Grand Finale 2010

Nothing could be more exciting than exchanging gifts on Christmas Seasons. After the intermission, President Erin announced the lucky draw and gift exchanging rules. No. 1 got the chance to choose any gift displayed on the table. No. 2 followed No. 1 to pick up the gift left on the table. In addition, No. 2 had the right to claim the gift of No. 1. No. 3 could decide to keep the gift or took the gift of No. 2, and so on. The game went on till everyone had the gift in hand. No. 1 had the right to exchange any gift among the members.

Toastmaster Tina won the lucky draw. She was No. 1. She picked up a cute photo frame in the beginning. Steve was No. 2. He picked up a box of books and CDs on health. He didn’t want to exchange the gift with Tina. At last, our guest speaker Bill from CECI Toastmasters Club picked up a box of two cups of bon china. Tina decided to swap her gift with Bill’s. Bill gave me Tina's photo frame. I gave him the gift from Eric Chou, six packs of hot spring powders. Everybody was happy!

Despite the chilly and rainy evening, Toastmaster Jimmy Wu arrived at the meeting venue 30 minutes in advance as always. He shouldered the responsibility of Sergeant-at-Arms to set the tables. He magnified the Christmas Carol on his mobile phone through the speakers. Everybody was lifted up when entering the warm meeting hall filled with Christmas atmosphere.

The Joke session was lined up with eager joke tellers. Six members volunteered to tell jokes, not to mention Joke Master James O’Sullivan’s funny tale. The Tabletopics Master Sally Wang asked questions about gratitude and relationships.

Being one of the prepared speakers, I was at ease to deliver my speech on Strengthen Your Intuition for a period of 7 minutes and 25 seconds. My individual evaluator Tina won the best evaluator award. She praised a lot of my prepared speech, she commented my speech would be more effective if I could use more vocal variety telling the true stories of the unbelievable intuitions I had with me.

The intermission of Grand's Finale 2010 was the happy hour. Toastmaster Helen Lin donated a big chocolate cake to share her joy and happiness delivering twin daughters, Linda and Sharon, in November. We were invited to her home to see the lovely twins on Christmas Day as Mr. And Mrs. Santa Claus.

After the meeting, we had the second party at MOS Burger till 10:30PM. Erin was so pleased with the cotton mask she bought in Canada to keep her warm in the cold rainy winter evening. Victor was proud to show his IT gadget he brought at a cost of NT$25,000. We took turns trying Erin's mask and learning the functions of Victor's multiple functions mobile phone with a big LCD screen, which is very user friendly to the eyes of senior citizens like me.