ‘one child policy’. Secondly, she mentioned that when she was small, a chicken poke on her face leaving a scar; but nevertheless she’s still beautiful. Thirdly, she told a story about a bull. She’s wearing a bright red skirt and walk on the road when the bull actually bump into her and push her to the wall. She bled, but the injury fortunately is not that great because her body is very thin and the bull’s horn only penetrate the upper skin of her body.

Speaker 4: Craig

Topic: Overcoming fear.

Craig spoke about fear. He did research about where fear comes from and about the chemical amidala which if produce by the brain to show whether to fight or flight. He mentioned about what he feared the most: height; and how he watched the story about ‘man on wire’ and that give him a chill. He also mentioned about a story about a girl who is monoholic, an eating disorder where someone just eat one kind of food. He outlined what should we do to overcome fear: breathe, change your self-talk, use positive affirmation, journaling, talking to friends.

Winner

Best table topic: Sam & Robert

Best speech winner: Selina

Best evaluator: Matt.

 

March 1, 2009

Ross is unstoppable !!!

Filed under: clubbusiness — anztalkofthetown @ 11:16 pm

Hey there fellow Toastmasters,

I’m looking forward to seeing you all at our meeting tonight, the agenda is full and looks to be chock full of fun.

An additional draw card element on the agenda for tonight will be the presence of our own Ross Turetsky who two weekends ago WON the DIVISIONAL contest for table topicing.

It’s a wonderful achievement truly worth of our admiration and congratulation. So if you see Ross tonight, be sure to congratulate him and ask him to teach you all his secrets 😉

Ross also represented us the evaluation and international speech contests where he performed admirably.

Go Ross, you’re the champ.

See you all tonight.

Ben.

February 19, 2009

Toastmasters Minutes of Meeting 16 February 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — anztalkofthetown @ 11:53 am

Table Topic

Guest Helen – Is it OK to be watching, so you think you can dance ?

Matt Morrison – Global warming on the rise ?

Guest Adrian – Will people change their behavior if they are told about ATM fees ?

Ross – Bailout package, how should people spend the money ?

Guest Issac – Complexities of the National Health System ?

Robert – Told us how he was hunted down by two cops in a rowboat ?

Prepared speeches

First Speaker: Yang.

Title of speech: How to live a more fulfilling live

Yang presents an educational speech about how to live a more fulfilling life. He derived his speech from a book titled: personal development for smart people.  He mentioned that to achieve that, it can be broken into 2 parts:

          Body : What must I do? – Finance & Physical Body

          Mind: What can I do? – your potential

          Heart: What do I love to do? (Most important)

          Spirit: What’s my life’s purpose? What should I do?

And

Value VS money.

He defined money as a medium for transferring of social value, and people should instead focus on their value instead of making more money.

Second speaker: Tram

Title of speech: Indian emerging global pharmaceutical

Tram discussed about how the world’s global pharmaceutical is heading for a decline due to 3 key threats: patent lost, risky and capital intensive to develop on the research. She mention that India is emerging in the field of global pharmaceutical because of a cheaper research capability.

 

Third Speaker: John

Title of speech: The hidden job market.

John spoke about the hidden job market and how to tap into it. His speech is based on the book: what colour is your parachute, a popular job hunting book. He mentioned about his life experience, on how after graduating with an MBA degree, he got a lot of skills but still hard looking for work. He said that the book helped him, by using various techniques he gotten from the book, he got the job.

Fourth speaker: Will

Title of speech: Virtual Reality

Will presented a humorous topic about virtual reality. He mentioned about an author called Eli Stull who have weird imagination. He dreamed about himself being a successful investment banker, with trophy wife and amasses of wealth. However, his dream is shattered when the global financial downturn take a toll, with many retrenchment coming along.

Winner of best table topic and evaluator: Ross Turetsky.

Winner of best speech: John

February 6, 2009

Toastmaster Minutes of Meeting 2 February 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — anztalkofthetown @ 6:36 am

Toastmasters Minutes of Meeting

Table topic speeches

Nikkho prepared the table topic speeches. The following are the topics:

Speaker 1: Hugh

Topic: What will be your most fascinating holiday

Speaker 2: Yang

Topic: Do you believe in fortune teller? What would you do in seeing one?

Speaker 3: Jessica

Topic: Could you please share some of your new year resolutions

Speaker 4: Tram

Topic: What’s your opinion on celebrating valentine’s day on the 15th of feb?

Speaker 5: Ross

Topic: How many golf balls are in the air right now?

Speaker 6: Ken

Topic: Do you think global warming is coming? And what would you as an individual do about it?

Prepared speeches

Speaker 1: Tanya

Topic: Bubble/Personal Space

Tanya spoke about bubble/personal space, it’s sized around 60x70x40. She mentioned about how important it is for a person to protect his/her personal space. She also told us about how to protect the personal space under various circumstances such as sloberry kissing, crowded trains and in the office situations.

Speaker 2: Yang

Topic: Energy management

Yang spoke about energy management; how someone can be more productive by managing his/her energy level. This is taken from the book ‘the power of engagement’ by Tony Schwartz and video ‘wake up productive’, by Eben Pagan. He told us that there are 3 tips in order to manage energy: wake up early in the morning, drink water, exercise; start the day by eating your frog (start the day with your most important/significant task for that day and you complete it without distractions); and concentrate on a single tasking.

Speaker 3: Craig

Topic: Should I buy a sailing boat?

Craig spoke about his dilemma about whether he should buy a sailing boat. He mentioned that the main reason for him buying a sailing boat is because his 16 years old can’t stop playing computer games. However, he got doubt on this, because of 3 reasons: firstly is that he’s really a beginner in sailing, secondly he doesn’t have the money to buy it and thirdly is because he feared that his son will lose interest in his boat after several sailings and back to his computer games. However, he dreamt that one day he could sit on his boat looking at his son as the boat smoothly sails towards the sunset.

Winners

Best table topic: Tram

Best Prepared speeches: Tanya

Best evaluator: none

January 11, 2009

It’s just a new address to your old website

Filed under: clubbusiness — anztalkofthetown @ 2:00 pm

Hey Guys,

Further to my previous post, I’ve set our old website up at a new hosting site. One unfortunate consequence of this is that the url of the new website is slightly different, so you’ll have to update your bookmarks to reflect the new address, which is ….

http://anztalkofthetown.x10hosting.com/

The good news is that the new host will offer us a number of new facilities one of which will include a mailing list function that may simplify our ongoing communications in the future (I’ll keep you posted).

Thanks for your patience in the site restoration, I continue to look forward to our February assignation.

Kind regards,

Ben.

January 8, 2009

Happy New Year 2009 – First meeting of the year will be February 2nd.

Filed under: Uncategorized — anztalkofthetown @ 1:54 pm

Hi Guys,

Happy New Year 2009. Hopefully you’re all feeling relaxed and refreshed after a bit of a break.

A quick announcements and bits of news.

Firstly, the first meeting of the year has been confirmed as the 2nd of February (for those who were wondering).

Secondly, we’re currently experiencing some issues with the main Anz Toastmasters website.

In the meantime I’ll try to post any important announcements to

https://anztalkofthetown.wordpress.com/

Kind regards,

Ben Maslen.

January 6, 2009

Welcome back in 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — anztalkofthetown @ 11:37 pm

Happy New Year !

Here’s hoping 2009 brings on some wonderful accomplishments for all our friends in the Toastmasters community.

This is just a quick note to let you (and any of our future guests) know that our first meeting of the year will be on the 2nd of February.

I know a some of you are chomping at the bit for some earlier Toastmasters goodness but with lots of people away on holidays it doesn’t seem pragmatic to try and organise an earlier meeting.

So once again, Happy 2009, I look forward to seeing you all in a few weeks.

December 8, 2008

No Formal Meeting 15th December – Casual Coffee/Drink instead.

Filed under: clubbusiness, meetingbusiness — anztalkofthetown @ 12:29 am

Hey Folks,

Christmas is here (it’s undeniable) so your Toastmasters Club will be taking a short break until we restart next year.

I’d like to thank you all for your wonderful contributions, company, assistance and cooperation over the last Toastmasters session.

In place of an ordinary meeting this Monday its been decided to meet at nearby Cafe Segovia for a quiet drink/coffee and a catchup.

Cafe Segovia
33 Block Pl
Melbourne 3000 VIC
(03)9650 2373

To be clear this is social gathering only we will NOT be running any of our usual Toastmasters activities (other than having a bit of a chat).

If you could let me know if you can make it, via email (ben.maslen@yahoo.com), I’ll try and book a table at the venue, otherwise we can just rock up on the night and take pot luck ! 🙂

In any case thanks for a great year, I look forward to seeing you when I do 🙂

Kind regards,

Ben Maslen.

December 7, 2008

Minutes for Meeting December 1st 2008 – Meeting No. 460

Filed under: clubbusiness, meetingbusiness — anztalkofthetown @ 11:58 pm

Jon Scheele was our Toastmaster for meeting no. 460.

Word of the day

Sam Patterson made a wonderful ToastMasters debut with the word of the day ‘Heart’ it was used and abused liberally throughout the night, well done to Sam he really showed some great … <lol>

Round Robin

Ken was our man of the night thanks Ken 🙂 .

Table Topic

Tram had us all on our thinking toes with some poignent table topics.

  1. Kumar told us what he thought about a possible bail out package for the CitiGroup institution.
  2. First time guest Steve jumped into the fray with some comments on the EU providing financial assistance for its less finanically robust members.
  3. Ben Maslen was caught like a deer in the headlights when he was asked to connect the concepts of ‘A Boat’ ‘A Goat’ and ‘A Moat’.
  4. Sam Patterson suggested that if Bill Gates gave him $50 Million to invest there might be a few more pace makers in the world (nice use of the word of the day ‘Heart’ Sam).
  5. New member Al Bradtke got all gushy and admited that and ideal Christmas for him would be surrounded by his close family.
  6. Ross got asked to pick the last book in the world and made it a history of Australia.

Speeches

  1. Ken Gave performed his 10th speech (congratulations CC) on the Victorian Jazz Archives (evalated by Robert Horvath).
  2. Nadhira asked us all to look a bit more closely at the common walnut (evaluated by Yang Xu)
  3. Will Lo asked us to ponder the implications of waiting for the sky to fall and the self fulfilling prophecy (evaluated by Tania Wilson)
  4. Amelia performed her final speech in her advanced manual on ‘ETS: A Key To Green’ and took questions from the floor (well done on finishing your manual Amelia) (evaluated by Ross Turetsky)

Supporting roles

  1. Guests:  Steve (winner of most outstanding Guest well done Steve !)
  2. Ben Maslen made sure we were paying attention as Hark Master
  3. Al Bradtke made a ToastMaster debut as Grunt Master and … um … was … err … doing a fantastic job.
  4. Jasmine volunteered at the last minute to be timekeeper (thanks Jasmine you really saved our bacon).
  5. Word of the day was administered by Sam Patterson who did a great job despite Ben’s ‘Heartless’ abuse of power in repeating the word ‘Heart’ in as many contrived but ‘Heartfelt’ examples as he possibly had the ‘Heart’ to come up with <lol>

Prize winners

Ross – Best Evaluator

Ross – Best Table Topic

Will Lo – Best Speaker.

Well done and big thankyou to all for a great meeting.

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