Author: Poorana

Our meeting on 10.11.2020 had ‘Friendship‘ as the theme of the meeting.

The evening had one prepared speech by Fangfang. She delivered an interesting keynote speech in which she compared the companies Apple and Alibaba, their founders and the cultural elements in these companies.

It was a great evening and thank you everyone for contributing to it. New guests are welcome to join us.

Our next meeting will be on 24.11.2020 at 19h15.

Here is the zoom link to join us: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/980755286?pwd=Znhwc3dCS1Y3Q1VMUFRQVzhsaHB4dz09

Out meeting on 27.10.2020 had ‘Halloween‘ as the theme of the evening.

The evening was great with two prepared speeches and interesting table topic speeches. The first prepared speech was delivered by Jeff Gordon in which he shared an interesting story as an analogy to married life and showed us how one can use the five love languages to strengthen relationships. In the second speech, Poorana shared an interesting story and implied the importance of inclusion in any organization. This was then followed by great evaluations from Sybille and christiane.

As the Table Topic Master, Fangfang brought interesting topics about Halloween and As the Toastmaster of the Evening, Sybille did a great job in leading us throughout the program.

It was a great evening and a big Thanks to everyone who has contributed to it.

Our meeting on 13.10.2020 had ‘harvesting‘ as the theme of the evening.

“With every deed you are sowing a seed, though you may not see it”. Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We had an excellent evening with great speeches and interesting thoughts for life. We had international guests in the meeting who added more value and inputs to our meeting.

The table topics section was filled with interesting proverbs about harvesting and the figurative meaning associated with them. The table topic speakers shared personal stories, interesting thoughts and their interprations of the proverbs.

The prepared speeches section had two great speeches. Sriram as the first speaker shared with us how he found the mantra to answer the toughest questions in life by watching his favourite movie for the second time. Through his excellent speech he passed on the message to live in the moment. Fangfang was the second speaker who shared with us the PR strategy to make our club more visible and reachable. Though her extensive research and background work, she impressed and motivated us to team up with her to contribute to our club.

This was followed by great evaluations by Jeff and JP who not only pointed out the strengths but also guided the speakers with tips to take their speeches to the next level.

All in all, it was great meeting and a big Thanks to everyone who contributed to it. Guests are most welcome to join us and grow with us.

Our next meeting will be on 27.10.2020 at 19h15.

Here is the zoom link to join us: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/980755286?pwd=Znhwc3dCS1Y3Q1VMUFRQVzhsaHB4dz09

Our club meeting on Tuesday, 22 September had an evening theme of “kindness”.

“Practice kindness every day with everybody and you will realize that you are already in heaven now”. Jack Karouac

We had a high-class and exciting meeting, with speech projects from three very talented and experienced club members. We were delighted to again have a number of international guests from India, the UK, and Tanzania. This is in my eyes one of the exciting pluses of meeting online, and we invite any international guests to come and join us as club members as long as we are online. We also were happy to welcome Manuel Gauss, the current president of the Heidelberg Toastmaster club, who added to the club evening by taking over the role of evaluator.

Speaker number one was Poorana. He gave an inspiring and moving speech, talking about a devastating event in his life that taught him something about recovering from trauma… that is, the power in finding something relevant, meaningful and good even in the worst of events. The second speaker was Jan-Phillip (JP), who told us in a most vivid manner of his enjoyment of crime novels and talked about two of his favorite characters from these thrillers. His was a highly entertaining speech, even if the content was far from our evening theme of kindness ;). The third speaker, Martin, had a speech project that involved not only a speech but also a question and answer period. The theme of his speech was “how to find peace of mind”. The question and answer period was lively and challenged Martin to go into more depth on the main points of his presentation.

The three evaluators for the evening were Manuel, Yingqi, and Oliver. The level of evaluations was also very high, and each of the evaluators did a commendable job in balancing observations about strengths and adding concrete points where the speakers could improve.

As Toastmaster of the evening, I had the opportunity to share a number of quotes on the personal and interpersonal benefits of just being kind to others. I felt that the theme was well received by all present, and for me personally this is one of the great strengths of our club: the members actively care about each other and we support each other in our personal and professional growth. And, this of course works best in a climate of “kindness”.

Thanks to all who attended for making this evening so worthwhile. I am looking forward to seeing you all at the next meeting in two weeks. And of course, we would love to have guests and potential new members, so bring any friends or colleagues you think might be able to profit from Toastmasters.

Our next meeting will be on 13/10/2020 at 19:15.

Here is the zoom link to join us: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/980755286?pwd=Znhwc3dCS1Y3Q1VMUFRQVzhsaHB4dz09

Best wishes,
Jeff Gordon.
(club President)

Theme of the day: The joys of summer
Word of the day: torrid

We had a great summer evening and this time our Area Director visited our club.

Jeff Gordon started the evening by sharing his thoughts about the summertime. Martin was the Toastmaster of the Evening and he moderated the whole evening with so many quotes and thoughts about summer. That was really great. Thanks Martin!

Sybille was not only the Table Topics Master but also the General Evaluator of the evening. You did a great job Sybille! There were very interesting speeches today: Sriram again amazed us with his humorous speech about insurances in Germany, Poorana presented a proposal to improve the club website and JP delivered a great speech about his transformation in Toastmasters and how it helped him in his life. The speeches were then evaluated by Jeff Gordon, Piyali and Oliver respectively.

A big Thanks to Sabine for taking up the Time Keeper role!

Meeting Award Recipients:
Best Evaluator Award: Piyali
Best Speaker Award: JP

Thank you all for a lovely evening!

New guests are always welcome! Our next meeting will be on 08/09/2020 at 19:15.

Here is the zoom link to join us: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/980755286?pwd=Znhwc3dCS1Y3Q1VMUFRQVzhsaHB4dz09