Our Presiding Officer Oliver opened the meeting by warmly greeting all our guests. It was exciting to hear the many corners of the world that they came from: Rebok is an experienced Toastmaster from Australia; Aldo is a returning guest from Chili; Paul was also a returning guest and lives in upper state New York; Joy also returned from England, and last but not least, Alisa from Mannheim.
Caroline was voted into the club as a new member: welcome Caroline, we are delighted to have you on board.
Oliver was also our Toastmaster of the evening. He smoothly led us through the meeting with meaningful quotes on the brilliance of spring.
As Table Topics master I presented the following questions:
1. What does spring mean to you? For Alisa, Spring symbolizes new beginnings.
2. What is your favorite season and why? Paul enjoyed telling us about the freedom he experiences in Summer, all the long days he enjoys.
3. With spring comes daylight savings; do you think that changing the time 2x a year is a good or bad idea, and why? Caroline explained that she comes from Kenya, and that they do not have daylight savings time. For her the changing of the clocks have no special meaning.
4. “You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming.” – Pablo Neruda. Rebok told a story about a great horse race, the Melbourne Cup. His enthusiasm got us all into the scene of his story.
5. Spring symbolizes for most of us a sense of new beginnings, a fresh start. Tell us about an experience that you had of getting a fresh start in some area of your life. Joy movingly told of her “new beginning” with Toastmasters some years ago, and how it changed her life in wonderful ways.
Joy and Rebok shared the honor of being voted best TT speaker.
After the break, Oliver introduced our one speaker. Nadine’s project: Presentation Mastery #1-2 – Writing a Speech with Purpose. The title: Not every friendship is forever. In her speech, Nadine told about how an important friendship ended, and gave us three lessons that the experience taught her. Her Evaluator, Jan-Phillip, praised her delivery, and that the lessons learned were certainly relevant for many of her audience.
The evening was rounded up with a report from the General Evaluator (me). After a helpful and exact report from Craig as our Ah-Counter (he also jumped in as Timer), I gave some short feedback to all other roles, also giving some feedback to the Table Topics participants.
After getting feedback from our guests, Oliver reminded us of our next meeting on the 28th of March (in-person) and wished everyone a good evening.
Best Toastmaster greetings,
Jeff, Mannheim Int. Toastmasters
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Here is a photo of the meeting:
