Meet with the Champion

Everybody likes to meet with the champions, to know their stories from zero to hero. Me, no exception! When I received Formosa Toastmasters Club' meeting notice fowarded from Golden Lady Irene Chen last Saturday, I responded to her immediately that I would love to participate in the coming joint meeting of Formosa and Sunrise Toastmastes Clubs to welcome the keynote speaker Dwayne G. Smith, 2002 World Champion of Public Speaking, this evening, April 28th.

I dye my hair whenever there is an important occasion. Meeting with the world champion of public speaking is certainly an important occasion, isn't it? On Sunday afternoon, my younger sister helped me dye my hair in dark brown and made me look 20 years younger. I was satisfied with my new hair color, new appearance, new spirit!

The joint meeting venue was a full house of 100 plus participants. Being a late comer (Oh, I spent too much time putting on makeups at home), I was fortunate not to miss Dwayne's 2002 champion speech "It's funny this time". Dwayne mesmerized the audience with his unique rhyming skills and his southern accent of Atalanta. He talked about his personal story not being able to see his mother Annie L. Smith of Alzheimer's disease at the last minute to add the impact of his message, "you may delay, but time not". His gestures were precise, using his arms and index fingers to mimic skillfully the long hand and short hand of a clock, tick, tick, tick....

After the demo of champion speech, Dwayne gave details about his winning strategies without reservations. He talked about how to come up with the message sentence in a cafeteria, "we can't control time", how to engage the audience in his speech, how to enhance, but not engulf a personal talent in the delivery, and must practice with diligence. Dwayne took questions from the floor and answered them earnestly. His Q&A was one of the best, spontaneously, humorously, and poetically like a champion.

After the joint meeting, I followed a dozen of enthusiastic Toastmasters to Mos Burger for the second party with Dwayne. I sat next to Marian Hiaso, Mike Yang, and Harrison Lee, we talked about the recent events in District 67 and our current world ranking. D67 is short of 350 new members at the moment and is offering an attrative incentive package for new members recruitment. Let's catch up with the rest of the world as fast as possible.

It was 11 o'clock when we said goodbye. At the door of Mos Burger, I met with Jerry Hisiung from Sunrise Toastmasters Club, who left a comment on Murphy's Law after I gave up delivering my speech at Area H1 Speech Contest in March. What a surprise to meet with a sweet handsome young toastmaster who gave me comfort in need as a stranger toastmaster!

On my way home on MRT to Hsin-tien, I sat between Jude Wei and Scott Fu, we talked about the potential to charter a toastmasters club in Hsin-tien. The more we talked about it, the more excited we became. Finally we decided to take the initiatives to charter a club as soon as possible in Hsin-tien. It's going to be named "Hsin-tien Toastmasters Club". Me, I wish I could be the Charter President!