“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
— Nelson MandelaOur VP-Education Oliver opened the meeting as Presiding Officer, one of the many hats he wore tonight. He greeted our new guest Ayleen, who came to the meeting because of a Toastmaster friend’s recommendation. Oliver was also our Toastmaster of the Evening, and the Evaluator for our one prepared speech. The other roles were filled as follows: General Eval. J.P.; Table Topics Master was me (Jeff); Grammarian was Uli; Shrithu took over as Timer, and our newest member Nadine jumped in as Ah-Counter. Nadine was unanimously voted in at the beginning of the meeting. Welcome to the club Nadine!
Oliver, the man of many hats tonight, gave the word of the day: Ephemeral, meaning lasting a very short time; e.g. ephemeral pleasures.
Ulrike told a short and very funny joke about a toothless termite who entered a pub and asked: “where is the bar tender?”
I gave a thought of the evening on my discovering through having a vegetable garden that one has to take time to harvest if we want to enjoy the fruits of our labors.
As Table Topics Master I asked the following four questions:
- What is your favorite season? Nadine explained, she enjoys all seasons, but the spring opens her heart the most.
- Are you for or against daylight savings time? Ayleen explained that this maybe was helpful many years ago, but not today with our modern rhythms of living.
- Have you ever “fallen forward”, i.e., experienced a set-back from which you actually profited in some way? Uli talked about a difficult life experience that had a positive side.
- The fourth speaker was Shruthi, and she talked about what costume she might chose for a Halloween party: she had fun talking about how good it would be to come as a super hero like spiderman!
All of our contestants did a great job of sharing their views and experiences. Nadine was voted best Table Topics Speaker. Congratulations!
As Toastmaster of the evening, Oliver reminded us of the World Champion of Public Speaking Darren LeCroix, whose winner speech actually included two moment where he literally fell to the floor (it is a fantastic speech, if haven’t seen it, do take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSUnj3gf_Y).
After the break Oliver introduced Poorana, who did the speech project: Innovative Planning #4 – 2. The speech was titled “Three core learnings from process improvement”. Poorana gave an example from his professional work. The three core points: Look at a problem in a system from outside; always ask “why” things are being done as they are; and lastly, be consistent and use a feedback loop to improve a system.
Oliver congratulated Poorana on his well developed speech, noting Poorana’s good vocal variety and fine structure. A suggestion for improvement was to use clearer transitions to help his listeners better follow the development of his ideas.
Our General Evaluation J.P. led his evaluation team through their reports and gave the meeting good marks for content and energy.
Before closing the meeting Oliver ask our guest Ayleen for feedback about how she liked the meeting, and gave us a last quote, from Mary Pickford:
Hope you enjoyed this recap. Join us on the 8th of November for our next (in-person) meeting.
Best Toastmaster wishes, Jeff
Mannheim Int. Toastmasters
Here a photo of the meeting:
