Toastmasters.

Yeah, I’m a member of Toastmasters now.

It seems quite interesting that after 10 years of first knowing about Toastmasters (TM), I’m finally joining as a member. Actually when I first got to know about TM, the image I had was slightly negative. Not that I thought TM was a bad thing. it’s just that the people whom I knew that were associated with TM then were not exactly ones that I enjoy knowing. Some of them seemed a bit too arrogant, some could only talk and could never get anything done, while some decided that TM could bring them to places and decided to ditch their old friends. So actually when I first knew about TM in Singapore, it wasn’t something that I held too high in regards. Besides, I was also thinking that I could talk in front of a crowd with confidence, so I didn’t think I needed that.

When I first returned to Hong Kong, I didn’t have many friends so I was hoping to meet a few. Somehow I thought about TM and thought that maybe that could be a place to start. I thought that the people in Hong Kong should be different from those in Singapore. I kinda enjoyed the experience then (which also quashed that previous conceptions about people associated with TM), but stopped short at becoming a member because I was beginning my Masters and I thought I might be hard pressed for time.

So how did it all come back? I have always said that my recent trip to Korea changed my life, and TM was one of the things that appeared during the trip. My Korean friend, Minjung, asked me if I would be interested to visit her TM club. Since I didn’t really have an itinerary for the trip to Korea that time, I thought it might be interesting to meet a few new people, so off I went and I really enjoyed the experience. The people were friendly and sincere, and I thought that was how TM should be!

When I came back to Hong Kong, I was in for another TM surprise – two of my seniors in the office were actually TM members before and told me a few things about their participation. So I decided to conjure up the determination again to try my hands on TM once again. I visited the Victoria TM Club and to be honest, initially I felt slightly uneasy because I didn’t know anyone, and no one really talked to me. However that disappeared quickly and I managed to know a few people, which I enjoyed tremendously. And from then on, signing up as a member became a no-brainer.

So much for the history of me becoming a TM member again, and perhaps I’d talk about my first speech, which I made a few days ago. I always knew what I was going to talk about, but to put it into a speech was something that I had to really think about. I wasn’t nervous, and in fact I was looking forward to delivering the speech. So off I went and started talking, after being introduced by the TM of the Evening. I thought I did OK, just that I had to cut a chunk off my speech when I saw the green card – must have got too engrossed with the opening part, I reckon! Luckily I still managed to talk about what I wanted to talk about, which I was happy about. At the end of the speech, I had other members coming to congratulate me on making the speech, and some of them told me that they really liked it. Some others came to me with encouragements and suggestions, which I found really useful. To say I was chuffed to pieces would be an understatement.

I guess from the positive experience that I’ve got with TM so far, I realize that people in TM are generally positive people who prefer to focus on the things you do well, rather than to dwell on things that you don’t do well. I think I like that. I really don’t understand why people nowadays want to be so negative and always focus on the bad things about others. And whenever they see things they don’t like, they say the meanest things ever to make you feel bad. The worst thing is, they don’t even think that there is a problem with that. Well, instead of hurling abuse, why can’t we give more encouragement? Instead of criticizing all the time, why can’t we give praise more?

Some say TM is a place where you’d learn how to speak, some say it’s a place where you’d learn how to listen. For me, it’s also a place for me to learn how to be positive. I hope people around me could also learn to be like that.