Category: Communication

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Love thy food [Meeting Report of 2021-03-09]

Great news today. Amrith and Erjon became new members and were voted in. Welcome Amrith and Erjon.

“People who love to eat are always the best people”, with this saying by Julia Child, Poorana, the Presiding Officer, started the round robin in which all eleven participants shared their favorite dish. Again we had the pleasure to welcome three guests, Hermann from John Deere, Frederike from the Toastmasters Club Bear in Berlin and Marion who participated in a toastmaster meeting the first time.

Frederike contributed a thought and a word of the day. The word “Connoisseur” was well used in the course of the meeting. Her thought of the evening was based on Virginia Woolf’s quote: “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well.”

Jan-Philipp as Toastmaster of the evening explained the roles and the structure of the evening and flavoured the theme with corresponding quotes.

Our table topics master Oliver made us hungry with his excellent visual presentation of the table topics questions.
– Are you a picky eater or open for new tastes?” Jeff took the opportunity to talk about his passion for whole food and shared his favourite dish.
– Are you a connoisseur of cultural food and do you fuse food from different traditions? Marion shared with us her experiences with food she gained at her business trips world wide.
– Would you consider a “Döner Kebap” junk food or is it o.k. to eat? For Hermann this would be still an o.k. dish and he shared with us his impressions of junk food.
– For what kind of food would you compose a song? Amrith shared with us his ideas.

This evening we had one prepared speech. Erjon – who just joined – gave his Icebreaker speech in connection with the path “Presentation Mastery”.
In his speech “My mistakes” he spoke about his motivation for joining Toastmasters and the goals he would like to achieve. His speech was evaluated by Sybille.
Since there was only one speech and one evaluation we had no ballot for best speaker or evaluator.

Our General Evaluator Jeff gave valuable feedback to everyone participating in the evening which is always extremely helpful.

Poorana, the Presiding Officer, informed about the great success of the three contestants in the area contest. Sriram won the contest for the speech in English, Poorana won the German speech contest and Jeff was the best in the English Evaluation Contest . Three winners from our Mannheim Club. Great success. Congratulations.

Finally the guests gave their feedback to the evening and Poorana extended the award for the best Table Topic speaker to Amrith.

Our next meeting is on March 23., 2021, 19:15 .  Hope to see you then!

Here is a snapshot of the meeting:

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Hobbies [Meeting Report of 2021-02-23]

This time a we had a small group (altogether 9 members), however, again we had the pleasure to welcome two guests. Erjon, who had been a guest several times, dialed in again and took the role of the timer. A very important role which he managed perfectly. Georgia, an experienced toastmaster, dialed in from Athens, Greece, and participated a lot in the course of the evening.

Doing what you love releases lots of positive energy – these were the opening words of our presiding officer Poorana who also led through the evening as Toastmaster. With these words he introduced the theme “hobbies”. In a round table robin the participants talked about their hobbies – a good way of getting to know everyone better.
The word  or expression of the day “while away the time”, presented by Sybille, aligned to the theme and was used once in the course of the evening.

Also the Table Topics took up the theme. The table topics master Fang Fang explained what Table Topics is about and asked the following four questions:
“Tell us about a hobby you have decided to quit.” Georgia share with us  that she had to give up going to the cinema theatre due to Covid.
“How has Corona effected your hobbies”. Oliver explained that due to the shut down he had to quit going to the gym. However, he managed to lose weight during the Pandemic.
“Share with us your next hobby you would like to develop”. Our guest Erjon delivered a speech.
“Which hobby would you like to suggest to the Toastmasters Club”. Jeff convincingly shared with us his passion for his present hobby and suggested that we all should join square dance.
Jeff was awarded the best table topic speaker of the evening.

We had two prepared speeches. Jan-Philip’s speech gave us food for thought since the new regulations of What’s App have an impact on all of us. In his speech “What’s up with What’s App” he shared with us the new terms of service, how What’s App generates money and gave alternatives to What’s App.
Fang Fang concluded her Pathways Path “Dynamic Leadership” with her speech “Let things unfold”. In her speech she reflected on her path and shared with us the main take aways from her journey with pathways. She openly explained that she could develop the right pace and a better pronunciation in speeches.
Fang Fang was given the best speaker award of the evening.

The evaluations were given by Jeff and Oliver. The award went to Jeff.

Even though the group was small we had again a joyful, relaxed, friendly and inspiring evening.

Poorana thanked all participants for their contributions and asked the guests how they have liked the evening. He reminded the members of a dry run session for the area contest on Saturday Feb 27. He asked the members to dial in on Friday Feb 26 at 19:00 hrs to give their feedback to Sriram, Jeff and Poorana for their contest speeches to be delivered the next day.

Here is a snapshot of the evening.

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The New Year [Meeting Report of 2021-01-12]

The theme of the meeting on the 12th of January was “the new year”.  Our club President and Toastmaster of the Evening Poorana opened the meeting with a warm greeting to all, and especially to each of our 10 (yes 10!) guests. We are always delighted to have guests, and tonight 9 of our guests were from Poland. They are all members of a new club which will have its first meeting on Monday 25th January. The clubs name is: University of Rzeszów Toastmasters Club. Our Toastmaster friend Mindaugas Račkaitis is their club mentor and suggested they visit us in order to get some ideas on running their meetings. Thanks Mindaugas, it was great getting to know this group of smart young people.Sybille gave the Word of the meeting, which was fitting for the meeting theme of the new year: ameliorate. It means make (something bad or unsatisfactory) better, which after 2020 we all could use.

Jan-Philipp gave one of the two speeches on the topic of “My Toastmasters Officer Experience”. JP is a very experienced Toastmaster and it was inspirational to hear of his learning experience as a club President, Area Director, and currently as club Treasurer. I (Jeff) gave the second speech on the topic of how to “Make Habits Stick”. This also fitted perfectly with the theme of new years, since the go-around and Table Topics centered on questions of our own resolutions for 2021. The main message of my speech: one changes habits by making it easy to do what you want to do.

The winner of the Table Topics was our guest Amrith, best evaluator was Martin, best speech, Jeff.

And here is a photo of our great meeting group:

Our next meeting is on Tuesday, January 26th, 2021 at 19:15. Be sure and save the date. 
Best wishes till then,
Jeff, Mannheim International Toastmasters

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The Holiday Season and (virtual) White Elephant Gift exchange [Meeting Report of 2020-12-22]

Our last evening of 2020 was a special one. Oliver as Toastmaster of the evening led us through the virtual White Elephant Gift exchange. Six gifts were presented and six members and guests delivered an off the cuff speech explaining why this gift is really special to them. The gifts were a frog which can make noise, a lilac cow, a bottle of mulled wine, a pig, a box to put stuff in and a little statue of Mozart. The winner was Poorana with an excellent speech on the frog.

The word of the day was elated, meaning jubilant, thrilled, enthusiastic, extreme happiness. For example: “Her success elated the family”. The word of the day was used twice in the course of the evening.

We had two prepared speeches. Julian spoke for the first time and delivered his Icebreaker speech. Icebreaker speeches are always interesting for the audience because they are a good way to get to know the new member better. Julian spoke about his passion for the English language and how he has changed his approach towards learning it. Poorana delivered an interesting speech about finding fulfillment in life.

The evaluations were given by Fangfang for Poorana and by Sybille for Julian. The best evaluator award was given to Sybille.

Again an inspiring evening with lots of fun. The officers thanked Jeff for all his commitment, effort and dedication he has contributed to the club in his function as president for the club. The members wished Poorana good luck and every success for taking over this role in January 2021.

We ended the meeting wishing everybody a happy and elated holiday season, hoping for a good and prosperous year 2021 with many elated moments.

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Friendship [Meeting report of 2020-11-10]

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