Sunrise TMC's in-house Evaluation Contest

It was a great pleasure to be invited as a judge at Sunrise Toastmasters Club's in-house evaluation contest Tuesday evening, September 10th. Many thanks to EVP Brighter Lin for giving me the opportunity to reconnect with one of the best Toastmasters clubs in Division H, District 67. It felt like yesterday when golden ladies Toastmasters Trini Ding, Kate Hsu, Pamela Yang and I joined Sunrise TMC's year end party in 2009 in the rain!

It was the first time I participated in a Toastmasters club's in-house evaluation contest of eight judges. They were Lawrence Huang, Division H Governor, Dawn Lin, Area A1 Governor, Yvonne Kao, Area C1 Governor, Harry Fong, DTM, Helen Chen, DTM, Michelle Fan, Juilin Chang, and myself, Area H1 Governor. If each judge were given 2 to 3 minutes to comment on the in-house evaluation contest, there could have been a judges' contest!

The target speaker is outstanding President Allen Lu from National Cheng-chi University. Allen made an impressive speech about how to cope with insomnia with valuable know-hows. Allen did an intensive and extensive research about sleeping problems in Taiwan. With the good support of statistics, Allen aroused the interest of the audience about the modern ailment. He used a couple of medical jargons, such as serotonin (a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep and appetite, mediate moods, and inhibit pain) and enkephalin (a neurotransmitter that is induced by exercise to suppress pain). As a pharmacist, I like Allen's informative speech to medical professionals . But to a Toastmasters audience, I wonder how many people could take home the medical terms of neurotransmitters except Dr. Lawrence Huang, the pediatrician at MacKay Hospital.

It was a good tradition of Sunrise that all club members join the in-house contest. Twelve contestants broke a leg after Allen Lu's speech. They were Edward Wu, Muriel Weng, Joe Lin, Thomas, Linda, Ellisha Chang, John Tsai, Vincent Chuang, Pamela Tung, Daniel Lai, May Liau, and Kelly Chen (in evaluation order). I was overwhelmed by the passion and enthusiasm to excel among young and energetic members of Sunrise Toastmasters Club.

After the in-house evaluation contest, I hang around with a few members for the second round at McDonald's. President Joe Lin was a good listener from the beginning to the end. I was happy to witness his growth in Toastmasters in the past five years, from a college graduate to a father of a two months old son. Nai-ling was excited about her new web work at Tao-yuan airport. She was eager to acquire Japanese language to serve the customers from Japan. While Kelly was hesitant about getting married, Vincent, Brighter, Joe, and I encouraged her to take the challenge to invest in marriage. If falling in love is an impulse, staying married is definitely an art of business. In marriage, not only does a Toastmaster become a better person, but he or she also make the better half a better person.