"A Tale to Two Clubs" - Bayan Baru and Butterworth Toastmasters Clubs

I was semi-active if there is such a word in Toastmasters last year in 2009. In 2010, I began the year 2010 with some newfound wonder and enthusiasm. I attended my club meeting on Thursday night on the first week of January and visited my former club on Wednesday night on the second week of January. Now that is 100% attendance.

It was a tale of two clubs. One a larger club and the other a smaller club.

Bayan Baru had about 30 members and guests in attendance while Butterworth had 10 members and guests. Both are clubs uphold their tradition of excellence. Both Club Presidents announced during the meeting their incoming annual club level international speech and table topic speech contests. Bayan Baru is 14 years old and Butterworth is 30 years old.

I found the meeting program formats are similar except with these minor differences:
1) Bayan Baru has the table topics session in the first half of the meeting before break and the project speakers in the second half. Butterworth has it in the reverse - project speeches first then table topics.

2) At Butterworth, the General Evaluator calls all the ah counter, timer, grammarian reports and table topics evaluator and project evaluator. At Bayan Baru, the Toastmaster of the meeting calls all the evaluators.

Bayan Baru has great food during break. This meeting was no exception with options of fried noodles or rice (vegatarian) and pizzas. There were 4 project speakers and an invited guest speaker - a doctor who talked on prevention of stomach and colon cancer. Photographs of every meeting are taken throughout the meeting and shared online.

Butterworth is small and cozy and thus allows all members, role players and guests to take part in the table topics sessions with challenging topics like "Man cannot see his reflection on running water but on still water". The meeting room is impressive - the state of the art at the 10th floor of Suntec @Cyber City. Any member who uttered a total of 5 ahs or more throughout the meeting pays a small fine.

Both club meetings are value for time spent and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, laughed a lot and learned from fellow Toastmasters. Well done to Bayan Baru Club President Jessica Teo and Butterworth Club President Ooi Wei Nien and their exco comittee and members. Keep your club banners flying high.