Author: Toastmaster

Wow, what a great evening! On our meeting on November 27th we welcomed 8 guests in total. Zarna and Katjusha each visited us for the second time, Renate and Michael for the first time. And I am very happy to mention that we had four guests from Mannheim Business School who visited us for the first time and are very eager to start their own club! What a great plan! We will do our best to support them! Thank you Jia, Ankur, Aniket, Viraj for visiting us.

After Hope started the meeting and got everyone accustomed, René introduced Toastmasters very well as a peer group where we help each other and have fun. Alexander, our Toastmasters of the Evening, explained the structure of the evening very clearly. Then Ombretta gave us the wonderful word of the evening: “exigent” which can mean urgent or demanding. It was used quite often during the meeting.

After explaining the meeting theme “Confident Humility” neither being arrogant nor self-deprecating, Alexander also gave us the joke of the evening. Martin S. presented the thought of the day (with credit going to Sophia): “Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less”.

Then it was time for fun! Lorna gave us a challenging Table Topics Theme coming from her scientific background on what makes us human. Hope, talking about what makes us intelligent, contrasted the value of school in our society to the value of learning about yourself in our societies and gave her own opinion on this. Zarna explained that while we might only use 10 % of our brain consciously, the important thing is not only to gather information, but also to apply the information and to act on it. Bernhard started his thoughts on whether men and machine will merge with a brief historical story on the development of artificial intelligence which he used as the reason for his conclusion that machines may always get better but will never replace us. Ankur gave predictions about the potential consciousness of the internet stating that computers will become better in understanding people and in turn communicating better with us.

After our break we continued with prepared speeches. Diego gave a well-organized speech for his second project, talking about principles of business. He contrasted the principles of Goldman-Sachs with that of a Finnish Retailer in a very entertaining way, stating that he prefers the honest statement that companies are there to make money, quoting Milton Friedman: “The Business of Business is Business”.

Hyejin did a wonderful job using rhetoric devices in her fourth speech project. She talked about her memories of Cambodia. From the rising sun in Angkor Wat to finding a four leaf-clover, she explained to us that the Cambodians are happy people. That was well shown by her story about two girls who she made very happy by taking a picture of them.

Martin’s speech focused on fear. The explained to us the matrix of fear by Jeff Wise and drew a matrix in which he told us there are things we fear that are dangerous, but also that are not dangerous, and that there are things we could be more afraid of because of their danger. But he concluded that everyone loves Teddy Bears and they can really help people when they are sad.

René presented an award to Walter Isaacson for his biography to Steve Jobs. He explained about all the achievements and details and the history of the recipient and in the end handed the award to Martin E. as Walter’s representative.

Perrine led the evaluation team. Ombretta, Rolf, Martin E. and Günter all gave wonderful evaluations and helped all the speakers improve. Lale gave the Ah-Counters report which demonstrated her great listening skill. JP reported on the use of the English language as the Grammarian. Our guest Aniket took the responsibility of serving as timekeeper, thank you! Perrine then gave very detailed feedback to everyone and did a superb job as General Evaluator.

René announced the upcoming spring conference in Antwerp during club business. Here is the link: http://www.connectshare2013.com/ We formally welcomed Lale in our club as a new member, what a great addition to us! Ombretta received the sponsor award for introducing a new member into our club now that Lorna has given her Icebreaker. And finally, the awards went to:

Best Tabletopics-Speaker: Bernhard

Best Speaker: Martin S.

Best Evaluator: Martin E.

What a great evening! I hope to see you soon and remember, in January we will try a bigger room. More people, more fun 🙂

Apart from improving your English speaking skills is there another language you want to learn and why? Opening the meeting JP addressed this questions to the audience. Our answers varied broadly. From Japanese over Spanish to Xhosa Toastmasters are curious about languages. They give the opportunity to learn more about a foreign culture or to have great holidays abroad. Sometimes even a dulcet speech melody is enjoyable. Jazzmin who was also the Toastmaster of the evening presented the word of the day. “To pull someone’s weight” means to do one’s fair share of work. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. (George Bernard Shaw)” was chosen by Jeff for the thought of the day. A slogan matching perfectly the Toastmasters approach. What are the different techniques of a general practitioner, a pathologist and a surgeon in duck hunting? MartinE’s joke answered this secret.

Günter was able to join us again and chaired the table topics. He wanted the participants to find solutions for the burning questions of limited public budgets. So Jazzmin gave a clear statement that reducing subsidies for the cultural live would be counterproductive. In fact cities with many cinemas, theatres and museums would usually show a greater economic wealth.  The sense of teaching mathematics at school was discussed by Thomas. He was sure that improving the teaching methods would have a better effect than reduced spending on a subject that nowadays many pupils dislike. Lots of money is spent for astronomic research and space missions. But MartinE denied giving up these activities for financial reasons because our modern life would come to a standstill without innovations like Teflon® or GPS navigation. JP focused on the sense of subsidies for sports events. Instead of sponsoring these events with tax revenues he suggested the state should support a Toastmasters convention for that would give a real benefit to many people.

In an educational session Jeff explained the Toastmasters distinguished club program. He outlined the main aspects of the program and analyzed why each part of it — educational skills, membership growth and club management — helps the club to become more successful. And Mannheim Int. is doing pretty well this year. Again our club will reach the status of a “Select Distinguished Club”.

The Story of Mr Happy was told by MartinS. Mr Happy was able to convince sad and unhappy people to come to “Happyland” which made them flourish. With an excellent use of body language he made Mr Happy become alive and enriched the story with awesome dialogs.

Because everyone pulled his / her weight Mannheim’s International Toastmasters and their guests profited from this evening.