Maxim
Eighty percent of life is showing up. Woody Allen
or: Eighty percent of success is showing up.
Attendance
The meeting room, was full with 16 members and 5 guests. All our guest are special, but this time we had an extra special visitor – Charlotte, an experienced Toastmaster from the Wiesbaden club, who gave a workshop on Evaluation Skills. More about that later.
Communication
There were two prepared speeches. One from the ten project basic manual: project 8, practice using visual aids, by Iris. And one from an advanced speech manual: Interpersonal Communication, project 1: conversing with ease. This was given by our most recent CC, Bertalan.
Every speech can get better through constructive feedback. Extensive and valuable feedback was presented by Oliver and Geoffrey.
Impromptu speaking is a necessary skill in business and in social situations. Olaf invited 5 members to speak for two minutes on a subject of his choice.
The subjects ranged from an Oscar Speech being elected President of the United States. Three members and two guests took this chance to speak – practice leads to perfection. They were David, Birgit, Geoffrey, Anna, and Lisa.
Our special guest workshop was given by Charlotte. 
She outlined the structure of an evaluation contest, and gave a series of tips for how a person can prepare for a contest. This is timely, as our next meeting, on 16th March, will include our club Evaluation competition.
Organisation
Every meeting is a test ground to practice and improve. Our General Evaluator, Ben, made the following suggestions.
Acquire a portable flip chart
Acquire a power cable extension so that the projector can be used at the front of the room.
At the theatre, figures in black clothing move props and scenery around between acts. The audience expects this necessary rearranging. It clears the stage for the upcoming scene. After a TM speech, left over props distract the audience and the next speaker. The TME should stop the meeting, supervise clean up, then restart the event.
Evaluations: both our evaluators went over the usual 3 minutes 30 seconds timeframe. Here is a strategy for a concise evaluation: one minute, all the positive comments you have. Two minutes, all the constructive points you have to suggest. (Realistically, you can only cover 3 items in two minutes.) 30 seconds buffer time. There you have it: 3 minutes 30 seconds, a strategy for a concise, powerful evaluation.
TME – delegate simple tasks, such as greeting guests, so you can focus your mind on executing the upcoming programme.
Club News
- Club contest (International Speech; Evaluation) 16 March
- Extra club meeting: 30 March
- Area contests english 6 April
- Area contests german 14 April
- Division contest (Karlsruhe) 23 april
- District Conference (Timisoara, Roumania) 13-15 May
To compete in the Spring or Fall TM contests, you need to be a paid up member. Additionally, for the International Speech contest, you need to have completed 6 speeches.
Send a message to Club contest organiser Barbara, or VP Education Ben, to take a judges, timer, counter roll, or to be a contestant.
Guests are always welcome. Send us a message, or just turn up. See you next time.
Meeting summariser, Ben.
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