We were glad to have Poorana back after he has been traveling and couldn’t attend several meetings. It was his last meeting as club President after 18 months in this role, and at the end of the evening he thanked all the club officers for their loyal service. And thank you, Poorana, for your service!
We again were happy to have guests. Gaby and Alexya were return guests, and Alexya has now joined the club (she’s glad not to have to introduce herself every time she attends 
). Alexya is an experienced Toastmaster, and in the spirit of Toastmasters she was willing to jump in tonight to give Ksenija a helpful evaluation. Yuni is a Toastmaster living in Singapore. Originally from Indonesia, she joined us for the first time. She is obviously a dedicated Toastmaster, since when she joined the meeting it was 3 AM in Singapore! She did a great job as Ah-Counter. We also welcomed back Christiane from the Rhetorik Club Heidelberg.
I had the honor to be Toastmaster of the Evening. During the evening I offered some fitting quotes regarding “good leadership”, e.g, this bit of wisdom from the great country singer Dolly Parton:
“If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.”
Poorana gave the word of the day: spearhead, meaning to lead. It can be both a verb and a noun.
I offered the joke of the evening with the following one liner from the American comic Groucho Marx.
“Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men — the other 999 follow women.”
Poorana spearheaded then next item on the agenda as Table Topics Master.
- He asked Kala who her favorite leader was and why; she spoke of Gandhi.
- Alexa talked about “what is the most important quality in a leader?” She spoke of her admiration for Michelle Obama and how her uniqueness inspires.
- The next question was: “do you need a title to be a good leader?”. Our guest Gaby jumped in with her convictions that personality is most important in a leader.
- I was asked to give my take on the statement: ” a ruler should be slow to punish and swift to reward”. I talked about what I think a good parent should do to support and help kids.
Our first speaker was Florian who finished his Level 1 of the Presentation Mastery tonight with a well delivered speech on “How to overcome the pluralistic ignorance effect in order to maximize your chances of receiving help from bystanders in an emergency.” His Evaluator Oliver underlined how much Florian has improved in his (relatively) short time in the club.
Ksenija was our second speaker. Her project: Dynamic Leadership #4-6 – Manage Online Meetings. She gave an inspiring 25 minute webinar on 7 Tips on driving your own development. Her Evaluator Alexya praised Ksenija’s warm presence and professional development of this important theme. Among other things she suggested that Ksenija consider using less text and more images on her slides.
JP as General Evaluator did his usual great job leading the evaluations part of the meeting.
After hearing from our guests, Poorana closed the meeting with announcing the awards:
Best TTs: Jeff / Best Evaluator: Oliver / and Best speech: Ksenija.
And here is one last quote on leadership:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Best wishes for now and hope to see many of you at our next meeting on July 12th.
Jeff, Mannheim Int. Toastmasters.
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Here is a photo of the meeting:
