What I learned at Bukit Timah Toastmasters Club

The first positive point about this club is the easy to find location. The club meets twice a month. In Beauty World MRT station there are maps with the location of the Community Club marked. The exit is a long walk down a tunnel under the road. If you take the correct exit from Beauty World MRT station, you come up an escalator onto the street it is a straight walk past the busy bus stop on your left and along the road (Jalan is Malay for road) to the Bukit Timah Community Club standing on the corner. The club has a wall of greenery. How come the greenery is not damaging the surface of the building? If you look curiously and carefully, or even carelessly and casually, you can see that the green plants are growing up a lattice which is about a foot way from the wall. So the lattice can be moved if you ever need to repaint the wall or remove the plants. Seating Plan Inside the large room the Sergeant At Arms sets up the tables and chairs in a U shape facing the stage. Appointment holders, such as Evaluators and timer, the committee and invited guests and speakers (usually members) sit around the U-shape. Uninvited, Unwelcome and Latecomers Guests and latecomers sit in a row at the back. They seen to be forgotten. Rejected. They cannot see nor hear as well as the people in the front seats. The second class guests do not have a table to write upon. I was first so I sat down at the table. I was hoping to be allowed to take on a role - or even give a speech. No such luck, even though I am now a member of Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club. I did volunteer to give a speech. Three Speeches We enjoyed three speeches. THAI FESTIVAL Three excellent speeches, the first an informative speech explaining the Thai festival of water. Like spring cleaning and Jewish passover, the Thai water cleanses the house, physically and symbolically and spiritually. Like New Year celebrations and other festivals everywhere another feature is the reunion of families. SMART CITY The second speech was about our Smart future. Singapore wants to be the first Smart City. The smart home will not only allow us to turn the lights on and off from a distance if we have left home and forgotten to turn off the lights. The smart phone will detect a burglar entering without an authorised key and will lock them in after taking a photo; allow you to watch the children and the elderly.. Lastly and best of all, the whole environment, including the music, can alter to fit a mood, a celebration or party, or to enliven or soothe. SMILE The last speaker was an elegantly dressed lady telling us about the importance of smiling. You might think you already knew all there was to know about how smiling make you feel better and those being smiled at feel better. But she backed her talk up with references to research, and talked and increased productivity as well as boosting the immune system, which is one reason why famous comedians go to children's wards in hospitals, not just to improve the mood of the children and their parents and nurses and carers, but to actually improve their morale so that it improves their immune system and health. She won the ribbon for best speaker. Table Topics Voting The table topic subject was 'Sell this pen'. You take an object from a bag and sell it to the audience. I selected a bag with pictures of Paris but forgot that the aim was to 'sell'. I talked about how good it was and ended by suggesting bags should have printed lines showing how to fold them up to go back in the purse which holds the folded bag. The distinctive feature of this club is the way they vote for table topics. The vote collector carries a small tray with a bowl of paperclips and three to six plastic boxes with slits, each box numbered. So if you liked speaker one the most, you place a paperclip in the box labelled one. The ribbon went to the first speaker, a girl who gave a motivational speech, if you do this, if you do that you will achieve this and that. Western and Asian Food At break time we had typically different Singapore food. The Western parts, or the parts I was happy to eat, were the bananas, cream buns and chocolate eclairs. The Eastern offerings were jam cakes, white and tasteless, not like those delicious pancakes. The other unexpected dessert was brightly coloured jelly, with hardly any flavour and very fixed solid shapes. I was grateful for the water. Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.