Gurney-Hydro Toastmasters Club

"Greatness is never achieved alone, or too many cooks spoil the soup?" That was the question that was asked to contestants during the recent District Level Table Topics Contest.. While the contestants have their own ideas about it, here's our take on this leadership topic. You have probably heard the quote that, "If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together." Certainly, if you want to achieve something fast, get things done quickly, it is easier to do it alone.  After all, you don't have to put up with other people's opinion and ways of doing things that may not jive with the way you do things. You get to do things the way you want them. But bear in mind, you are only one and there is only so much that you can do with the limited time that you have in a day. That's why so many sole proprietary businesses plateau after a while.  The only way that they can expand is by bringing in investors and hiring peop...

Unity is what allows a group of ordinary people achieve extraordinary results.  It's when everyone works together towards a common goal that amazing things happen. Just look at what happened in our beloved in the last few weeks and the days leading up to the prophetic day when we elected a new government.  It is indeed heartwarming to see Malaysians coming together offering rides to other Malaysians to go home to vote.  Then there are those from overseas who offer to carry the votes from other Malaysians back, coordinating with complete strangers to ensure their voices are heard. That is indeed unity and the sentiment was echoed in our meeting. Three speakers for the night include: Speaker #1: Joanne Tan Our Datin finally started Pathways with her ice breaker.  It's to see more of Gurney Hydro's members getting on Pathways. Speaker #2: Sheryl Lee Congratulations to Sheryl for completing her ACB with the fifth speech from the Interpretive Reading manual...

Every speech you will give is a story.  You may not think so but that's the reality.  Everybody who excels in the art of public speaking knows how to tell a good story. It doesn't matter if your speech is telling a story about something you encountered, presenting a research or even if you're trying to teach people something.  The formats may be different but you are still telling a story. You may think that it is easy to tell a story.  Here's what happened, here's what you did, this is who were there, here's where it happened... That is just your outline, a shell of your entire speech.  You still need to flesh it out, draw your audience into your world, paint a picture for them.  Otherwise you'll end up with a very dry speech. You have to know how to use descriptive words to bring your story to life. For example, compare: "Today is a nice day." And "It's a beautiful morning.  The sunrise cast its golden hews upon the ...

Life teaches us many great lessons.   The questions is, do we take heed?   Some people learn their lessons well, while others have to learn it over and over again before it sticks. Things like learning to chill, taking the time to enjoy a sunrise each morning among other things.  Hey, the work will still be there, so will the hustle and bustle of life.  But claim these few moments, even if it's 10 minutes a day as your own and appreciate all life has to offer. And the heartaches - they teach us the most valuable lessons often times.  They are the ones that we learn the best. Thank you, Table Topics Master for your thought provoking questions.  They are most relevant to our theme and got participants to reflect on a deep level.  Their sharings were so personal, raw and definitely very, very profound. For assignment speech, we had only one speaker this meeting: Sheryl Lee who attempted her ice breaker from Pathway Level 1.  We would a...