“Do your little bit of good where you are,it’s those little bits of good put togetherthat overwhelm the world” – Desmond Tutu
In our online meeting 12 members participated and we were happy to welcome two guests, Paul from the US who had joined in previously, and Alex, our Area Director, who also delivered a speech.
JP led through the evening as toastmaster and introduced his team members who explained their roles, Jeff as General Evaluator, Alexya as Grammarian and Ah-Counter, Nadine as Time Keeper and Shruthi gave the word of the day. JP spiced the evening with quotes on inspiration: “The secret of getting ahead is getting started”, Mark Twain, a nice transition to jump directly into the heart of the warm up phase. As table topics master Caroline led through the impromptu speaking phase:
1. What is the most bizarre place you visited in the past. How would you inspire us to go there? Paul shared with us his experiences with the Holy Land.
2. Lot’s of people visit Germany. What is the best place to go to? Shruthi picked Freiburg in the Blackforest as her favorite and described her stay there with friends.
3. How would you inspire people to stay fit and healthy throughout the year. Gabi gave very professional tips on nutrition, sports and relaxation.
4. What is your best advice for a good marriage? Oliver as a single pointed out some aspects he had observed with couples he knows.
Our table topics master JP found nice transitions to the various parts of the evening: e.g. “In a gentle way you can shake the world”, Gandhi, or “I never lose, I win or I learn”, Nelson Mandela.
In the second part of the evening we had two prepared speeches. Alex, our Area Director from Darmstadt Toastmasters Club gave a 10-12 minute speech on engaging humor. He reflected on his path and shared with us all various activities he had done with toastmasters in the last years. This speech was very impressive.
Sybille gave her first speech of level two of her path presentation mastery. Her title was retired by not expired. In her speech, she share how she struggled for four years to prolong her retirement and how she finally managed to embrace this situation and feel happy in it.
Alex’s speech was evaluated by Oliver. Florian gave feedback to Sybille’s speech. He gave the advice to work more on effective body language. Even in an online format this should have been possible with more gestures.
Jeff gave a final wrap up of the meeting as GE. He encouraged the new members to take up roles soon to benefit from the new experiences.
In the award session the best TT speaker was Gabi. The best evaluator was Florian and the best speaker of the evening was Sybille.
“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong”, Ella Fitzgerald.
(Thanks to our President Sybille for this great recap.)
Join us for our next meeting on the 25th of April (in-person meeting).
Best Toastmaster greetings,
Jeff, Mannheim Int. Toastmasters
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Here is a photo of the meeting:
