ENRICH & EMPOWER - ISSUE 01

Enrich &

Empower

2021 / 2022 CLUB NO: 2302941 AREA 01 - DIVISION I – District 82

Expolanka Toastmasters Club Official Newsletter

Content Club Executive Committee 2021/22 ....................................................................................................... 3 Expolanka Toastmaster’s Decade Journey.............................................................................................. 4 Message from the President ................................................................................................................... 5 Installation Ceremony ............................................................................................................................. 6 Introduction to Toastmasters ................................................................................................................. 7 Our Club .................................................................................................................................................. 8 Chapters of Raza ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Educational Meetings ........................................................................................................................... 11 New Members....................................................................................................................................... 15 Leadership Journey ............................................................................................................................... 17 Brand Compliance ................................................................................................................................. 18 Achievements........................................................................................................................................ 19 Club Contest .......................................................................................................................................... 24 What Colour Are You? -Identify your communication Style with Toastmaster Sahana ....................... 25 Gallery ................................................................................................................................................... 26 Editor’s Experience ............................................................................................................................... 31

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Club Executive Committee 2021/22

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Expolanka Toastmaster’s Decade Journey

Success is a Journey…

Not a Destination

Every new beginning comes from another beginning’s end. We successfully completed a decade in the fraternity. Let us carry forward the same energy, enthusiasm and excitement to the new decade and let’s celebrate the successful journey of many more decades.

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Message from the President Expolanka Toastmasters Club, an eminent and an efficacious club with an elegant presence in District 82 has witnessed an enormous growth elevating to greater heights within a short span of a decade. The journey from the emergence of the club to the empowerment has been extraordinary and has allowed and is allowing each and every member who has been, is and will be a part of this enthralling journey to witness extensive growth as great communicators and leaders which helps the club in producing many exceptional speakers and exemplary leaders within District 82.

Staying earnest to the vision of our Patron, Mr. Hanif Yusoof, the vision for this Toastmasters year has been to ENRICH the member experiences and EMPOWER every single member in their pursuit of communication and leadership. Thus, the entire year has been revolving around the theme ‘Enrich and Empower’. This Toastmasters year the Club has conducted all the meetings with exciting themes that have been elemental in bringing eloquence and ecstasy to the members. Over the year, Expolanka Toastmasters Club has been able to elevate the standards and expedite numerous accolades. TM Sameera Dilhan represented the Club in Division I, International Speech Online Contest and bragged the second place bringing eminence to the club.

The club has successfully achieved President’s Distinguished status and esteemed Golden Club Award for the year 2021-2022 under the purview of the Vice President Education, TM Umair Himayathulla. The Club also has successfully achieved Smedley award under the purview of the Vice President Membership, TM Ikhlas Imtiyaz while achieving multiple flyers of the month under the purview of the Vice President Public Relations, TM Sahana Vithanagama. The energetic and enthusiastic Executive Committee that I have with the likes of, Umair, Ikhlas, Sahana, Nisansala, Aruljothi and Arulmathi, together have allowed the club to continue to Enrich the member experiences and empower them allowing to exalt the Expolanka flag.

The most ambitious initiative of the year ‘Pathway to Lead’ corporate training program for the first time in the history of Expolanka Toastmasters Club is an exhilarating experience that the club is conducting in partnership with Oki Doki (Pvt) Ltd, allowing the club to establish its presence in the corporate effectively.

It has been a great year, being the youngest president of this prestigious club and leading the team of freshers has been exciting yet challenging and has brought within me the best experience that I will cherish forever to come. I have been committed to Enrich and Empower and this club will continue to do so in the years to come.

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Toastmaster Aboobucker Raza

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Installation Ceremony

Expolanka Toastmasters Club, a club with a graceful presence in the fraternity has grown tremendously and reached greater heights producing champion speakers and distinguished leaders within a decade of its successful presence.

We, the executive committee for the year 2021/22 along with our members sailed through the moments with grace and made wonderful memories. The 10th installation ceremony of Expolanka Toastmasters Club was an enriching event. With the blessings of all, the event has allowed us at Expolanka Toastmasters Club to understand how we have, are and will transform from Caterpillars into butterflies.

The event was magnanimous alongside the portrayal of talents of our own exco members, delivering a magnificent drama, ethereal, euphoric, and exemplary.

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Introduction to Toastmasters

What is Toastmasters ?

For nearly 100 years, Toastmasters International has helped millions of people become more confident communicators, public speakers, and leaders. The Toastmasters network of clubs and it learn-by-doing program were created to help you gain the skills needed to achieve your personal and professional goals.

Why pay thousands of dollars for a seminar when you can join a Toastmasters club for a fraction of the cost and have fun in the process?

Toastmasters will give you the skills and confidence you need to effectively express yourself in any situation. Whether you are a tenured manager, student, young professional, someone looking to advance their career, or someone hoping to make an impact in your community, Joining Toastmasters can help you achieve your personal and professional goals. Is one of your goals listed below? Click on it to see how we can help you accomplish it!

What's in it for

I want to…

me?

Build confidence for public speaking

Increase my fluency in a language Improve my leadership skills

Improve my communication skills

Become a more effective speaker

Network with others or build social connections

Meet my professional goals

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Our Club

FURTHER DETAILS

Expolanka Toastmasters

expolanka_toastmasters

Expolanka_TMC

Expolanka Toastmasters Club

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Chapters of Raza

PATH CHOICE

The Ice Breaker

22 Months

June 2019

HPL Completion Speech

April 2021

22 MONTHS 17 SPEECHES 5 LEVEL COMPLETIONS 4 REAL LIFE PROJECTS 3 CONTEST CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHIES 2 CONTEST RUNNER UP TROPHIES 1 TRIPLE CROWN STATUS

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SENIOR STATEMENTS As a speaker you have been able to be a lot more focused on as opposed to rambling on around what you have to say and that to me is the biggest difference I have observed. Other aspects like confidence and basic speech techniques have improved vastly.

- Ahmed Abdullah, DTM

Your speeches have improved drastically. Your language tone has come down, yet it is of very high standard. Your monotonous voice and restricted body language has now improved into varied voice and effective Body Language. The last speech you delivered was really a top notch which really showed how much you have improved as a speaker.

- Zaidh Naushard, DTM

As a speaker TM Raza has a major improvement in his Toastmasters journey. One of the major strengths of Raza is his literacy in language. But initially he had been using more writing language into his speeches which as a part of the audience I couldn’t understand most of it. But with time he has improved a lot.

- TM Sameera Dilhan

As a speaker your improvement is well evident in terms of stage confidence, simplification of language, catering to the exact audience and adapting the speech according to the situations. As a leader, your improvement is well evident through your understanding and adaption of situational leadership.

- TM Gazzaly Moulana

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Educational Meetings

Every meeting is based around a set of organized speeches. Speakers are given feedback, often by a more experienced member. who then gives an impromptu speech with constructive feedback based on their performance.

Part of meetings is devoted to Table Topics, which are off-the-cuff speeches which are assigned on the spot by a Topicsmaster. The goal of this is to think on one's feet with minimal preparation.

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Toastmasters International places a large emphasis on building the public speaking and leadership skills of its members

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New Members

"I joined the toastmasters because I wanted to widen my network and acquire the qualities of a true leader. When I was introduced to it, I had second thoughts about joining because I thought that it would interfere with my official work schedule but on the contrary, it has only been a valuable asset in developing my professional skills and attributes. You get real friends that will tell you what you need to improve in and the reason they do this is because they want you to succeed, and I can tell you that I am well on my way."

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I joined the club to improve my communication skills and be interactive

I joined the Expolanka toastmasters club because I really liked giving speeches or any sort of addresses during my school years, I guess that confidence went away during the pandemic years because I haven't communicated much, but I want to take this as an opportunity to be able to not only gain confidence to talk publicly but also gain the knowledge to do it effectively

I am here to develop my interpersonal skills, while learning to effectively express myself to others.

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Leadership Journey You listen to hundreds of leaderships talks and read dozens of leadership books; you will never learn what style of a leader you are until you become a leader yourself. If we disregard the few opportunities of me being an impunctuality, disorganized class monitor at school; the first point of my life where I felt that I am a leader was in 2016 when I was in the university. We had an inter university business challenge where the participants were asked to compete in teams and present a business solution for a given case study. We were a strong team of three boys and one girl in the “team Oracle” and the leader of the team was me.

My strategy was delegating different tasks among team members. After that I combined their work into single output and its adjustments were done by the whole team. Throughout this process I knew the strengths of each and every member of my team. My strong academic knowledge and experiences in logistics was useful in drafting the solution. But whenever required; our industry expert, Sachin took the lead to add the flavour of practicality to the solution. Our next member Udara, who had an expanded network with so many contacts in the industry, took the lead when the support of seniors or professionals was required. Hence each team member took the lead at their areas of expertise.

In the final round we decided to give each, for an opportunity to present on stage. Like all the other teams, our team also had members who faced stage fear. But I individually listened to each, and every member rehearsing their part and coached them to perfect their stage presence. Due to which all members were motivated to present on the stage. On the final day we were well prepared, and my team was confident on the stage to present. While only the leaders in most of other teams in the competition were answering in that round; all members of my team were enthusiastically answering any question raised by the panel of judges. On that day team Oracle was unique on the stage with the active contribution, creativity, motivation and even with the diverse expertise of all team members. While the chief judge was announcing the final results of the competition, we were all eagerly paying our attention to his words. “The champion of this business challenge is team Oracle and undoubtedly there must be a strong leadership behind this victory”. Yes, we won! While all our hearts were overflowing with happiness of the victory; I learnt that I am a democratic and a coaching leader. Today Toastmasters’ Leadership Style Scoring Guide proved that further.

After that day, I have used my leadership styles in many situations to lead teams into success. If you are a true democratic leader; it’s never “I did it”; it’s always “we did it”. If you are a true coaching leader you are happier to see people, you empowered are achieving than you are achieving it alone.

Both of these are very successful leadership styles specially when the team members are knowledgeable for quality contributions and when they are willing to learn. In vies versa these styles can have drawbacks if the team members are less knowledgeable, full of negative emotions and unwilling to learn. The leader should address those situations strategically through other leadership styles. Just like there are many styles in swimming; there are many styles in leadership like bureaucratic, authoritative, innovative and so on. But I am trying to master democratic and coaching styles.

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TM Sachini Kumarasinghe –

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Brand Compliance 2020/2021 is the Toastmasters year which brought me luck and happiness after I accepted the role of Vice President Public Relations. This brought me lot of learnings, experiences and achievements. And when I first received the Brand manual, I wanted to throw it away because when it comes to designing there are few limited choices and colours to design a flyer. But then after few months I realized what a Brand can do, the importance of a Brand. Why it is a matter, and I tried to incorporate my designing skills into those guidelines and come up with brand compliant flyers.

A brand is more than a name and it is powerful. In Toastmasters, Voice, tone and visual guidelines are important aspect of branded communication. Toastmasters is public speaking, leadership, and communication.

Whatever we do in Toastmasters branding we need to make sure that our flyers or videos convey the Toastmasters message.

That’s why Toastmasters Brand compliance is important in helping to keep visuals and messaging consistent across all platforms of communication with the public. Usage of Logos, size and placement, Brand Colours, Gradient, Image usage, TI approved Font, Transparency, TI Message are some important factors to consider when designing according to brand compliance.

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TM Kavya Reshani -

Are you ready to get brand-happy with us?

Let the Brand Manual be your inspiration!

Toastmasters International is excited to present you with brand guidelines in an easy-to-follow format to help you effectively bring the brand to life.

Our personality reflects how the organization interacts with audiences at every touch point, such as through internal communication, external media, social posts, and more. While adjustments should be made to reflect each culture, each language, and each medium, our brand personality is universal—with strong elements of leadership, dedication, and empowerment.

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Achievements Member Achievements TM Sameera Dilhan Leadership Development Level 3

TM Antony Rajasekaran Innovative Planning Level 2

Zaidh Naushard, DTM Effective Coaching Level 4

Ahmed Abdullah,DTM Innovative Planning Level 1

TM Ikhlas Imtiyaz Presentation Mastery Level 1

TM Faaiq Mohamed Presentation Mastery Level 1

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TM Umair Himayathulla TM Sameera Dilhan Leadership Development Level 4

Innovative Planning Level 1 TM Sahana Vithanagama Dynamic Leadership Level 1

TM Nisansala Liyanapathirana

TM Gazzaly Moulana

Innovative Planning Level 3

Persuasive Influence Level 2

TM Aruljothi Suppiah

TM Suppiah Arulmathi

Innovative Planning Level 2

Leadership Development Level 2

TM Ikhlas Imtiyaz Presentation Mastery Level 2

TM Sachini Kumarasinghe Ahmed Abdullah,DTM Innovative Planning Level 2

Dynamic Leadership Level 2

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Club Achievements

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Together we achieve great things... Here we are with yet another milestone.

Expolanka Toastmasters Club achieved 10/10 DCP points. Thank you for your tremendous support!

Expolanka Toastmasters Club is so thrilled to announce that the club is eligible to achieve President’s Distinguished Club status for the toastmasters year 2021-2022.

As you worked toward this victory, behaved with such humility, grace and kindness to others. Appreciate how you always share your success, and your love for your toastmaster’s community is one of the reasons the club rise to the top.

The proudest moment for Expolanka Toastmasters family. We are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded the prestigious Golden Club Award!! This amazing accomplishment is just one step on our journey.

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Top Flyers of the Month Wins

October 2021 December 2021

April 2022

March 2022

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Club Contest

Presenting the winners of Humorous speech club contest 2021

Not all dreamers are winners, but all winners are dreamers.

Presenting the winners of Area Level International Speech Contest 2022

Toastmaster's ambition is so inspiring! Congratulations on your well-deserved success TM Sameera, 2nd Place Division Level International Speech Contest 2022 24

What Colour Are You? -Identify your communication Style with Toastmaster Sahana I'm going to take you on a bit of a journey. I want you to get a sense of your natural communication style, so you can remove some of the risk to your relationships. Because communication is vital in truly connecting with people. Of course, there are other components: courage, compassion, commitment, curiosity but let's start today with an easy bit; let's start with communication Some of you process by thinking things thoroughly in direct communication manner as Red, some of you process by turning the things that you're hearing, the words, into pictures inside your mind being yellow and analytical and some of you process by simply getting a feel for what's occurring, it’s hard to put that into words It's more of an intuitive process, very supportive way of communication as in blue.

I'm going to start with the beautiful colour, my favourite purple. Purple people are strong, and purples talk a lot. Thoughts and ideas are constantly popping into their mind. There is no stopping and thinking, it pops into their mind and straight out of their mouth. This is me with my friends, especially with my close friends, when I go on trips, I ever hardly shut up throughout the car ride. I am sociable, enthusiastic, energetic, spontaneous, and fun-loving with a good bottle of wine.

Next, we have the colour red, this is my way of communicating when I am mad, very direct. I talk in bullet points: "Yep" "Nope" "Go away" This style of communication is decisive, competitive, independent, and confident.

Today morning I’ve been a direct communicator with my brother, we had a fight over who is the smartest in the family, then my yellow communication style kicked over. Since I am a professional analyst as I present my work to my boss, I had the precise, exact, analytical, and logical way on answering it. I am four years older, so I have 4 years of experience more than you, that is it!!

I’m the smartest. Meanwhile, the toastmaster’s communication style questionnaire pointed out that I am a blue colour communicator. Yes, I agree I am a combination of all four colours but dominated by blue, blue as in a supportive communicator, specially with my colleagues, I am calm, steady, approachable, sincere, and gentle, due to my active listening skills, others see me as cooperative, dependable, and loyal. This is very helpful on navigating my team as a leader to successfully close accounts for the financial year this time. Today: A simple, four colours helped us to understand, better on communication styles without you even realizing, may be causing the people around you to judge your intentions. Imagine if everyone in the whole wide world could communicate more effectively, what a legacy, we could leave? I find that exciting. Finally, my question to you toastmasters - What colour are you?

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TM Sahana Vithanagama –

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Gallery

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Get in Touch with Us

Educational Meetings

Every 2nd and 4th Wednesday Online Meetings 7.00PM onwards via Zoom Platform

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Editor’s Experience It is an immense pleasure to launch the newsletter edition for 2021/22 and a great honour to be the editor for the release of Enrich and Empower.

This issue recounted various projects and activities toastmasters’ club members were actively involved in since 2021 June until 2022 May. Among the various excellent performance and awards the club had gained through the year, the celebratory milestone events specially have been the decade completion, successful installation ceremony and receiving of the prestigious Golden Club Award.

Expolanka toastmasters club is well known for the hard work, dedication, and teamwork of its members and especially for its creativity and setting benchmarks for the fraternity. A huge thank you to all the individuals who contributed to compose wonderful and inspiring magazine.

Finally, I would like to thank the President, and the Exco members for their everlasting support throughout the creation of this. Always grateful for the mentors behind us guiding towards the betterment.

-Toastmaster Sahana Vithanagama-

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We await to welcome you!

Expolanka Toastmasters Club #2302941

Area 01, Division I, District 82 32