Among the guests, there was Jenni as a first time visitor and a friend of René’s. For Viktor it was the second MITC meeting as well as for Ankur who had visited our club together with come colleagues from Mannheim Business School last year. We also welcomed Stefan as a guest from the German speaking “Rhetorikclub Mannheim”.

Martin E. as Toastmaster of the Evening skillfully introduced the agenda and the roles of the evening. Despite some short term changes he and VP Ed Alexander had managed to prepare and run the meeting brilliantly.

During warm-up we learned that it was rather pretentious (word of the day by Steven) to pray for winning the lottery if you fail to “buy a bloody ticket” (joke of the evening by Oliver. In her Thought of the Day Wenrong reminded us that “You can have virtually anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want” (quote by Ray Dalio)

Martin E. as TME pointed out that we were going to witness as many as 16 speeches that night. This was due to the fact that:

“Most speakers have four speeches:
What they have prepared,
what they actually say,
what they wish they had said,
and what they are quoted as saying.”
(Quoted from “The Complete Speechmaker”)

Lorna was our first prepared speaker. She completed Project No. 3 (Get to the Point) with her informative presentation “Why vaccinate” in which she delivered some remarkable figures and statistics on the topic.

Rolf was completing the Advanced Manual “Humorously Speaking” with his speech “Surprise, Surprise”. In it, he reassured us in an ironical way that there are no serious privacy risks whatsoever on the internet.

Next, Günter delivered the draft version of his Tall Tale Story “Evolution”, which he was preparing for a contest during RRR4 (Fourth Rhineland Rhetoric Retreat in Borschemich). In it Günter shared his personal experiences with the “big bang”, life as a one-cell organism and women’s soccer. A blast for everyone in the room!

Finally, Jazzmin presented the short story “Lamb to the slaughter” as her first project from the Advanced Manual “Interpretive Reading”. A thrilling crime story involving both stunning domestic violence and culinary delicacies.

The third part of the meeting was led by Jeff as General Evaluator. He introduced Pradeep, Alexander, Martin S. and Perrine as evaluators and had some valuable suggestions for improvement for those members who had roles.

Before the formal meeting was closed by President Marin S. and we continued the evening cosily on Mario’s terrace, the following dates to mark on our calendars where announced:

July 23rd –> next MITC club meeting
November 15th – 17th –> “District 59 Fall Conference” in Budapest

We were happy to have three guests this time: Wenrong (Vivi) joined us for the very first time and did a splendid job as Timekeeper right away! The second new face was Nana, introduced to the club by Ekaterina, our third guest who had attended previously.

The Table Topics session was different from the normal procedure. Martin E. guided us through a round of “White Elephant” gifts. Every Table Topics participant had to unwrap one the BEAUTIFUL gifts that members had skillfully packed. René was delighted to find two pieces of portable energy in his parcel (toys not included). Next, Bernard found a fossile which he thought to be “approximately as old as myself”. Alexander was lucky to find a most charming pink Valentine’s candle (heart shaped…). Having got six brand new knives as a present, Günter announced that he would invite the whole crowd for dinner at his place (at some time). Jeff was the last participant and gave an award-winning impromptu speech about the sweeeet porcelain frog he got as a present.

A severe uproar was heard from one of the more senior members when Rolf presented his Thought of the Day. It said: “Don’t worry about avoiding temptation…As you grow older, it will avoid you.”

With four prepared speeches, the agenda was once more fully packed with interesting performances. First, Sophia explained intrinsic motivation as the secret to high achievement (Project No. 3, Get to the Point). Then Ombretta gave us some practical advice and explaination about alcohol-caused headaches (also Project No. 3, Get to the Point). JP had prepared a speech called “Flight of Fight” in which he shared some personal experiences in the applied science of romance (Project Storytelling No. 2, Let’s get Personal). JP, I honestly think you can grow rich by selling the video of this performance! Winning the award for the best Prepared Speech was a good start!

A special moment had come, when Christian had finished his speech about the moment when “Gandhi entered my shower”. With this truely inspirational speech which included VERY cold showers (Project No. 10) Christian crossed the finish line on his way to “Competent Communicator”. The group paid credit to him by standing ovations, while the formal presentation of his CC-Award is still to come.

In the third part of the meeting, Jeff led the evaluations, given by Günter, René, Rolf and Alexander. All speakers received a lot of praise and a couple of valuable suggestions for improvement. Rolf was voted Best Evaluator for his feedback for Christians speech.

During club business, René thanked the officers team for their dedication and successful work for the club. Each of them was awarded a book on how to forge messages and ideas that stick (Made to Stick – Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck). Jazzmin: I need your postal address in South Africa, so you can also get your well-earned copy!

Quiz for those who couldn’t attend: Jeff’s word of the day is hidden somewhere in this meeting report. The first to find it get’s a glass of Mario’s “Hauswein” for free after our next meeting on January 8th!

Until then: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

This Tuesday, our meeting theme was “The Color Red”. It was chosen by Jazzmin, our Toastmaster of the Evening. She was truly “content” (word of the day by Stefan) with the other participants because almost everybody had brought something red with them –犀利士
mostly worn as clothes.

Every meeting is more fun with guests. This time we had the honor to salute our old friend and former Club President Marty, who – although having “escaped” to the Heidelberg club – joined us for the evening. From the Dutch Serengeti he had brought a sophisticated Joke of the Evening involving a dangaroos (sic!) animal story. (more…)

Apart from the regular briefings about the respective officer roles there were engaging workshops about various topics around public speaking. We also got to know the new leadership team of Division F. On the team of Division Govenor Kees Broos there is also our friend and fellow club member Jazzmin Hecht in her new role as Area Govenor F2.

A vey positive aspect of these trainings is that it is a great occasion to get to know the other clubs a bit better: How are their Toastmasters Clubs different? An example: Annerose is a colleague of mine in the role of Club President. Her club is “Rhetorikclub Bergstraße“, which is located in Bensheim (members also come from Lorsch, Zwingenberg, Laudenbach, Heppenheim and Weinheim). We talked for some time and discovered that our clubs can learn a lot from each other! We at “Mannheim International” do especially well with respect to attracting guests to our club and turning guests into members. Rhetorikclub Bergstraße on the other hand has a very small turnover rate in their membership – their members seldom drop out and many stay in the club for a loooong time. So what are planning is to visit each other’s meetings from time to time and to see how we can combine both strengths.

Summing up, the Officers Training is always worth attending. I’d like to encourage members to join us the next time when the chance arises (should be in January/February 2013), as these trainings are open to all interested Toastmasters.

Looking forward to seeing you all at our special event “Trash Toastmasters” tomorrow evening, which is helt together with our sister club “Rhetorikclub Mannheim”. For one evening we’re going to be completely out of bounds: There’s going to be a reversed agenda and politics, religion and sex are NOT a no-go as a topic. This is going to be FUN! Promised!

Cheers

René Fritsch
President