Category: Communication

“Inside each of us is a natural-born storyteller, waiting to be released.”
— Robin Moore, author

Wow, 18 participants! The online format of the club is successful, again a good number of guests joined. We could welcome Adam from Ramstein again, Moritz who participated the second time,  Martin from BASF Toastmasters, Christiane from the Rhetorik Club Heidelberg and Sabine from TM Wiesbaden. Sabine took the opportunity to inform about the Division F Conference which takes place online on March 26 (https://wiesbadener-toastmasters.de/division-conference/ ).

Jeff as Toastmaster of the evening introduced the theme storytelling with an anecdote. Storytelling techniques were used in the joke by Martin and the thought of the day by Kevin. Both parts were vividly depicted with vocal variety.

Harriet led through the table topics session for the first time and also used the storytelling format. She told the beginning of a story which was then continued by Adam, Sabine, Uli, Ksenjia and finally Karl managed to round the story off and found a logic ending.
A firework of creativity was released by the speakers. This was very funny and everyone enjoyed it.

Jeff as Toastmaster very well introduced the two speakers of the evening. Florian delivered his Icebreaker speech with the title: “How (not) playing the cello brought me to Toastmasters”. This was a very powerful speech with lots of information about Florian we could connect to. Kala, the second speaker, talked about her experiences when getting a driving license: “Driving a car is not your cup of tea”.  Her very different experiences regarding her driving lessons in India and Germany were extremely entertaining.

Sybille led through the evaluation part of the evening. In his evaluation of Florian’s Icebreaker JP pointed out the excellent speaking skills Florian already showed – strong confidence, clear structure, lots of vocal variety. Martin liked the way Kala started her speech involving the audience with questions. He especially liked the different perspectives of becoming a car driver and her personal experiences, as well as her use of humor.

Sybille gave feedback to all roles that were performed during the evening highlighting Craig’s report as Grammarian who again kept a very close eye on the use of the English language and gave valuable tips e.g.for proper pronunciation. Also the Ah-Counter report by Kevin was very detailed and exact.

Our presiding officer Poorana finished the meeting with the award session. The best table topic speakers were Uli and Karl. The best speaker award went to Florian and JP did the best evaluation.

All in all again a great meeting. This time the agenda was filled well in time prior to the meeting and all participants registered in easy speak. This was a big improvement and made preparation for the Toastmaster of the evening easier.
Thanks to Sybille for this great recap.
Our next meeting is on 22th of February, hope to see you all there!
Best wishes,  Jeff

Here is a snapshot of the meeting (three participants had to leave early)

The club is growing, hurrah. The year started with two new members. Kevin and Florian were voted in the club. Welcome to the Toastmasters family to both of you. Again we could welcome a couple of guests who participated well in the course of the evening: Emircan and Karl-Heinz who came the first time to a toastmasters meeting, Lei Li, Mike Greer and James Falcon who already know other clubs.

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us”, Hal Borland.The New Year and people’s resolutions are the theme of the evening. Poorana, our presiding officer, took the theme up in a round table talk to use the time since we had only one prepared speech. A round robin with 15 people can be risky but it was a good start and an excellent opportunity to get to know everyone a little bit more.
Sybille as toastmaster of the evening explained the structure and the roles of the evening and presented Jeff as General Evaluator, Lei Li as timer, Harriet as Grammarian and Craig as Ah Counter. She also took up the theme with the quote by Brad Paisley, an American Country Singer:
“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one.”

“Auspicious” was chosen as the word of the day by Sybille. The adjective means full of promise. We all want to have an auspicious New Year 2022 with many happy moments, so it fits well to the theme.

As thought of the evening Jeff referred to the top five regrets of people dying and gave us a quote by Mark Twain:

“Twenty years from nowyou will be more disappointedby the things you didn’t dothan by the things you did.So through off the bowlines.Sail away from the safe harbourCatch the trade winds in your sails.Explore. Dream. Discover.”

The table topics session was lead by J.P. He explained the value of this part to practice off the cuff speaking and asked the following questions.1. If you could name the next big Corona variant what would you call it and why? Florian suggested to be more creative and make combinations. Tongue in cheek, he suggested that Florian might be a good name for a future variant.
2. Mike was asked to travel back in time before Corona started. He used this opportunity to give examples on time travel.
3. What did you learn during the Pandemic you might not have learned otherwise? Kevin focused on virtual activities and connections.
4. What do you really want to do when the Pandemic is over? Karl-Heinz would like to spend his life in a good and meaningful way and invest more time in social contacts.
5. What should we keep after the pandemic? For Uli the digital expertise should be kept.

After the break Sybille opened the second part of the meeting with the following quote by Joey Adams, an American comedian,
“May all your trouble last as long as your New Year’s Resolutions.”
She welcomed Anika, Karla’s daughter, as speaker of the evening. She very bravely stepped in and filled the gap. She spoke about how the people in ancient Greece thought their gods were made. The title of her speech was “The golden age of cannibalism”.

In his evaluation Poorana praised Anika’s start and her skillful story telling technique. She had a great energy level and is already a very good speaker.  She is obviously a future Toastmaster in the making.

Jeff, as General Evaluator, asked for the reports of the team. Craig gave us a very detailed and entertaining report on the mis-usages of filler words and Harriet kept a good eye on the proper use of the English language.

All in all, again a great evening. The best table topic award was given to Florian.

Greetings from Sybille

Our next meeting is on the 25th of January. Hope  to see you then!

Best wishes,

Jeff

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————Here is a photo from the meeting:

In a round table talk all members and guest shared their thoughts on gratefulness. Mostly good health was regarded as a great treasure.

Poorana our presiding officer warmly welcomed our guests Florian, Armin, Andre, Kevin and Dhiraj who participated together with his son Daksch, definitely the youngest participant we ever had in our club.
Prior to the start roles were filled, Florian took over as time keeper for the first time. As Ah-Counter Kevin focused on filler words that break the flow of the speeches. Harriet concentrated on the usage of the English language as Grammarian.

We had the pleasure to vote in our new member Harriet. Harriet, welcome to the club!

In his thought of the evening Jeff reminded us that gratefulness is good for us. Every evening we should take two minutes to write down three things we are thankful for. Every day you should think of new things. Your brain gets tuned to notice more positive things around you. This will open up your perspective and make you more content.

The joke of the evening, told by Sybille, connected to Thanksgiving:

A man in Phoenix calls his son in New York the day before Thanksgiving and says “I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing, forty-five years of misery is enough.“Dad, what are you talking about?” the son screams. “We can’t stand the sight of each other any longer”, the father says, “We’re sick of each other and I’m sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her”.Frantic, the son calls his sister who explodes on the phone: “What, they are getting divorced, I’ll take care of this. She calls Phoenix immediately and screams at her father: “You are NOT getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. My brother and I will be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do anything. DO YOU HEAR ME?” and hangs up.The old man hangs up the phone and turns to his wife. “Okay”, he says, “they’re coming for Thanksgiving and paying their own way.”

The Table Topics Master Sybille presented four questions related to Thanksgiving:1. Which ritual do you connect with Thanksgiving? Kala shared with us Indian traditions celebrating harvest times and the blessing of God.

2. In the US Thanksgiving is a bad time for turkeys. Families get together mostly with an abundance of food. “Which food do you like to eat at Thanksgiving festivities?” Dhiraj revealed that he has a sweet tooth and loves all kinds of sweet Indian dished. His description made us feel hungry.

3. In our modern society people tend to complain a lot, criticize everything and see the glass half empty. What do you think should people be more grateful for?
Florian pointed out that our society is so privileged – wealth, good social standard, good education, health system – things we take for granted but should be thankful for.

4. Quotation by Frank Clark, a former English soccer player: “If a fellow isn’t thankful for what he’s got, he isn’t likely to be thankful for what he is going to get.” What does this quotation mean to you? Jeff vividly explained that human beings needed a negative bias in order to sense danger and to survive. But in order to live a joyful and happy life thankfulness is the key.

We had one prepared speech delivered by J.P. Working on the path presentation mastery level 2 “Understanding your communication style” he spoke about his analytical approach and his role as treasurer for the club. The outstanding part were the professional slides which were easy to follow. His speech was evaluated by Oliver who especially liked J.P’s encouraging of members to take over officer roles.

In his report as General Evaluator, Jeff gave a brief feedback to all roles of the evening. Again a very enjoyable evening with lots of food for thought. We could only vote for the best Table Topic Speaker since we only had one speech and one evaluation. The award was given to Jeff.

(Many thanks to Sybille for this great recap!)

“There is always something to be thankful for.”

Do join us for our next meeting on 14th of December.

All the best,

Jeff, Mannheim Int. Toastmaster

Here is a snapshot of the meeting: