Up close with a Queen Victoria coin!

Have you ever seen and touched a Queen Victoria coin be fore ? Que e n Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 until her death on January 22, 1901. Do you know that there were Straits Settlements’ coins bearing her image? The Straits Settlements comprised four trade centres, namely, Penang, Singapore, Malacca and Labuan, which were established or taken over by the British East India Company.

I saw and touched a Straits Settlements coin with an image of Queen Victoria last Thursday. It was not in a coin collector’s shop or a museum but at a meeting of the Connections Toastmasters Club in Kuching, The club’s Vice President of Public Relations, David Hii was delivering a speech on “The Value of Borneo Beads” and he had brought along some antique beads. He had bought them from Indonesians when he was serving as a health worker in the Baram in the early 80s. The Queen Victoria coin was attached to one of David’s beautiful bead necklaces.

According to him, coins are often attached to beads to add more value to them. Besides the beads with the Queen Victoria coin, I had the fortune to touch some other antique glass beads as well. As I held the coin and beads in my hands, I wondered what stories they would tell if they could talk.

In the course of my job as a journalist, I have had the opportunity to touch some antique beads. In the early 90s, my friend, Heidi Munan, who is the Honorary Curator of Beads at the Sarawak Museum, used to conduct weekly talks on Sarawak beads at the museum.

Present at the meetings were lovers of beads with their lovely collections of Sarawak beads and curious Sarawakians and foreigners. I used to report on the talks. Anyway, back to the Connections Toastmasters Club meeting last Thursday. Many of the members and guests at the meeting really enjoyed David’s presentation on the Sarawak beads. With the help of colourful slides, he showed the beauty of the beads. I love history and had forgotten that all the ancient beads in Sarawak originally came from Venice, Italy until David’s talk that night.

There were some lovely glass beads in his collection. A long time member of the club, I had attended the meeting to meet new and old friends and catch up with them. That night, I rediscovered my love for old Sarawak beads and thought immediately of my friend, Heidi, who has contributed a lot to Sarawak history through her knowledge of beads. That night, besides David’s speech, members of Connections Toastmasters Club and guests also heard other speeches. Treasurer, Vincent Chong presented a speech entitled “Believe” while Vice President of Education, Jessie Chin inspired all those present with her speech “if I Can, So Can You.”

A friendly Toastmaster from another club and a former District leader, Pamela Vong presented a “Toast to Connections Toastmasters Club.” There were al so evaluations on the speeches by other Toastmasters; I evaluated Pamela’s speech.

After the manual speeches, there was a Table Topics Session hosted by the club’s Secretary and Table Topics Master, Lai Chieng Siang. Many guests took part in the session which allowed them to speak impromptu for 1-2 minutes.

On hand to evaluate the Table Topics participants was the Table Topics Evaluator, Thomas Teng. Other role players were another friendly Toastmaster from another club, Andrew Nyangom, who was Grammarian, Voon Kim Chong (Ah Counter), Elias Hii (Timer) and Sheila Chieng (Photographer). The overall meeting was evaluated by General Evaluator, Stanley Gona. The Toastmaster of the Evening (TOE) was Lucy Ho. The role of the TOE is like that of an emcee. He or she gives an introduction to set the tone for the meeting, explains the structure of a typical meeting for the benefit of guests and new members and introduces the main speakers.