Two Members of Braddell Heights Won Ribbons at Chong Pang toastmasters Club

On Sunday 14th April 2019 I went to Chong Pang Toastmasters Club. I won a best speaker ribbon for my answer  to the table topics question: What did you not do 5 years ago that you now wish you had done?

I wish I had started learning a language on Duolingo. The older you get the more you find that time is running out and wish that you had started doing courses when you were twenty years old. If I had started learning a language a year when I was 20 years old I could now be fluent in 20 languages. What a lot of time I have wasted. I would have had more time if I had not wasted time looking for things. I don't know why people complain they are bored. If you are bored, there's so much you could do. You could start by sweeping the floor, sorting your clothes into colours, getting everything ready for tomorrow, planning your meals for the week, and use the time saved to learn another language.

My mentor at Braddell Heights Advanced, Kan Kin Fung, wom the best evaluator ribbon.

Looking for comfy, stretchy sandals!

Eoko brand sandals for men. Photo by Geoffrey Rabbit in Wikipedia.

I have been looking for comfy, stretchy sandals. My feet swell up in the heat. If you don't wear socks or slipperettes your might develop blisters and want to loosen the straps.

You can buy shoes with buckles and adjust the holes. But Velcro or hook and loop are so much more flexible. More likely to have two or three areas of adjustable fastening.

Here are the brands I have found on Amazon and Ebay and around the internet:

In Alphabetical Order
Boulevard
Clarks
Coolers
Dream Pairs (Amazon)
Fly Flot
Hotter
Karrimor
Rieker
Josef Seibel
Sidewalkfashion
Socofy
Teva
Timberland
Vionic (Amazon)

Author
Angela Lansbury

My Table Topics On Wisdom and Proverbs

I was Table Topics Master at Tampines West Toastmasters Club on Sunday April 14th 2019, appointed at the last moment and I had no topics planned. I should have had a page of table topics written on a blank page at the back of my diary for just such an occasion.

The President should - let's say could - have had a set of topics ready, written on card index cards, for a last minute replacement for the girl who was  supposed to be Table Topics Master but was unable to attend. She should - let's say could - have sent in her table topics for somebody else to read. That's assuming she had prepared.

Fortunately, I always carry the old Competent Leader manual which evaluates as a table topics master. One of the things it suggests is that table topics should be related to the theme of the meeting. So, even if I had prepared, I would have needed to adapt my topics to the theme of the meeting.

I knew already that our meeting's guests included two non-Toastmasters who had come through Meetup. So I first described the meaning of the title Table Topics and the purpose of table topics:

Table Topics are impromptu speeches giving an opportunity to speak unprepared to those who are not speaking in a prepared, scheduled speech.

Picking Numbers
Singaporeans like gambling and luck and lucky numbers and Table Topics Masters often give them the choice of numbers to pick. This delays everybody whilst they decide to pick a number. Only the speaker bothers to wonder what to say.

Announce Topic Before Speaker
Instead I shall follow the principle of the clubs I have attended in the UK, in London, where I announce the topic and everybody is obliged to think up an answer, just in case they get picked on.

Volunteers
I shall ask for a volunteer. Somebody might have an urgent desire to speak and tell some personal story or experience. However, after a short, few seconds, if nobody volunteers, to avoid further delay, I shall pick somebody.

Quotation
The theme of the day was a quotation:
Wisdom is what you achieve after making a stupid mistake.

The word of the day was wisdom, or the root word wise. Somebody in the audience suggested adding the adverb wisely.

I wrote down ten topics but was only allowed time for seven:
1 What wisdom or wise words did you hear from a teacher when you were in primary or secondary school?
2 What wisdom did you learn from parents, grandparents or family?
3 What wisdom did you learn not from words but from watching how somebody else used their skill or experience or creativity?
4 What wisdom have you learned from the Internet's videos or YouTube. ...
5 What words of wisdom did you hear in a proverb which you found memorable?
6 Do you follow the advice of words of wisdom attributed to Benjamin Franklin: A place for everything and Everything in its place.
7 What wisdom would you impart to children, your children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces, or children you teach?

The topics evoked the following responses:
4 From YouTube I learned from a football coach that you must be patient. Other clubs spent a lot of money poaching the top players from other clubs. Instead, he picked schoolboys who already showed talent and spend years training them. Eventually they became top players loyal to his team.
2 From my mother I learned to cook. At first I let her cook. Then I realized I would be working overseas and would have to cook for myself, so I started learning from her.
6 No. If you visited my house, you would see that it is a mess. There is no place for anything and nothing is in its place. I wish the cutlery was all in the kitchen instead of the bathroom. I would love to be organized. But that just is not me. If I were organized in all aspects of my life, it would make my life much easier. I was late today because I spent ten minutes hunting for an umbrella. So, no, I do not follow this advice. But I wish that I did.

Angela Lansbury, ALB, ACG, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Why Keep Old Postcards, Photos and Holiday Diaries?

What do you do with old postcards and letters home and birthday cards and Xmas cards?

Angela Lansbury I keep birthday cards at the back of my birthday card box. Same with Christmas cards. Sometimes you have an unexpected birthday or need a Xmas card and can't get to the shops. You can create a novelty card using the collage of parts of old cards.

When you get older and your parents and friends start dying, you will treasure those old cards.

Your own old cards remind you of trips.

I found a diary I had made when I was at school of my my school trip to ski in Austria. All very uneventful, except for the photo of myself in old lace-up ski boots. How times have changed!

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Language evaluation at SP Jain Toastmasters Club

I went to SP Jain Toastmasters Club April 9th 2019. I was language evaluator. I asked President Theo to write the word Oxymoron on the board and to come back later when I gave examples during my description of the uses of the word of the day.

I said to the audience:
"I am delighted to be your language evaluator, although you are a small crowd. That phrase, small crowd, is an oxymoron and my word of the day is Oxymoron. Hands up if you know it?

For the benefit of those who don't, it's a combination of the greek moron, slow, and the word oxy which is sharp, two contrasting, contradictory words, creating an absurdity, an ambiguity, a contradiction, a new idea.Oxymoron.

I've asked your club president, Theo, to write the oxymorons, the pairs of words, on the board, because he has the neatest handwriting, he claims."
The audience laughed. 

"He's going to write them on the board to remind you to use them. The oxymorons you'll find easiest to use are:
small crowd,
act naturally, and
seriously funny.

For example, you might start your speech with,' you are only a small crowd but you can make a big difference'. 
Or you might say in your evaluation of a speech, ' the speaker acted naturally but was seriously funny'.

I learned from my friend, the Singaporean author Catherine Lim, the phrase
Howling Silence. I went to one of her book signings and she said she wanted the title of her book to be an oxymoron so people would find it surprising and memorable, and you can use oxymorons to make your speeches exciting and memorable.

Other oxymorons you may be
able to use are:
Artificial intelligence, or
military intelligence

At breaktime we might be able to eat jumbo shrimps.

In addition to the word of the day, I shall listen for interesting things you say such as alliterations. These use the same initial letters in two successive words. For example, you could start, Terrific Tuesday, and please welcome Wonderful William and Cheerful Chia, and you might end with, Thank you, Theo.

I shall also look for assonance. Similar sounds. Often at the ends of rhyming words, by occasionally in the middle of words or both the middle and end.

I shall listen for your interesting phrases, as well as strange sounding phrases, Americanisms, which are fine, but tell people that you learned English in America aor from American movies, or an American teacher. But I shall remind you of the equivalent British phrase. the same applies to use of Singlish phrases such as cannot. We have an English alternative which you might like to know about. So you'll here from me again later, Over to you, thank, you Theo."

At the end of the meeting I said:

"Thank you, Theo - that's an alliteration. I would like to praise you all for using so many oxymorons, although you are a small crowd."

Table Topic
I won the ribbon for best speaker. My topic was the slogan from IBM: THINK.

I said, 
Think, I like to think that I think, and think enough, but a friend once said to me, You think too much!
 He meant: you think in advance about a problem, like preparing a speech, then keep worrying about it during the speech, then worry about it again afterwards.

However, you can think and worry in advance which saves you worrying later. I believe most of our daily problems can be solved by thinking in advance. For example, sometimes I wake up tired and can't decided what to wear. Should I wear the black shoes, and the black skirt, and the matching black top, but that's all too somber. So what if I wear red shoes and - but I could have solved all this last minute thinking and worrying if I had thought in advance and put my clothes out the night before.
So, to conclude, think about problems in advance, then you will have less to worry and out think about later.