Spring forward – Theme of the Toastmasters meeting on 22nd March 2022
Pablo Neruda once said: “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.” No matter how bleak the situation is, there is always hope for the future. Despite all negative news we are approching the warmer season, time for joy, progress and growth.
14 participants took part in this spring meeting. Again our presiding officer Poorana welcomed our guests Ksenija, Moritz, Armin and Mike. All of them had visited the club before, so it was not necessary for Oliver, Toastmaster of the evening, to explain the structure of the meeting.
Jeff chose the word “plethora” as word of the evening which fitted the idea of spring. The garden shows a plethora of flowers in spring time. Or: There is a plethora of books about the royal family. The word was used a couple of times.
Martin cracked a joke about a magician working on a cruise ship which was well told, kept its tension and was rewared with laughter from the audience. As Table Topics master Martin made up some letters to an agony column and asked the members how they would answer.
1. A concerned mum complained about her son not dressing properly. Karl pointed out the feedom of will and differences of taste.
2. Former class mate sends weird messages. Moritz gave tips how to block these messages and to ignore the class mate.
3. Business man has trouble with superior because he comes late to work. Ksenija advised the man to get flexible working hours and have a talk with the HR department
4. Friends talk about their aches and pains all the time which makes you depressed. Ulrike advised to listen to them still and be sensitive.
We had three prepared speeches. Florian started with his second speech from the path presentation mastery. The purpose of his speech with the title: “Doing good better” was to convince the audience to choose effective charities having a greater impact on the world. His speech was evaluated by Sybille who suggested to explain the use of technical expressions more to help the listeners remember the content of the speech.
Poorana delivered the fifth speech of level three path presentation mastery. His project was to connect with the audience and he shared a story of his childhood with the title “the Genie has a message for you”. His speech was evaluated by Ksenija. Finally JP’s project from presentation mastery level 3 No 11 was to focus on the positive. “It is always good to have a plan”. His grandmother is a role model for him. She successfully led the family through difficult times – always having a plan. His speech was evaluated by Karl, who loved the authenticy of JP’s speech.
General Evaluator Jeff gave valuable feedback to all roles of the evening and asked for the reports of Ah-counter Uli and timer Kala. Again a great meeting with excellent speeches. Poorana gave the award for the best evaluator to Karl, Ksenija was awarded for the best Table Topic speech and the best speaker of the evening was JP.
“Spring is the time of plans and projects.” – Leo Tolstoy