Later, the General Evaluator highlighted that, once the speaker exceed the time allocated, he or she should not be eligible to be voted as the best speaker.

I agreed with the General Evaluator.

I attended number of Toastmasters Meeting which some speakers spoke more than the time allocated. One project evaluator even at the start of the evaluation, instructed that his evaluation would take 5 minutes instead of the 2~3 minutes. And most of such incident, the Toastmaster of the Day/Evening turned to the Club President for further instructions. Most of the incidents, the President would allow these speakers to be voted as the best speaker.

One school of thought was that, we have to create an encouraging environment in a Toastmasters Club meeting for members to learn presentation skills. Disqualifying those who exceed the allocated time would discourage them from doing future projects, table topics or evaluation.

I agreed on the part on creating an encouraging learning environment. We also have to be careful on what are we encouraging.

There is a timing allocation for each segment in the club meeting for reasons. One reason is to ensure that the meeting will end on time. But making speakers who exceeded the time allocation ineligible to be voted is a method to encourage members to speak within the time allocation.

I strongly believe that each club should stand by the timing allocation. This will also project a professional image for the club.

The General Evaluator in this case performed the duty to remind the member. I hope that the club will remember the General Evaluator’s reminders.

These are some of the common questions being asked, during Toastmasters Club Speechcraft sessions or Demonstration Meetings. Toastmasters have changed my life for the better in many ways. This is one of the stories which I shared during such events.

One of tasks as an engineering student in the polytechnic, we needed to complete an engineering final year project. Towards the end of my polytechnics days, a close friend doing computer science visited me in the polytechnic.

I was very excited showing him the polytechnic, and of course, my proud final year project.

This close friend was impressed by the technical wonders which we had put into our project. And he believed that the project would score well. Out of interest, he asked what else to be done to the project.

I told all we need to do was to give a presentation to the lecturers.

As my close friend, he was frank with me. He gave me this advice, “Let my project partner do all the presentation works.”

This friend had never seen my project partner, and not even heard him speak. He gave me this advice, but he knew me very well. He knew so well that he knew, my presentation was so bad that almost anybody could do a better job in giving the presentation.

I did not feel anything wrong with my bad presentation then.

Years had passed. As I stepped into the working life, I realized how bad my presentation had affected me in my life. I had difficulty presenting my ideas.

After I joined a Toastmasters Club, I was given a positive environment to improve my presentation skill. On the process, I also gained confident about myself.

Without joining Toastmasters Club, I do not think I am able to give this presentation on “How Toastmasters have changed my life?”.

Toastmasters had changed my life, for the better.

Last Friday (4th September) till Monday (7th September), my wife and I went to attend Anthony Robbin’s Unleash the Power Within. We walked on fire, screamed till we almost lost our voices, jumped like we never jumped before. During the four days, we learnt a lot of ourselves and many others.

On Monday, after the seminar, we went to visit our Aunt at the hospice. We were there just in time to see her draw her last breath. We spent the rest of the evening preparing for the wake.

On Tuesday, I went back to office to apply for leave, so that I could help out in the wake. After helping to set up the wake, I felt so exhausted. I had to return home to take a rest. There, I realized that I had a fever and cough. I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking water, sleeping and visiting the toilet. At least I managed to go back to the wake to help in packing up.

Wednesday, my fever returned. I visited the doctor to get some medicine. The medicine made my head so drowsy that I think I was half awake most of the time. At noon, I went to my brother’s place to settle my father’s death anniversary stuff. After that, I returned home to continue my sleep, drink and visit toilet.

Thursday was farewell day. It was my aunt’s funnel. In the morning, we sent her body for cementation. In the afternoon, we completed the funnel process by giving her a sea burial, according to her wish. After that, we went to the Comex 09 just to purchase some ink cartridge. Lucky we went there early to beat the crowd.

Today, it is time to go back to work, after the eventful week.

On Saturday, I will be taking part in the Area level Toastmasters Evaluation contest, against other strong evaluators. In evening, we will be watching a performance, Jump, to complete the eventful week.

Soon, I think I will get a break to write about my experience at Anthony Ribbon’s Unleash the Power Within.

When I first started to judge in Speech Contest, I always tally my placing with the result. If my placing is close to the result, I would feel proud of my judgment. However, if my placing is way off the result, I would question my judgment. Is there any problem with my judgment?

As years go by, I had taken up the role judge and chief judge for many speech contests ranging from Club, Area, Division and up to District levels. I have the opportunities to observe and analyze many competitive speeches. I also have the opportunities to observe other many other judges’ placing when I was the chief judge. I had noticed how varied the judges had put their placing.

These experiences had given me a new perspective on Speech Contest judging. Toastmasters International has a clearly defined listing of judging criteria for speech contests. In International Speech Contest, Speech Content carries the heaviest allocation, followed by Delivery and Language used.

Every judge votes to the best of their ability to eliminate biasness, perception. However, there are many factors which contribute on how a judge places their points. These factors include the judge’s background, preference and knowledge. The contest rule book also further defined the minimum number of judges at different level to minimize the biasness of the judges.

I learned that, how difference people judge contest speeches despite of the clearly defined judging criteria. The most important is that, we did our best as putting our past perception away, and judge as objective as we can.

During my most recent speech contest judging, only one out of my three placing was placed. In fact, I already guessed how other judges had placed their votes. I had voted as objectively as I can, just like the other judges in the contest. The main thing was, we had different perspective which differed in the way we judged.

What matter most was not how close was our placing with the placing, but how we had put our votes. We judged the Speech Contests to the best of our ability; the result would up the majority votes.

A common confusion faced by most incoming Area Governors is that, the newly elected Division Governor would task them to contact the clubs served by them, asking them to submit the club officer listings. They are confused, because, officially, their term will be starting in 1st July. They are unsure if this should come under their duties or the job of the current term Area Governors.

Some of the incoming Area Governors are also currently serving their term as club officers. They still have the final month to clear their club officers’ responsibilities and to push for the club goals.

As a result, the Area Governors are confused.

When I took up the role as an Area Governor in June, the first tasks given to my by my Division Governor-Elect was to ask the clubs to submit the club officers list. Years later, when I was elected as Division Governor, the first thing I have asked my incoming Area Governors to ask the clubs for club officer list submission.

We have good reasons why it is so as follows:
1. The ½ DCP goal will go to the new term.
2. A chance for the incoming Area Governors to get to know the club officers within the Area.

Understanding this would clear the part of the confusion. The other confusion is to get the club officers listing submission done and to finish the unfinished work as current term officers.

This is part of the training as Area Governor, to plan, organize and manage the tasks. I would recommend that the Area Governors to set priority on the current officers work and focus to get it done before the deadline.

This, however, does not mean to completely put the club officers submission aside. The clubs have to submit the listing by 30 June to get the ½ DCP goal.

The tick to perform this is NOT to rush but to have a plan to do so systematically. The plan to do so is first drop an e-mail to remind the outgoing Presidents to do so and monitor the submission. Toastmasters International will post the submission in the report site. Around 15th June, e-mail and send SMS messages to remind those, who have not submit, to do so. Last week of June, call the outgoing club presidents to submit, if they have not done so.

Taking up the Area Governor is a challenging and yet rewarding experience. Although it can be confusing initially, it is a great learning experience if understand reasons behind the task and the way to complete the task. Through this experience, we learn to plan, organize and manage the tasks.

Nowadays, Toastmasters Clubs in Singapore are dropping General Evaluation from the program. Many think that Language Evaluation is more important than General Evaluation. The members think that they learn the most from the Language Evaluation.

I think differently. I learn much more from the General Evaluator than the Language Evaluator. When we take up appointment in a Club meeting, we would wonder how well we had done and what the areas we can improve on. The General Evaluator filled in this gap. Furthermore, members also benefit from the General Evaluations. They can learn what to take note of if they were to take up meeting appointments. In fact, I had collected so many tips from General Evaluators before I first took up the role of Toastmaster of the Evening. These tips had helped me not to sound like it was my first time doing it. And from the General Evaluators, I learn how to improve my Project Evaluation.

The Club also benefit from the General Evaluators. The Club can improve future meetings using the suggestions from the General Evaluators. This in term will also help to raise the standard of the Club and soon helps the club to recruit more members.

General Evaluation is one of the key factors for the magic of Toastmasters. It would be sad that if it is completely removed from meetings in Singapore. I am glad that I took up the General Evaluation for that meeting. Because I know, I had shared the learning points through my observations during the meeting. And through the sharing, I not only reminded myself on the lessons and also learned from others on how to be an appointment holder.