“A day without laughter is a day wasted”, for Charley Chaplin laughing and humor is vital. But also for us in these difficult times. Poorana, our presiding officer welcomes our guest Jazzmin, who was a member of Mannheim International Toastmasters for a long time and lives now in Capetown, South Africa. She has left a mark in the club and offered to do an educational speech on this evening.
The warming up session started off with a joke presented by Sybille:
Two men are driving through a city. The driver approaches a red light but goes straight through it. His friend says, “What are you doing?”
The driver says, “It’s o.k. My brother does it all the time”. They come to another red light, which they go through it.
His friend says, “This is really dangerous”, the driver replies, “My brother does it all the time and nothing bad ever happens.”
Then they come to a green light, but the driver stops. His friend says, “It’s green you can go.” The driver shakes his head. “No, I can’t. My brother might be coming the other way.”
Our toastmaster Jeff recites a quote by Bob Hope, a well-known American comedian, relating to our theme:
I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.
He focused on the fact that we all need hope in these difficult times.
Table topics master Oliver gave some funny clues asking the members to invent stories around them.
1. Some people are scared of spiders. Your greatest nemesis of all are gummi bears. Ksenija vividly depicted how ugly and awful these jelly bears can be.
2. You are the Easter Bunny’s wife, the warehouse is full of eggs and the Easter Bunny has vanished and does not do his job. Sybille explained how she would solve the issue and included club members to help her.
3. What would your pet tell you when you unleash your emotions on the pet? Kala explained that pets are very supportive and full of understanding.
4. You have been turned into a vampire. Your problem is you faint at a single drop of blood. Poorana found a solution for the vampire.
Jeff started the second part of the evening with another quote. E.P. White, an American writer said: “Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”
Sybille works on the path Presentation Mastery and delivered her forth speech in level one with the title “Women – go for it”. She gave examples of women who changed the world and who are role models. She wants to encourage women to take up challenges that come up in their life and talks about her own challenge she is going to tackle. Her speech was evalutated by Ksenija. She pointed out that more info about the struggle the women had to achieve their goals would have made the speech stronger.
Jazzmin’s educational session focussed on the topic how to start a speech to grab the audience’s attention. She collected over 20 possibilities on the whiteboard which was an eyeopener for the members. You can see the whiteboard below.
Since humor adds zest and depth to public speaking, Poorana, our general evaluator, found the meeting very entertaining. All roles were delivered well.
In the award session Poorana gave the Best Table Topic speaker award to Ksenja.
“I realize that humor isn’t for everyone. It’s only for people who want to have fun, enjoy life, and feel alive” by Anne Wilson Schaef
(Thanks to Sybille for this great re-cap!)
Join us for our next meeting on May 10th. Till then, best Toastmaster greetings from me,
Jeff
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Here is picture of the white board from Jazzmin’s Educational on how to start a speech:
Here is the picture of the group:
