136th Meeting

The invitation

Dear fellow Toastmasters and friends, You are invited to 136th Chapter meeting of SZTM held on Nov. 18! The meaning of life The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of human existence. The concept can be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as Why are we here? What’s life all about? and What is the meaning of it all?. It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout history and there have been large answers from many different cultural and ideological backgrounds.

Let us meet on the night of 18 Nov 2008 and discuss the meaning of life! In this meeting, we will have 3 quality prepared speakers. Jessica Zheng, our deputy VPM, an active and passionate lady, will show his project 4 speech. Jasmin Zhai, our VPM, an effective and elegant lady from MSC HR, will present her project 6 speech: 90/10 Principle. Koby Sa, a humorous and lazy gentleman, will deliver his project 6 speech too. Let us expect their wonderful speech!

In Development Session, David Gorsline will give his senior speech: Keeping the Commitment. David Gorsline is a former Canadian school administrator, presently teaching at the Sino-Canada International School in Shenzhen, China. David is also a qualified strategic planning facilitator, as well as trained in Negotiation, mediation & conflict resolution and a former non-violent crisis intervention instructor. Hobbies: Stamp collecting, travel, reading. Sports: swimming, sailing. Toastmasters experience; ATM-S David Gorsline has been a Toastmaster for 16 years. David has competed in Speech Competitions and given workshops on Speech Evaluation in both Canada and China. He also won an evaluation competition in Canada. Let us listen to his fantastic speech and enjoy in life!: )

Cheers,

Written up afterwards

Out of curiosity I arrived at the meeting room of our 136th meeting. What is the meaning of life? Would we be able to have a clue after the meeting? Toastmaster of the evening Michael LEE initiated the discussion of this topic right in the self introduction session. Our new member Parkman act as a timer, he is so nice and we are all very cooperative, only GE was overtime(oops, it was me!). Our president Emily take the job of Ah counter, easy for her, as she seldom makes ah. Despite of the fact that she always hates grammar, Apple did the job of grammarian enthusiastically and give a slogan “That’s more like it!”, very special.

I would give the most progress award(if there is any) to our table topic master Sun ZHANG, I wouldn’t say the topic is easy however there are so many volunteer that Sun has to make very difficult choice. Our previous area governor David came and gave a development session “Keeping the commitment”, he remind us a sometime neglected fact that by joining Toastmaster, we have given our commitment to attend the meeting, to prepare ahead, to help other members, and remember the golden rule, if we want to be treated in a certain way, we need to do the same as well.

The 3 speeches are great: Jessica gave her speech “I have a dream” as enthusiastically as Lincoln or Obama, very popular topic concerning food safety and environment protection. Jasmine brought up a new concept 90/10, requesting us to pay attention on those 10% that we have control and not worry too much about those we can’t change. Koby is creative, he shared with us some discovery he had and in the end we couldn’t help to say “A-ha!” Our dear past president, new mommy Hettie evaluated Jessica’s speech. And as usual, the best evaluator evaluate the best speech!

And we have another 2 dedicated member Reda and Robert evaluate the rest 2 speeches. It was a great meeting, and in the end, 2 guests have decided to join and our friend from Beijing decided to transfer his membership! Couldn’t wait to come to our next meeting on Dec. 2, and see what surprises there will be! Jane