Our new room was a great place to spend the first Toastmasters evening in 2013. Many people took part – Club members, Toastmasters and guests who wanted to get to know us. Vice President of Membership and Toastmaster of the evening JP led through the agenda in superior style. First it was Ravindra who presented the word of the day – “to exacerbate” means to make something worse, espcially a disease or a problem. Different kinds of sports are already at the Olympic Games, some new kinds will certainly be there in future. In the joke of the evening René explainded that one activity will never be there — sunbathing, 
because the best thing you can achieve is bronze. Hye-Jin suggested to do something risky. “To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.” (Felice Leonardo Buscaglia), the thought of the day.
Being the Table Topic Master Guenter referred by to the new year. Again Hye-Jin came up front and talked about a special tradition in her home country. As a child she visited her grandparents at New Year’s Eve and got money as a present. And because South Koreans celebrate New Year twice a year, she hoped to be rewarded twice. Jeff explained the changes that will effect him in 2013 and said that he planned to hand over some of the duties in his professional live to a successor. Looking back at 2012 Ravi was happy to have become a team manager and to get the chance to qualify for even more demanding tasks at work. Many of us know the popular TV show “Dinner for One”. It was René who revealed the secret of Ms Sophie’s old friend Sir Toby who always is part of the round on Dec 31st.
The evening went on with Lale’s Ice breaker. As a professional coach still today she benefits from her experiences as a child – living in several countries, being always the “new kid on the block” and learning to be patient. Hope encouraged us that
happiness is something that everyone already has. So do not try to become a kind of black hole and draw as much attention as you can but rather discover that you are already a light. Then Alexander gave an insight of his work to us. By showing several examples he appealed: “Do not try to predict unexpected things“. No wonder that he was able to portray the topic interesting, he is a statistician. Talking about the secret inside the Baobab tree MartinE closed the session of prepared speeches.
Perrine, Jeff, Veysi and MartinS were the evaluators and commented encouraging and precisely on the presentations. Though he did an accurate job as the timekeeper Christian had to remind many speakers to pay attention to the time frame. And right he is – only one prepared speech and one evaluations were within the limit. Rolf was our general evaluator; “We are here to develop and deliver speeches” he summed up the evening.
Ah stop – I forgot something very important. That night we gained three new members. They joined to learn to present better speeches, to improve the ability to chair workshops and even to find inspiration! I’m sure you will – a warm welcome to Heike, Chiafieh and Wenrong!
pictures: Mannheim Int. Toastmasters Club, Hans Peter Dehn / pixelio.de, Bernhard Friesacher / pixelio.de, Ulla Trampert / pixelio.de