Jakarta Motivator Toastmaster - FUN, LEARN and GROW Together

Last week in Toastmasters Motivators, we journeyed around Medan. Our excellent Table Topic, Ariel, who was born in Medan, told us many interesting things about Medan. Like the “sudako”, durian, Danau Toba, and how direct people are in Medan. Everyone speak loudly and honestly in the now urban but also scenic city, where food is delicious and addictive. That’s how Medan is! Ariel invited S ai, Natalia, Ikhwan, and Hendri for the table topic session.  Christina delivering her speech about chocolate.                              Christina delivered her BM3, delivering her speech titled “The Sweet Side of Chocolate”. She showed us a chart about which areas in Indonesia are the biggest consumers of chocolate. Chocolate is used as the most favorite ingredients in many kinds of food and snacks. Chocolate also can reduce stress and even healthy! So if you avoid chocolate to s...

We appreciated Jogjakarta as our theme last week at Toastmasters Motivators. The city is famous for its preserved tradition and the Kesultanan Jogja. Erwin showed us some insightful pictures about the city, telling us random trivia such as it would be better to negotiate in Javanese accent when you’re trying to buy something in Malioboro. It’s guaranteed that you will get a cheaper price. To honor the city, Erwin led his TOM sessions with a hilarious Javanese accent, sending us laughing whenever we hear it because he spoke it like those comedians in Opera van Java. Erwin as TOM. Ikuyo explaining about organic and non organic garbage. The first prepared speaker was Ikuyo, delivering a speech about dividing garbage from the organic, non-organic, hazardous, and recyclable. What’s amazing is that Ikuyo brought so many props to support her speech. Those were: two garbage bins, lettuce, peeled orange skin, a handful of batteries, old newspaper, used plastic bottle...

The atmosphere of Halloween was still thick in Motivators last week, since Erwin, our representative at the area contest, delivered a very scary speech.  He told a story of a boy who was asked by his mother to buy a liver so her mother could cook it for their dinner. But he couldn’t get the liver at the grocery. Afraid that his mother would be mad, he had an unbelievable idea. To take the liver of his uncle’s corpse that was buried not long before that. He dug and took the liver, then came home to give it to his mother. The family ate it deliciously at dinner. But at night, the angry spirit of his uncle came and asked the boy to return his liver.  Since it was eaten already, he asked for a fair trade. The boy’s own liver. The child obviously died then sadly haunted his house, forever calling  “Mommy…..mommy……”. It was a very scary speech because Erwin prepared excellent sound effects to create the ambience. It’s like “Conjuring: audio version”. Hon...

We discussed about Thailand last week, the only South East Asian Country that had never been occupied by another country. That fact alone deserved to be appreciated. But Thailand had more than that to be admired upon.  The country is beautiful, both in landscape and culture. Kelvin, our TOM for the night, showed us beautiful pictures of Thailand, with many funfacts about the country. Thailand is called the country of 1000 pagodas, with many scenic places to visit. It is the most visited country in 2012. Kelvin’s slides and narration really made us want to go to Thailand. The first speech was from Afdal, the Immediate Past President of BOA. He delivered his Advance Manual about conquering a Cold Call. Persuading a potential and skeptical client through a phone call, promoting and also surviving the dialogue. He really gave us knowledge on how to approach a not so approachable person, especially while marketing a product. Lia delivered his BM9, persu...

Arabia is exotic and blooming as one of the powerful centers of the world. Last week, Motivators traveled to Arabia by discussing it as our theme. We learned a lot of informative yet interesting things about the countries. For example, there is no settled address in Dubai, so it’s hard for expedition companies to deliver packages. “Beside the convenient store, two houses from the farthest left”, and drawing a map. That’s how people direct someone to their house and give the address to the expedition company.  Imagine how many times people get lost to reach a destination there! Zilva, the area governor of J3, lived in Morocco for a year. The most interesting is men there had to greet each other by putting their cheeks together, at least thrice left and right. It’s uncommon to see men doing that to each other, right? So it’s an amusing yet fascinating culture. The first speech was from Cynthia, who delivered her BM2, telling about ways to learn in life. An ...

We’ll learn about different cultures of the world this October. The first country we talk about is the Netherlands! Our Toastmasters of The Meeting for the night, Sukardi, gave us an insight of the country. We know that it’s a country with most dams in the world, but he also told us that people there mostly use bikes for transportation and marijuana is legalized in the country to reduce illegal use. His information gave us a new, different look of Netherlands. The guests for the night. Starting the prepared speech session, we had Debbie who talked about relationships. In her BM2, she talked about points in a relationship. Physical attraction, passion, and commitment. People can have either point more than others. The balance of these three points would make a good relationship. Next, we had Sukardi who told about a Netherland’s folktale. A long time ago, there lived The Lady of Stavoren who had everything, but she was selfish and greedy. One day, she ordered ...