Author: Poorana

“Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you’ve found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for”, Lawrence Block.
We had the pleasure to welcome six guest at our in-person meeting. We got to know Sohil, who has participated in the John Deere Club already, the Russian couple Tanja and Ilia who were here for the first time, Marc from Mannheim and Pio who has attended two online sessions. Lena came to her third in-person session.

Poorana led as Toastmaster through the evening and thoroughly explained the structure of the agenda. Sybille gave the word of the day: copacetic – very satisfactory, fine, ok. Example: I was worried the concert was going to go badly, but John assured me everything was totally copacetic. The word was used three times.

Nadine as TT Master explained the TT rules and gave questions with reference to the theme serendipity:

1. Are you a lucky person or haunted by misfortune? Oliver tells us a personal story about his struggle to be self-employed.

2. A woman turns to you and tell you you have some toilet paper on your shoes. How do you change the situation?
Pio referred to the toilet paper shortage during the pandemic and manages to invite the women for coffee.

3. Share with us a story from the past when you felt so lucky. Tanja gave us a personal story when someone brought back the phone she had lost.

4. It is your Wedding Day and you can’t find the rings. What do you do? Marc had many ideas to make up for the loss. In fact, he had just proposed to his girlfriend and she said yes.

5. What is your biggest lesson about luck and to be lucky in your life.
Lena shared with us how she experienced serenpidity twice when she came to Germany without knowing the language.

Quote from Laura Lippman:
“There is a serendipity to real life that the internet cannot duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and that’s the book that changes your life.”

We had one prepared speech by Gabi. It is a non-manual speech. The idea is to give her the opportunity to practice a speech she has to deliver as head of the parents’ association of her daughter’s school. As an exception she spoke in German. The title of her speech was: “Geschafft” – und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne.
Her speech was evaluated by Sybille. The intro was catching with rhetorical devices like repetition. The voice was clear, pauses good. However, she might work on the structure and focus more on the time when the young people prepared their A-levels and include the challenges during the pandemic.

We only voted for the best TT speaker. The award went to Lena.

“Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked.” ~ Elizabeth Berg

(Thanks to Sybille  for this fine  recap!)

Our next meeting is on the 14th of March and is online.  Please  join us!

Best Toastmaster wishes, Jeff

Mannheim Int. Toastmasters

We were happy to welcome Sharon, Brian, Johannes, Pio, Turin and Bianca at our meeting on Valentine’s Day – a great occasion to think share thoughts and ideas about our topic love.

Paulo Coelho: “Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly.”

Sybille our TM of the evening introduced the theme with background information on St. Valentine. There are various stories. One dates back to the year 270 CE when Roman emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men to get better soldiers. But bishop Valentine continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret (and was beheaded for his efforts).

In the warm-up phase Sybille gave the word of the day: adulate which means admire. Example sentences: Most critics adulated Leigh’s work. Or: Honors were showered at him and he was adulated everywhere he went. The word was used four times in the course of the evening.

She also gave the joke:
A wife asks her husband: “How would you describe me?” Her husband replies: “A B C D E F G H I J K.”The wife asked confused: “What does that mean?Husband replied: “Adorable, beautiful, cute, elegant, fashionable, gorgeous and hot”.Wife reacted: “Wow, thank you. And what about IJK?”“I am just kidding.”

Gabi explained the rules of the table topics session and informed about the timings. Our guest Bianca spontaneously took over the timer role and did a really good job.

Table topics questions:
1. If you were to change something about Valentine’s day, what would it be?
Alexya talked about the commercial side of Valentine’s day, which she does not like.

2. Would you rather kiss 100 frogs to find out your dream partner or forget the frogs and run the risk of not finding the right partner?
Pio dealt very well with this difficult question and explained his trust in God to find the right person,

3. What is the most romantic thing you have ever done?
Johannes organized a big event for over 100 people to impress the love of his life.

4. If you were to design a dating site what would it be like?
Oliver explained technical issue of this site focusing on the ability to pres-elect.

Quote by Daila Lama:
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”

The second part of the meeting consisted of two prepared speeches. Gabi worked as an outdoor guide in the past. In her speech with the title “well planned and organized is half the summit” she tells the audience about her personal experience as an outdoor guide and points out the most important criteria to plan a hiking trip so that everybody feels well at the end of the day.
Her speech was evaluated by Poorana. He liked the power of her voice the comfort she has when speaking. He advised her to work on a clearer structure to get a better impact of her speech.

Jeff shared with the audience his experience running Bonding Groups in his center in the German countryside. After describing the elements of their setting, he talked about the special format for 3,4, and 5 residential bonding workshops. The title of his speech was “Have you ever had a dream?”
Oliver evaluated his speech. As this was a trial run for the a professional presentation that Jeff will be giving soon. Oliver gave some tips about the content and the structure of the speech.

As General Evaluator Jeff praised the participation of the guests and especially the timer who jumped in spontaneously. In the award session the best Table Topic award went to Alexya. Best Evaluator was Oliver. The best Speaker of the evening was Gabi.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.”

(many thanks to Sybille for this recap!)

Join us on the 28th of February for our next in-person meeting.

Best Toastmaster wishes,

Jeff

What a pleasure to welcome 9 guests at our online and first meeting of 2023. We welcomed Bianca, Caroline, Frauke from Cologne, Suphwadee from Thailand, Alisa, Serena, Aldo from Chile, Zaki from Egypt and Jeri. What an international group – this is the Toastmaster spirit.

Jeff, our Toastmaster of the evening, started off with a quote by Woody Allen: “80% of success is just showing up.” Let’s go for the other 20%, he said. Poorana’s word of the day: to pull off – in the sense succeeding in achieving something difficult, ex.  I’m sure you will pull off the competion, was well used in the course of the evening.
Sybille’s joke showed a special view on success:

A businessman was talking with his barber, when they both noticed a goofy-looking fellow bouncing down the sidewalk. The barber whispered, “That’s Tommy, one of the stupidest kids you’ll ever meet. Here, I’ll show you.”

“Hey Tommy! Come here!” yelled the barber. Tommy came bouncing over “Hi Mr. Williams!” The barber pulled out a rusty dime and a shiny quarter and told Tommy he could keep the one of his choice. Tommy looked long and hard at the dime and quarter and then quickly snapped the dime from the barber’s hand. The barber looked at the businessman and said, “See, I told you.”

After his haircut, the businessman caught up with Tommy and asked him why he chose the dime.

Tommy looked at him in the eye and said, “If I take the quarter, the game is over.”

 Oliver gave us a thought referring to Booker T. Washington, an American Educator, who fought against slavery and racism.
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”
― Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery: An Autobiography

Nadine led us through the table topics session with 5 questions on success:
1. What is your personal view on success? Caroline pointed out that success means something different to everybody. For her it is to live a good life and to be content.
2. What was your personal biggest success in 2022? Frauke mentioned that professionally the year was challenging but she found a hobby to distract her which is knitting and she likes it.
3. What success was really important to you in 2022? Alisa openly spoke about her shyness and how she could overcome this when she met new people in a pub crawl last year.
4. Share with us a success story of a friend or family member which inspired you. Serena described how a colleague has become a role model for her.
5. What would make 2023 a successful year for you? Aldo shared with us how much he wishes to delegate his work.

Quote on success by Oprah Winfrey: Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.We had two prepared speeches. Gabi did the second speech of her path presentation mastery. She informed about the gardening project she belongs to and how she regularily receives her own veggies without gardening herself. Her speech was evaluated by JP. He praised her confidence in speaking. He would have like to have a clearer structure and more background information on the project.
The second speech project was delivered by Poorana. In his speech titled “From No Job to Yes Job” he shared a personal story how a mentor has significantly contributed to his life and why everyone needs a mentor. His evaluator Sybille was fascinated by the professional use of rethorical devices (repetitions etc) and his use of vocal variety.

The General Evaluator Oliver informed about the area contest end of February and asked the members to let him know if they are interested.
The awards were given to: Caroline as best Table Topic speaker, JP as best Evaluator and Poorana as best speaker of the evening.

Hope you enjoyed the recap (thank you Sybille for this great recap!).  Join us on the 24th of January for next (in-person) meeting.

Best Toastmaster wishes, Jeff

Mannheim Int. Toastmasters

Here a photo of the meeting: