Friday, October 26, 2018

Demo Meeting for First Balfour - Parañaque City

After a few weeks preparation, the Demo Meeting for the First Balfour Toastmasters Club finally happened today at the First Balfour Office near Sucat in Parañaque City.

It was organized by Alabang Community Toastmasters' (ACT) DTM Lolet de los Reyes and First Balfour's HR Trainer, Cherrie Tuazon. We even had online guests attending the meeting, DTM Zaldy Co (shown on-screen below) and Anna Santos from First Balfour.

Shown below are the attendees from the First Balfour office and the members of the demo team.


(photo credits: JK Lopez)

Although the demo session was to start at 2:00 pm. Some of us were already there at 12:30 to have lunch. First Balfour served lunch at the training room.

Ahead of me were DTM Lolet and her son NJ. Thereafter, Past ACT President Rudy Magdaraog, Ella Coors and Sean General followed. The members from Johnson & Johnson Toastmasters club JK, Patt and Marianne came afterwards.


Aligning the First Balfour Toastmasters Club

Over lunch, the first order of the day was for HR Trainer, Cherrie Tuazon to fill-out more online documents in Toastmasters International. This included the alignment of the First Balfour Toastmasters Club.

Lolet instructed Cherrie to align First Balfour to Area 71 which meant it would be under JK's area. Listed as Club Sponsors were Lolet and Ella Coors.

Initially listed as Club Mentors were JK and me. I eventually had to beg off since the club was aligned to Area 71. Additionally, I already had a Club Mentor credit with UPS Alabang.

Shown below are the members of the First Balfour TMC Demo Team (L-R): Patt Jubilado (JnJ), me (BFCom), Ella Coors (ACT), Lolet (ACT), Marianne Dadap (JnJ), Sean General (seated), Rudy Magdaraog (ACT), JK Lopez (JnJ) and Joshua Pamaran (JnJ).



Online Meeting Via Zoom

This was the first time that I attended an online club meeting, although technically, this was a demo meeting. Zaldy was there to observe. Anna attended online from Norzagaray, Bulacan.

Online meetings via Zoom are becoming popular in some Toastmasters clubs. Lolet offered this as an option for First Balfour, especially with many employees out of the office.

Cherrie Tuazon did explain though that it's an option that they may explore further in the future if First Balfour's network resources may be able to support it.


Next Steps for First Balfour

The demo meeting went extremely well with the attendees asking curious questions after the demo meeting. Next steps would be towards Charter Installation. This would include the payment for the club charter and listing of the 20 members.

Shown below is a scanned copy of today's meeting program.


And that's... a wrap!