Buddies and Speeches

Written by Charis Chen
Edited by Ranen Chan

1, 2, 3, ROAR!!!

Today’s meeting started with a bang as Speaker Lee Xin led the icebreaker for the very first time! She split us into two teams for a round of Samson and Delilah. We were thrilled to play the game again, as it carried many memories for us-- East Asia events, YSG 2 graduation... the list goes on. But this time, there was a twist! Each team had to elect a leader, who would pick actions for the team during the game. Why? The two teams would face away from each other, and at the count of three, would leap around with their selected action. If a member of the team did the wrong action, the team lost a point! It was a suspenseful game, and we had lots of fun. Through this game, we learnt the importance of collaboration. What an exciting way to do so! But the fun didn’t stop there!

Photo by Coach Choong Ming

"Do you think you have a good memory? Can you tell us what you had for lunch last Monday?"

Photo by Ranen Chan

For our devotions, I led our Chapter in a review of what we had learnt about the Beatitudes and its message. It turns out, our Chapter members have quite a good memory! We talked about how blessing is a description of what someone is, not how they feel. We are blessed because we are in the Kingdom of God. However, this kingdom is neither tangible nor visible to those around us, and that’s why we need our Heavenly Identity Cards! What is this Heavenly Identity Card? It is the way we live our lives. :) In coming to Earth and dying to save our sins, Christ brought us a peace that others might not think of- not physical peace with no wars and conflicts, but the peace of reconciliation with God, and thus citizenship of Heaven.

The devotion was followed by a word from our Sponsor, Coach Joseph, who began his sharing with a shocking statement: "ICC is not about communication." For a moment we were stunned, but he quickly continued, "ICC is not about communication; it’s about conviction." How profound! He went on to share that nothing hurts a parent more than their children succumbing to negative influences and doing things behind their back. 3 John 4 says, "I have no greater joy than to see my children walking in the truth." He ended with a little food for thought: as Communicators for Christ, are we walking in the truth, and do we truly believe what we say?

Coach Choong Ming then taught us a little bit about the P of GOOP-- having respect for property-- by leading us in a pledge to respect and care for the property of our Chapter Sponsor since we use his property as our meeting place.

Photo by Ranen Chan

With that, it was time for... Resurrection time, also known as Practice round 1!

Oh, no, oops! I’ve just been informed that it wasn’t called Resurrection time because we were dead with fright. I apologize for the miscommunication. It was called Resurrection time because many of our YSG 3 speakers ’resurrected’ their YSG 2 scripts to practice for the upcoming tournament! Speaker Ranen resurrected his intriguing ’Cereal Killers,’ Speaker Eunice resurrected ’Two Guaranteed Ways to Kill the Joy of Learning,’ Speaker Jern Yoong resurrected the thought provoking ’Can Blessings be Dangerous?’ Speaker Ian resurrected his well-researched ’Evolution.’ Despite having heard the speeches so many times last year, none of us were bored of listening to them again. In fact, we enjoyed it very much, and to top it off, Speaker Jonique, for her first time, presented to us in her naturally entertaining manner, her YSG 2 Literary Interpretation, ’The True History of Little Golden Hood.’

Last minute prep...

Photos by Ranen Chan

After the hard work, we took a break. Speaker Eunice had an incredibly exciting announcement for us: the implementation of our brand new buddy system, planned by Coach Mei Nee and Speaker Eunice! We are truly delighted and look forward to bonding more with our buddies!

Coach Debra also had another announcement for us! We now have a new Coach in charge of the YCC section-- none other than Coach Lalitha, with Coach Mei Nee as her advisor!

What a lot of changes! We can’t wait to see what the rest of this year holds for us!

We then broke for dinner, during which we spent time with our buddies, combined buddy groups, and played games and answered questions to get to know each other better. It was such an enjoyable time!

After dinner, we gathered back in the living room, where Coach Joseph asked us what it means to be swag or swek. Speaker Jern Yoong enlightened us by explaining how swag is a term used by many young people to mean cool, and that swek is the Malaysianized version of swag.

Having had the definition for our word of the day, we jumped into Practice Round 2. I began with my feeble maiden attempt of a Thematic Religious Reading, but was followed by a line-up of amazing speakers from YSG 1 and YCC! Speakers Jodie and Danelle did their Limited Prep speeches, and despite not being prepared, they spoke with good poise and clarity. Great job! Finally, Speaker Carlson presented his YCC Informative speech about the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, Lafayette shared with us about the importance of water, and Lee Yuan taught us about what lava is. All of their speeches were both delightful and entertaining, and we look forward to more of those in the future!

Photos by Ranen Chan

With that, we called it a day. Thank you for taking the time to join us on this meeting! Au revoir! See you soon!

Practice makes Perfect

Written by Danelle Tan
Edited by Charis Chen

Photo by Coach Choong Ming

Hello! To start off today's meeting, held at Coach Choong Ming's home, the icebreaker session (the best part of any meeting :D ), was led by the exuberant speaker, Jern Ling!  
              
The game was called the Number Sequence. The group had to stand in a circle facing outwards with our eyes closed. There were 21 of us, and each person had to call out a number. The goal was to go from 1-21 without any skipped or repeated numbers, and with only one person speaking at a time. Each person could only call out one number. 

We all thought it an enjoyable game!

Photo by Ranen Chan

Next, we had Ian lead our devotion. He began by asking who wanted an ang pow. Then, we read Matthew 5:3-10 as a chapter, and he helped us identify the key words which were: 

Beatitudes - Blessed 

Messiah - Chosen for a special purpose. Jesus was the True Messiah.

Kingdom - A territory. The ticket to God's Kingdom of Peace is to Repent and Believe.

Peace - Generally thought of as unity, harmony, and absence of conflict. It is, however, not the absence of conflict, but the presence of God!  

Jesus is the Prince of Peace because He is the only way for us to have peace with God.

Community - ICC is an example of a community. A community has a common mission and goal. 

Photo by Ranen Chan

With the devotion over, we then had a word from Assistant Sponsor, Coach Choong Ming. He talked about the Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment which was conducted "to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform." ( http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html)

A video of the experiment is embedded below if you're interested in further information on the subject:
                                         


Coach Choong Ming reminded us of how one day, we will experience different situations where we will be required to make a stand. Will we compromise our stand or maintain our beliefs? It is our decision which will set us apart and be our testimony for Christ- to stand alone in the test of life when everyone else chooses to conform.

Romans 12:2: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." 

Photo by Ranen Chan

Then came the session for YSG speakers to give their presentations, starting off with Jern Yoong, who gave his computer aided presentation (CAP) about the advantages and disadvantages of social media.

Photo by Ranen Chan

He was followed by Jodie, who gave her 'My Favourite Bible Verse' speech and Charis, who shared with us about the pros and cons of dating in her CAP.

Photo by Ian Chan

 Then came my turn; I presented 'My Favourite Bible Verse' speech as well.

Photo by Danelle Tan

Next was Lee Xin, who finished off the session by telling us a story about a mother with only one eye who raised a spoilt and unloving child.

After all the stress (kidding!), we had dinner break, the best part of the meeting for me! Jonique and I ran off to the playground with our dinner while the adults discussed serious matters.

Time flew quickly, and upon finding out we were late, we raced back to the house and climbed over the gate in time for...

Limited Prep!!

Jodie began by telling us about how sadness isn't always bad. She was a natural! Her ideas flowed smoothly together and she appeared quite confident during her speeches. Lee Xin shared about how teamwork is better than working alone. Soon after, she was done with her L.P. Speaker Lee Rui took her place at the center of the room. Despite her nervousness (as we all were too!),  it was great to see her improving!

In my opinion, for people who are really shy, we have to learn not to give them too much negative feedback and provide more encouragement instead. For shy speakers like me, parents help by spending more time helping us practice at home.    

After Lee Xin and I were done with our limited prep, we concluded that limited prep is linked to nervousness and profuse sweating. We asked each other, 'Is it just me or is it warm in here?'

Photo from Pinterest

When will we get acclimated to the art of limited prep?

Photo by Ranen Chan

Once the meeting was over, the parents chatted and the student leaders had their discussions, while other YSGers stretched in relief.

That’s it for today. It's great to have you drop by to read! Come back soon for more updates!

Ideas < Consequences

Written by Charis Chen
Edited by Ranen Chan

Greetings! Welcome to our October 30th ICC chapter meeting! I am reminded of how quickly time flies- it is already November, and this is our final official chapter meeting for this year!

We began with "Kitty Wants a Corner," an exciting icebreaker led by Speaker Ranen. Everyone stood in a circle with a person in the middle, who was called the "kitty."

The kitty would pick someone in the circle and say, "Kitty wants a corner" to him/her, the person would point to their neighbour and say, "Go ask my neighbour," and the Kitty would have to repeat the question to the next person.

While this goes on, other people in the circle would catch each others' eyes to communicate with each other that they wanted to switch places. The goal of the kitty was to be observant and catch an empty "corner" in the circle while people were switching places.

The game had us all filled with suspense, and in addition to the lesson we learnt about eye contact and non-verbal communication, we saw many quieter personalities begin to open up as well!

Following the icebreaker, Speaker Eunice led us in the devotion. She reminded us that we need to have an accurate view of the God we serve. We learnt about how Jesus was both fully God and fully man. How is that possible? Well, it is beyond our comprehension. We are finite, but God is infinite. Speaker Eunice split us into four groups where we discussed about why Jesus had to be fully God and fully man.

Photo by Ranen Chan

We concluded that Jesus had to be both fully God and fully man for a few reasons. Jesus had to get down to the same level as us so that we would accept Him, and because He is our righteous judge, the fact that He has humbled Himself to be a man makes us realise that we cannot say His judgement is invalid or that He doesn't understand. Another reason was that Jesus had to be human to live and die for us, but as God, He was sinless, and thus able to bear our sins on His shoulders.

Coach Joseph then came to share with us about how ideas have consequences. When he was a schoolboy, he spent about an hour commuting by school buses each day. The drivers would have the radio on, and he would listen to the various songs that blared from the speakers, and wrong messages from the songs eventually began seeping into him. It was only later that he realied the magnitude of the songs' influence upon him, and so he had to consciously replace the ideas and lies he had believed with the truth from God's Word. "All men are created equal in God's sight," he said, "but not all ideas are equal. There are the good ideas, and the bad ideas."

Photo by Ranen Chan

He encouraged us, as Communicators for Christ, to communicate with meekness, respect, and fear- even if we disagree with someone. He concluded by leaving us some food for thought: "We can choose our ideas, but we cannot choose the consequences [of the ideas]." Very often, we feel pressured and stressed, but we need to replace wrong ideas with the truth. The closer our beliefs and actions are to the truth, the more peace we will experience.

Photo by Coach Choong Ming

We then broke up to our respective groups for the skills sessions.

Speaker Jern Yoong and I had a lot of fun working with the YCCers, who learnt about what blocking was and how they could incorporate it into their informative speeches. A simple way to plan blocking (stage movement) is to imagine walking in a shape on the floor, switching spots as naturally as possible when one moves on to the next point in a speech. Blocking helps the speaker to avoid looking too stiff, and allows the audience to feel more comfortable.

Photo by Coach Daniel Toh

During the YSG session, we discussed how choosing stronger, more specific words helps our audience picture what we're saying better. Speaker Jern Ling and Ranen then led a fun activity which helped us learn to make better word choices. It is important to choose our words wisely so that we don't leave our audiences guessing what we might be saying.*

Photo by Coach Choong Ming

Photo by Coach Michelle

We also had two chapter practices today! Speaker Jern Yoong shared his testimony about finding God. He spoke very honestly and genuinely. I felt that as a second-generation Christian, I could relate a lot to his message. Great job, Jern Yoong!

I also presented a Computer Aided Presentation on dating. The coaches provided lots of wonderful, helpful feedback! I'm so grateful that we have such a safe and supportive community to learn from!

Photo by Ranen Chan

Our chapter chair, Jern Yoong, then closed the meeting with a word of prayer, and the speakers proceeded to have their chapter presentation practice, led by Speaker Eunice and I.

But this time...

There was something new (and very exciting)!

We appointed our CPP Monitors, Speakers Jern Ling and Jern Yoong! CPP stands for Chapter Presentation Practice, and the role of the monitors was to help ensure the practice ran smoothly. They did a wonderful job, and we made a lot of progress with the presentation! Bravo!

That brings us to the end of yet another energy-filled meeting! Join us again soon as we bring you new updates on our upcoming mission to Singapore!

*YSG Skills Session Update, Ranen Chan