Calvin was the Toastmaster of the evening and chaired our meeting on August 28th. As usual the first part of the evening was a warming up for everyone.
MartinS presented the word of the day “cloud-cuckoo-land” which means not to be realistic at all but to think that things which are completely impossible might happen. With a short and striking joke Jeff enlightened us about the three words no one wants to hear when committing adultery: “Honey I’m home!”. A great picture by Calvin described the small but all the more important difference between hell and heaven.
Then it was table topic time. Stefan was inspired by several world records. He asked the contestants about their favorite place in nature, whether they preferred a life in the country side or in the city, if they would like to get as much tattoos as the most tattooed man in the world has, 
how it would be to take part in the longest human domino chain or what it’s like to build the biggest sand castle in the world.
After the break we could listen to four prepared speeches. Presenting projects from different manuals this showed a broad variety of rhetorical skills. Ravindra did his ice breaker. He spoke about his childhood in India and his personal key to success – a supporting mother, hard work and the attitude that a problem free life doesn’t make a strong person. “Thou shall not lie” appealed Rolf to the audience in a speech full of humor and irony. But then he confessed that he
himself cheated in several situations, e.g. reserving a parking slot or confirming complex contractual terms of extreme importance without even reading them! Well — he had to click the terms and conditions of ryanair.com to book a flight . . .
In Jazzmin’s project “Read out loud” we listened to a story of Gregory David Roberts. In “The Bear Hug” the protagonist Lin is confronted with this hairy chap and has to give him a bear hug for receiving an important message. Talking about being a “Flexitarian” Jeff entertained the audience with his own experience of eating vegetarian food. Though sometimes he rebels against his wife and strict nutritional 
guidelines. After all he has made it to the top of the food chain and as a man has to make a stand. And then he enjoys grilled chicken.
In the third part of the evening all our speakers got valuable feedback and some good advice for improvement. Christian, JP, Günter and MartinS acted as evaluators. So the thought of being a good speaker isn’t state of an absurdly over-optimistic fantasy – it’s just a question of joining Mannheim International Toastmasters.
photos: Claudia Hautumm, manwalk, Pagework, Peter Smola / pixelio.de