CW Chu College The Chinese University of Hong Kong eNewsletter

Four sessions were held on 20 January, 10 and 24 February and 10 March 2022 with the assistance of our student coordinators, Mr YAU Adam Ching Yiu (Year 4, Quantitative Finance), Mr CHU Lik Hang Hugo (Year 4, Laws) and Ms TANG Lok Anson (Year 1, Translation). Ms Tessa STEWART, Honorary Advisor of the United College Toastmasters Club, joined the last three sessions as the General Evaluator to give feedback to the participants.

The participants were invited to practise through small group sharing and short impromptu speeches related to four topics: ‘Year-end Reflections’, ‘Dear Abby’, ‘Telling Lies’ and ‘Free Riders’. These topics were not only highly relevant to students' personal life and school life, but were also wrapped up in socially friendly and thought-provoking manners. For example, members were asked to reflect on: ‘When nothing goes right…’, ‘Regret is such a short word… Yet it stretches on forever—Ranata Suzuki’ and ‘When you look into the mirror, what do you see?’, the last of which even alluded to Kuen To's pop song about his mirror reflection.

Upon presenting their speeches, participants received instant feedback from the student coordinators and Tessa on different aspects of their speeches, such as voice, gestures and content. Their positive comments helped students make steady improvement over the sessions, grooming them to become outspoken and mature leaders of the future.

Sharing by the Student Coordinators

In this Issue, Mr YAU Adam Ching Yiu (Year 4, Quantitative Finance), Mr CHU Lik Hang Hugo (Year 4, Laws) and Ms TANG Lok Anson (Year 1, Translation) share about their experiences of coordinating the Toastmasters Taster Sessions.

By Mr YAU Ching Yiu Adam (Year 4, Quantitative Finance)

Toastmasters is a club where we encourage members to take part in impromptu public speaking. I first joined the Toastmasters Club at CW Chu College when I was a freshman at the Chinese University. So I have seen how regular practice in public speaking in front of a small audience has helped increase my self-confidence, which has helped me in both my social and work life. With that in mind, I wanted to take up more responsibility in the club and become a student coordinator. Being a student coordinator meant that I had to organise meetings with my teammates to discuss the agenda of each Toastmasters session during our free time, which taught me a lot about time and effective communication in a team setting. Being a student coordinator also meant that I had to host the Toastmaster sessions, which taught me how to read the room and immediately alter the approaches that we were taking to make the session more interesting and interactive. But most importantly, being a student coordinator meant that I had the opportunity to make tons of new friends and memories through the Toastmasters Club. I will surely cherish that as part of my university life.

By Mr CHU Lik Hang Hugo (Year 4, Laws)

I am grateful to be an Organising Member of the Toastmasters Team in both Terms 1 and 2. My main responsibilities were creating table topics and recording each participant's speech (the role of a Timer) and the number of filler words uttered (the role of an ‘Ah’ Counter). I am also fortunate to be in the final session of Term 2. Looking back, it is quite a challenge to organise a programme—especially one about English impromptu speaking—through a mixed-mode or virtual platform. We constantly seek to strike a delicate balance in delivering constructive oral skills and being engaging and friendly. I would say having an informal ambience but maintaining formal professionalism is the CWC Toastmasters' greatest edge. But it is also one that takes many hours to practise and learn. This entails attention to subtle changes in the room, empathy to the audience, facilitation that connects, attracts, and amuses, and well-planned coordination pre- and post-event. The experience has, rewardingly, equipped me with these techniques. Of course—not to mention my impromptu speaking, which sees tremendous improvement. Fruitful, therefore, is my word to sum up what I have done.

By Ms TANG Lok Anson (Year 1, Translation)

Toastmasters is a place where we could all learn, whether as a participant or taking up other roles. My very first session participating at Toastmasters remains vivid in my mind. The session had a welcoming atmosphere and facilitators always actively encouraged everyone to speak up. It was a great and hospitable occasion for public speaking. As I became a coordinator in Term 2, my duties included timekeeping, making evaluations, offering tips and more, but most importantly supporting others and motivating them to speak up.

Being a coordinator and having the chance to take up different roles allowed me to have new experiences every session. Serving as a coordinator, my main duty was evaluating participants' speeches and offering feedback with speech-making tips. It polished my skills in advice-giving and communication. What I find the most rewarding as a coordinator was being able to help participants improve their speeches throughout the sessions. Not only do they learn from their own speeches, we as coordinators also learn from these speeches of a diverse nature. The amazing people make the Toastmaster a great platform to learn from each other and it was a pleasure organising and hosting sessions with other coordinators.