“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day”, Dalia Lama
What an exhilarating meeting. With 15 members and guests we enjoyed our second in person meeting. We had the pleasure to welcome Eileen, Nadine and Raseem as guests who joined in very well in the Table Topics session. Hurrah, our club is growing. Two new members were voted in, welcome Katharina and Shruti to the Toastmaster family.
Poorana, as Toastmaster of the evening, introduced the theme with a personal story, and explained the structure of the evening. He also presented his team: Florian assumed the timer role, Katharina was the Grammarian, Gabi counted the filler words and Martin jumped in as General Evaluator. Poorana also gave the word of the day, exhilarated, which was used vividly in the course of the evening.
Shriram proved his abilities as actor when he presented his joke which was mind-blowing.
Katharina’s thought of the evening was based on a quote by Eckhard Tolle: “Happiness is when you do not wait for the next moment to become happy.”
As Table Topics master, JP chose situations that are actually bad, but the idea was to find the positive aspect in them.
1. You lost your wallet with 1000 Euros and all your documents. Why is this still a good thing for you?
Gabi got a lot out of this loss. She could not travel so she was not on the plane when it crashed.
2. Why was it a positive thing to set your kitchen on fire?
Raseem did it as experiment to demonstrate the fire protection systems of this company, so it was a promotion activity.
3. You destroyed the car by driving into a tree. Why was that a good thing?
Katharina wanted to get rid of her car to protect nature. So she hit the tree but making sure the tree is not hurt.
4. Why was it a good thing to invest a lot of money in Wirecard on the stock market, which you then lost?
Eileen depicted a personal story about how she met a lot of friends by dealing with investments in the stock market which is more valuable than the money.
5. Someone ate all the cookies – why is it still positive?
Shruti focused on the fact that this helped her to resist the temptation while dieting.
Oliver delivered a speech from the path Strategic Relationship level one, No 3, with the title “Once more onto the breach”. He used scenes from Shakespeare’s “Henry V” and interpreted parts of them in their application to us as Toastmasters. This was a very challenging and inspiring idea and got us all hooked on. In her evaluation, Sybille praised Oliver’s use of vocal variety when he changed from the Shakespeare scene to his own person. However, sometimes the literary texts were a bit long for the audience to follow so that the link to Toastmasters could not easily be understood. But a great speech we all enjoyed.
This evening we only voted for the best Table Topic speaker. This award went to Raseem. Congratulations!
“A positive attitude gives you power over your circumstances instead of your circumstances having power over you.”
Hope you enjoyed this great recap (written by our President Sybille). Join us on the 25th of October for our next (online) meeting.
Best Toastmaster wishes, Jeff
Mannheim Int. Toastmasters
Here a photo of the meeting:
