Newsletter From District 85

Newsletter From District 85 Dear Toastmasters We are writing to you…

Index Editing Team: Penshell Yao, Yoyo Luo, Wilson Wang, Jennifer Ma, Joanna Wu, Eva Li

District 85 Three Outstanding Awards 2010-2011 Announcement! The Three Outstanding Awards for our district last term are Division Governor of the Year; Area Governor of the Year and Toastmaster of the Year. These three awards winners received their awards at Hall of Fame session at our Hong Kong Conference! Congratulations to them! We’re deeply impressed and inspired by their achievements last year and they are our motivation to further grow in Toastmasters organization! Terry is a motivational and down-to-earth leader, who is good at building teams to get things done and long-distance coaching and delegation since his area included clubs in 3 different cities. He established good procedures to follow up with corporate club leads and his area grew from 3 clubs to 10 clubs in one year. 5 clubs in his area achieved Distinguished or above. “When I got to know about receiving the award for Area Governor of the Year, I believe it is not only a glory belonging to myself, but also recognition to my team. In the past one year. We beard it in mind that to help others is a better way to develop ourselves. This belief leaded us to achieve the goals. For me, I would like to help my team members who were willing to improve their communication skills and leadership skills by serving Toastmasters to grow up like Neo Long and Cherry Ho. They are outstanding Area N2 governor and Division E governor after one year’s growth. On the other hand, I would like to help the groups which were potential and willing to build clubs to make it happen. We supported several corporate in-house clubs in the past year, some of which are the Top 500 of the World. During the preparation for chartering period, we learnt a lot from the excellent staff and gained friendship. In all, when we work with a mindset to help others, we will do a better job and grow faster!” By Terry Hong Home club: GEM Toastmasters Club and Guangzhou Bilingual Toastmasters Club Officer Position held during 2010 July to 2011 June: Area E2 Governor Personal Educational Achievements during last year: CC, CL, ALB

“When I first received the call from Yingdan about receiving the award for Toastmaster of the Year, I was confused. It just didn’t make sense. Clearly, I don’t have the talent or ambition as Kwong, or the passion and vision as any of the district officers. I was told that they considered my contribution as the Conference Chair for the 2010 Fall conference, my involvement as officers in the clubs and participation in the speech contests…hardly enough to convince me that the award was well deserved. How can I make sense and find meaning in this award? When I first joined Toastmasters over three years ago, I was screwed up inside. I was deeply cynical and couldn’t trust others enough to make a lasting friendship. That had been a pattern in my life since my college days. It was with this emptiness and brokenness inside of me that I carried on my shoulders, a burden which I sought to unload through Toastmasters. Looking back, this is how I made sense of why I spent such effort in this organization: Through the experience of service in leadership roles, I have found ways to heal my own brokenness. The more I am involved, the more I learn what it means to be humble, to trust others, to build fellowship. My healing process has only begun, and it will be a life-long therapy. As it was famously said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” I think that is so true about how members can maximize their value in this organization. That is the message I would like to leave with the readers of the newsletter. Therefore, I have come to a conclusion, that this award is not recognition of how good I am, but of how sick I am: I am merely taking my medication as the doctor has prescribed. I’m the patient of the year. “ By Hubert Lin Hubert is an enthusiastic speaker and courageous leader who founded CHIC Toastmasters club in Beijing and built it as one of the most vibrant clubs. He served as conference chair for District 85 2010 Fall Conference. He and his team brought us a memorable conference with a special theme and local feature. Home club: CHIC Toastmasters Club and Beijing Advanced Speakers Club Officer Position held during 2010 July to 2011 June: President of CHIC club from 2010 July to Dec, and President of Beijing Advanced Speakers from 2011 Jan to Jun. Personal Educational Achievements during last year: ACS & CL

“When I first joined Toastmasters 5 years before, I never thought that I was going to take such a high level officer role and even didn’t image that I was going to receive such an honor award – Division Governor of the Year. This award really satisfied my little vanity  But more important, I realize that is a truth, if you don’t expect too much at the very beginning, and you keep your focus on what you are doing, and then some unexpected and amazing things will come. I guess I can get this award, one of the most important criteria is that I was the chair for the 2011 Spring Conference. When I accepted this task 2010, I never and ever thought about the result, whether it would be fail? Whether we were going to lose money? Whether we have no volunteer to help us? No matter which of these things happened, I thought that would make me crazy, so I have no courage to image the results. I only left one thing in my mind- make the conference shine out loud! Step by step, we sold out more and more tickets; we recruited more and more talent members into our team; we even were so lucky to find a very nice but not expensive meeting venue. The whole process went painfully but also smoothly, sometimes with a little trouble, but all be well solved. At the end we even earn some money from the conference, which could make us to provide good accommodation for our VIP speakers, provide delicious food for our members and high quality conference gift. As most of the toastmasters, I always learn from this big family, painful but happy and satisfied, this experience will taught me that only if you have a goal and persist in working on it, you will make success, and this success could be knowledge, experience, friendship and great honor. That is a great lesson I learn from Toastmasters.” By Ann Zhang Ann is a passionate and visionary leader who served as conference chair for District 85 2011 Spring Conference successfully. As a governor, her division achieved 100% net growth of clubs (from 12 to 24) and 100% Distinguished or above clubs. Home club: CCB Xiamen Toastmasters Club Officer Position held during 2010 July to 2011 June: Division E Governor Personal Educational Achievements during last year: ACG & ALB

Hong Kong “Be A Star” Conference Report Nov. 4-6, 2011, in Hong Kong, we hold the 2011District 85 Fall Conference – “Be A Star” Conference. Over 320 people attended this event. A lot of stars sparkle on the stage, speakers, leaders and volunteers as well. Deepak MENON, the Region 13 Advisor of Toastmasters International, visited our conference as the international leaders. Mary CHEYNE, Toastmasters 2009 World Championship of Public Speaking 1st Runner-up, as our keynote speaker, showed us the skills of “Speaking From the Inside Out” and her lessons from the World Championship journey. 7 valuable workshops were conducted at the conference, and we enjoyed the speeches delivered by speakers from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and United States. And the topics ranged from leadership skills to communication skills, from club success to personal achievement. English Humorous Speech Contest, English Evaluation Contest and Mandarin Humorous Speech Showcase were held, and the contestants were all the top speakers in their division and finally the best stand out as below:

We invited these three champions PC Chen, Sasha Li and Sean Lin to share their hints of success. “Winning the district contest is a fulfilling experience. When I was announced the champion in the contest, I was happy, excited and exhausted. The series of contests which last for three months was intellectually, emotionally and physically challenging. Eventually, I was relieved. No more review, re-write and rehearsal. Hooray! Winning the contest is more than winning a trophy. It is the appreciation from other members that makes it so rewarding. ‘PC, I like the message of your speech.’ ‘PC, I like your way of humor.’ ‘PC, you just spoke out what’s in my heart.’ When your speech connects and touches the audience, it means more than a trophy. Winning the contest is a collaborative effort. I would like to thank those members who have given me feedback and advices for my improvement after each contest and rehearsal. I was not alone. It is not just me winning the contest. It is the collaborative effort of our members that make it happen. No one can win in every contest. The only thing I am sure is I can learn something in every contest. I will continue to take part in contests and grow. Will you?” By PC Chan “This is Sean Lin form Hong Kong. I am so fortunate to have won the District 85 evaluation contest. And I was asked how to do an evaluation contest or how to do an evaluation in general, and I have one of the sharing for you. Now imaging you are in an evaluation contest and you have been given five minutes and suppose you are just like me, when you draw the No.1. That means you are the first to speak. How to overcome this? Now how did I overcome that is because over the past two years I was always asked by my club president and VPE whenever there were last minute job of evaluators, “Sean can you do that?” And I always say, why not? So next time if your club president, your VPE ask these sort of unreasonable requests, do take this chance to practice evaluations and sooner or later when you accumulate enough experiences, you will be a star. “ By Sean Lin

“Hi, my dear fellow Toastmasters! I’m Sasha Li, Champion of the Chinese Humorous Speech Contest of the HK conference. Do you still remember me? Several days ago, I read an article about the Happiness Hypothesis. I was very interested in this question: How can we maximize our happiness? A suggestion from the article is to find your flow. A psychologist coined the name “flow” for the idea of engaging so deeply in an activity that you lose track of time. The Happiness Hypothesis describes “flow” as the “state of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to one’s abilities.” Finding what activities lead to a state of flow for you, such as playing a sport or writing a blog post, and allocating more time to these activities can lead to a more enjoyable career and life. Are you thinking about you own FLOW now? For me, standing on the District 85 Contest Final stage twice sharing my life experience with the whole audience was definitely my flow! This experience, once owned, a lifetime memory. Being a Toastmaster greatly increases my level of happiness. I love doing speeches and Toastmasters just is a perfect place for me. I indulge myself in every meeting, every speech, every contest, and every activity, totally losing track of time. I also have benefited a lot from Toastmasters. I made progress, which in turn fostered my confidence. I find that I am needed and also in need, reaching myself out and also being embraced by my fellow members. To me, the greatest pleasure is helping people and knowing that I’m helpful. Life with Toastmasters is full of sunshine! My dear fellow Toastmasters, probably you were just like me, knocking the door of Toastmasters in the hope of improving English; however, after joining this family, realizing that it is a magic place where people improve communication and leadership skills. Today, I want to add a point: Toastmasters also provides a key to happiness. Speeches influence one’s life attitude; one’s life attitude shapes one’s speech style. Enjoy life at the moment. Enjoy every speech. Enjoying being a member of this happy family! Find your own flow! “ By Sasha Li

District 85 • 2012 Spring Conference • (Hangzhou) • May. 11 – May 13, 2012 Conference chair: Kenneth Wang What’s Particular? What about the Venue? • The last national convention with all Toastmasters clubs from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau; • Zhijiang Hotel, 4 star hotel, Zhejiang province government designed Hotel; • 15 minutes from Westlake by bus; • 1000 thousand people meeting room; • 600+ people banquet Hall; What You Can Hear? • Speech from International Champion; • Workshop from experienced members; • Three Sessions of Final Contests with extremely fantastic performance; • Contestants from 16 divisions; Who Will Serve You? • 12 Toastmasters Clubs in Hangzhou; • 200+ Hangzhou Toastmasters Members; • 100+ volunteers; • Hangzhou, the most charming city of China, is looking forward to seeing you. • Westlake, the historic place with idealized fusion of human and nature is expecting to hug you. • Dear friends, have you ever imagined speaking around the Westlake? • iSpeak, 爱Speak, let’s start the Toastmasters journey of Hangzhou now! Who is the Key Speaker? • Dana LaMon - World Champion of Public Speaking (1992); • Designated as an Accredited Speaker by Toastmasters International; What beyond the Conference? • Hangzhou Conference Committee will help to arrange the tour guide for all the members to the Conference; • Gala dinner with 600+ people;

Ticket & Hotel Booking • Please send your payment credential and the registration information to the following email address: hz.tmc.ticket@hotmail.com. Please forward the information to your division governor (or division ticket officer) as well. • You are encouraged to pay together with members in your club, which would significantly reduce our workload. • Ticket team will send you an email confirmation within 3 days upon receiving your payment information. • Information about hotel booking plans : If you have missed the early bird ticket, I am glad to tell you that first round tickets for Hangzhou Convention are available now till Feb. 29th, 2012. We will help you buy tickets. The ticket covers all the entrance fees for contests and trainings, as well as two meals on May 12th (Saturday, lunch & supper). The price now is RMB518, and will rise to RMB568 after Feb. 29th. We encourage all members to pay in RMB, including those in Hong Kong, Macau, & Taiwan. For members in Hong Kong and Macau, we will inform you how to buy tickets in another email. For buyers in other area, the price will always be $100. NOTICE: At least book 2 nights(May 11 & 12) and deposit is required. Please notice that, the Deposit can’t be refunded if cancel after Mar 20. The committee would try to help to coordinate with the Hotel to transfer to other attendants. If you want buy a ticket, please submit your registration information as below: Division+Area+Club+First name+Last name+Chinese name+Phone+Email If you have any question, feel free to contact: Choice Lee 李洪昌, CC Phone: 13857152830 Vera Wu 吴俊杨 Phone: 13858029078 Email: hz.tmc.ticket@hotmail.com • Please wire the money to the designated bank account： • Account Name: Li Hong Chang 李洪昌 • CMBC(China Merchants Bank), Hangzhou Branch. • Account Number: 6225 8858 6353 7965

South China Campus TMC Joint Meeting By Sophie He Division E held the universities’ first joint meeting in South China. 19 Toastmasters from New Asia College, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the University of Macau (UM) came to Sun Yat-Sen University South Campus Toastmasters Club (SYSU TMC), shared and learned together. smile. Sophie He, from SYSU, was awarded as the Best Speaker by her clear logic and rich arguments in this run. Finally, Wen Liu from Chengchi University in Taiwan preformed an extremely entertaining speech full of exaggerating performances, humorous words covering the eternal topic, "Are you lonely". The atmosphere reached a climax, and the audience couldn’t help applauding again and again. And the most impressive guest must be our General Evaluator, DTM Herbert Lee, the Toastmaster who has served for more than 30 years (also as the founder of Macau TMC). He cares about the growth of universities The day before the meeting, we toured Xiguan and tasted the yummy Cantonese Food. Then we visited the exquisite sculpture in Chen Clan Academy and the southern Guangdong Yue Tomb antiquity, and climbed the Yuexiu Mountain to overview Guangzhou landscape. We were very excited about the journey and, though little tired. On 16th, we continued to "play" happily in the joint meeting! As a warm-up, Area N2 Governor Neo and Division E Governor Cherry presented us with a very practical workshop on how to be a good evaluator. Through the training many junior members mastered the basic skills. The joint meeting had two table topic sessions and two prepared speech sessions. "Geometry teacher" Joy (CUHK) hosted a very fun table topic session where she linked the geometric elements to everyday life. the sunshine girl Sunny (CUHK) shared us a touching story - "Ordinary Miracle" about her friend. Charlie Zhang (SYSU), the would-be PhD, made jokes about “PhD”, while he insisted on pursuing a PhD. His “Charlie light humor” made us club a lot! his general evaluation Report was in the form of a catchy poem, which was with rhyme and points! We would all like to send him a heartfelt admiration! I interviewed Herbert Lee afterwards. He believed the joint meeting is a very good opportunity for the three places of university students to learn from each other and to improve. It would be more beneficial to hold more joint meetings in the future. Watching the students around the venue, he said with a smile, Mainland students are very diligent and studious. It’s also a good opportunity to exercise social skills and deepen friendships.

Beyond Club’s Learning and meet his fans. More than 50 members attended his Body Language Workshop. One of the speech contestants said this workshop helped him won the area contest. This great success started the tour from the Capital to the East and South. By the end of this year, 20 workshops in more than 7 cities’ of TM members benefited from this. By Monica Kwan Every toastmaster’s journey starts from ice-breaker, project by project. Evaluated by similar group of audiences, and sometimes more depend on self-evaluation. At some point, we hit a bottleneck; don’t know how to go onwards. So we visit other clubs, be confident enough as contestants. But this is not enough, after seeing the needs and hunger for learning, a group of Toastmasters in Beijing started to think why not brings our champions to us? Every district conference, we witness our contestants’ stories won hundreds of hearts, especially their TM’s stories definitely helped our members to take the giant step to be better. Then, our 2010 District 85 International Speech winner Kwong delayed his visit as he has to prepare for his finals in Las Vegas. When he returns, he is already World Championship First Runner-Up. A little more than a hundred of Beijing members attended his grand slam winning journey mini-conference. Because of him, a lot of clubs has received more enrolled members in order to get a seat in his workshop. (Yeah as limited tickets) With strong financial support, Global Communicators TMC initiated a series of Champion’s Workshops. The first District 85 International Speech Winner, 2009, Chen Zhang, was invited to Beijing in September. He won in Beijing’s 2009 conference and he is so happy be able to return We think by going a step further to benefit our members, we could provide our members with a wider and deeper scope, which in the process could inspire more members to improve themselves.

We Are Elite! By Sunday Lin Guangzhou Elite Toastmasters Club is the Top 1st of Competent Communication Award. Congratulations! Absolutely we have achieved a lot in the past Toastmasters Year 2010-2011. It's all because of our members' contributions, especially these who have achieved the educational goals. Guangzhou Elite Toastmasters Club is the Top 1st of Competent Communication Award. There were 8 members who finished their CC project! As a President, I would like to give some tips about finishing CC project ASAP. They are as bellows, *Plan your speech advanced Vice President Education oriented new members to the Toastmasters program within two meetings after they joined.The new members booked their first three speech in the agenda which helped them improved quickly. *Make full use of the meeting time Meeting manager planed four speeches in every meeting.They could be two CC1 to CC3 project,another two speeches were CC4 to CC10.The setting could encouraged members doing their project.l *Contest is not just contest Members would not take part in the contest. We can encourage them doing CC project in the contest. The speaker could have the evaluation after the contest. See! This was the win-win strategy. These are the tips of doing CC project quickly. For these who just achieved their CCs, a well -designed TM badge was delivered to them. I thought this encouraged all the members! Star your speech now! Hope all the members could grow to be a DTM!

Discovery to The FIRST Club in ASIA to recognize outstanding members of the club. The by-laws of the only toastmasters club in HK at that time, The Hong Kong Toastmasters Club (HKTMC), only allowed 40 members at a time. So prospective members had to wait until a vacancy opened which could take months. A typical Toastmaster at that time would be in his thirties or early forties, with a high profile job such as professor, pilots, CEO or senior government officer, many of whom were listed in the Who’s Who in HK. It therefore resulted in a rather formal but high standard meetings with stringent evaluations. You would be asked to present on the same project four to five times until a green light is granted. Ladies who are interested can only joined International Training in Communication. It was often stressed that the Club was not for those who wanted to learn the English language, but for those who wanted to develop their listening, thinking and oratorical skills. By Arthur Ting & Deborah Yu Assuming that you decided to join Hong Kong Toastmasters Club in fifty years ago, you’d be surprised most members then were WESTERNERS. If you expect to become a member by handling in the application form, you’d be surprised even more. They probably won’t accept your application, unless you are …. male, and you have to WAIT FOR MONTHS. Hong Kong, being ONE of the TWO non-English-speaking cities whose toastmaster movement survived the World War II, began their Monday regular meetings in 1954 summer at the former stone building of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Headquarters in 1 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong. Adam Aitken, a Scottish expatriate, chartered the club in 28th December, 1954. Mr. Aitken, founder of the Hong Kong Toastmasters Club, now retires in Australia, still cares much about the club. During the Club’s 50th anniversary, a handsome sum was donated to the club. The fund was used to set up the Aitken Award

The 80’s and the 90’s brought major changes to the club. After Toastmasters International allowed female membership in 1973 and made it mandatory for clubs not to refuse female membership in 1978, the Club started to have female members in the early 80s. After the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in 1984, the local expatriate ratio changed significantly as many expatriates left HK. Some active local members also lifted the membership barriers and form new clubs to cater to the growing needs for public speaking training for all walks of life. In order to accommodate additional requests for speaking slots, speakathons were conducted during weekends. Venues included hiking trail, park, beach, karaoke lounge, Chinese restaurant, and in-house company training room. A speech marathon was held at the Furama Hotel during the weekend of 9-11 April 1999. Toastmasters from other clubs, including the Cantonese and Mandarin clubs, also joined in. The speech marathon lasted almost 30 hours which scored a record in HK toastmaster history. Through the dedicated effort of leaders from HKTMC especially Andy See, toastmasters in HK became part of the greater TM community - District 51, in the late 90’s first as an Area and soon as a Division. After that, HKTMC continues to shine in the international stage. In August 1999, delegates of the Club were at the 68th Toastmasters International Convention in Chicago, to receive the President's Distinguished Top Five Club Award, the Top Ten Club Newsletter Award, as well as the Top Five Membership Campaign Award. The Club won all the top three awards that a Toastmasters club could possibly win. Today, HKTMC still maintains its strong presence in the TM community while keeping to its strong heritage. Members are taking active roles both in communications and leadership tracks. Membership is still international. While meetings are no longer as formal, they are still of high quality, full of fun and highly attended. Each meeting attracts at least 20 guests trying to find out what TM is about and how it can help them to pursue their life goals.

Contest season around the corner, are you ready? It's time to start to PLAN your Speech Contest: Club Level: Feb. 6 – Mar. 16, 2012 Area Level: Mar. 17 – Apr.1, 2012 Division Level: Apr. 2 – Apr. 22, 2012 District Level: May 11- 13, 2012 • We will have the followingCONTESTS: • English International Speech Contest • English Table Topic Speech Contest • Mandarin International Speech Showcase • These are MATERIALS for VPE to organize contest: • The interactive, digital version of the Speech Contest Rulebook 2012: flipbook. • Speech Contest Judges Training • Conducting Quality Speech Contests • Files are from Speech Contest Materials • Click & get More Speech Contests • More Document: • Email from LGET Email1; Email2; Email3 • AG 2nd Club Officer Training

Are you the next Club Coach? What is a club coach? Like a fireman rescuing people from a dying club? No, of course we are not, because clubs don’t just go down by accident, there is always a reason behind. As a club coach, our job is to find out WHY, plant HOPE, and of course offer a HAND to help those clubs get out the undesired place and get on the right track. Who can be a club coach? It can be YOU, if you believe in making a difference; if you believe giving brings more than taking; if you want challenges in life; if you love Toastmasters! How can you become a club coach? Simple, just contact us. Are you the next club coach? Join our force now! Sally Li, CC & CL, China Capital Toastmasters Club - Served various club officer roles and Division B Governor - professional soft-skill trainer and believes in connecting people, make change happen! No club is in critical stage, they are just on the way to become better. Cell phone: 135 5298 6070, email: sallylijing@gmail.com Caesar Zeng, ACB & CL, China Capital Toastmasters Club - Served various club officer roles, B1 Area Governor and Division B Governor - Passionate leader and advocator of Toastmaster in north China Cell phone: 186 1161 1380, email: humorousking@gmail.com

Newsletter From District 85