Zuriberg Toastmasters Club

2022-09-292022-10-05

A scientific rainy evening – meeting 27th September

Dear Zuriberg Toastmasters and dear friends of Zuriberg

Last night, outside fall made its mark with heavy rain and fresh temperatures, a seizable crowd gathered for an intimate and familial meeting of Zuriberg Toastmasters in the wonderful, well lit and warm Guild Hall at the Blue Monkey in Zürich’s Niederdorf. Once more it is my pleasure and honor to note that the quality of the speeches was outstanding – regardless of the level of proficiency of the respective orator! Santhiago humorously referred to his speech as an attempt to explain the attentive listening audience the science of a good speech – what he delivered was a stunning performance of a speech with the purpose to inform! Joanna presented deep thoughts in a light and truly enjoyable way – spicing her statements and reflections up with an occasional cheeky remark about general human behavior. And last but indeed not least – as Thomas Mühlegger the well prepared and increasingly eloquent Toastmaster of the evening duly noted – Samira Studer presented an amazing ‘Icebreaker ’ sharing some highlights of her amazing life-journey up to date with a very personal focus on storytelling. Finally, Monica Vlad surprised us all with quirky and hilarious prompts during the Table Topics session – provoking some ‘interesting’ and insightful impromptu speeches!

Habiba as a competent GE steered her team successfully through the evening and the fact that two supportive roles (Timer and Ah Counter) were taken by members who have just joined the club during the past few weeks is encouraging and deserves special mentioning. Finally – as at numerous meetings in the past few month – I had the pleasure and honor to induct yet another new member to the club.

Please come and join us next week on the evening of Tuesday October 4th, 18:45h as usual in the Guild Hall at the Blue Monkey. The theme of the evening is probably as conspicuous as it is intriguing: RUMORS! It will be the first evening of several to follow – the committee has decided to fit in four speeches and the line-up we have in store is nothing shy of ‘stellar’! Sign up for roles (there are still several to be taken), come, participate and get this very special Zuriberg TM buzzzzzz…

Cheers and best wishes for a productive rest of the week
Please click here for details of our next club meeting

Roland Straub

2022-09-212022-10-05

Mentoring Workshop – meeting 20th September

Harry Loots, Spiritus Rector, served a whole dinner-plate of informative and heuristic dishes in form of an excellent, educational and – so my strong conviction – enticing workshop about mentorship and mentoring last night! Well structured with a strong interactive part (heuristics) and a feedback session that was probably a tad ‘too open’ the evening not only served the purpose the learn more about mentorship as a concept, the roles of mentor and mentee and – probably even more important – about the supportive ‘traits’ (characteristics) of mentees and mentors but it also inspired!

As one written feedback for the interactive part of the workshop mentioned: “Very helpful exchange on long/short goals , helps rethink why I joined the club years ago, helpful to revisit the goals”!

The workshop was a reminder and a clarification of what mentorship means in the context of Toastmasters Club Zuriberg; its generally applicable duration throughout the performance of the first 4 roles (Icebreaker, Time-taker, Ah-counter and Evaluator) and that other aspects like decisions on communication channels // meeting frequency // timing // setting achievable goals for the mentee // benefits // are all based on a mutual exchange between mentor and mentee.

A great thank-you goes to Michelle for rounding up the evening by giving excellent feedback on the workshop and to everybody present to have participated in a spirited way with enthusiasm and a positive, nurturing attitude.

The next meeting of Toastmasters Zuriberg will be held at the usual venue (Guildhall at the Blue Monkey) coming Tuesday September 27th. The Theme of the evening is: Scientific! All speaking slots are taken and all roles are filled! Come and join us for yet another evening filled with insights and learning!

Roland Straub

2022-06-30

Time to say good-bye

Dear committee, dear members

Today is the last day of the old committee. At the same time it is my last day as a committee member in 10 years. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your precious support.

My special thanks go to those of you who have been accompanying me in the Zuriberg committee for so many years.

Michelle: without you, it would have been impossible to rebuild this club when it was on the verge of failure in 2012! Thank you so much for your invaluable help with everything, your enormous commitment, your personal engagement in our meetings and your contributions to special events like the Christmas parties. You are the heart of this club and I very much hope that you will keep beating as such in the future!

Margherita: I will never forget how much you supported us when things didn’t go so well and how hard you worked to change our club into a Swiss association. In addition, your vast network in the world of Toastmasters was the basis of out contestants’ success during the last contest season. When judges don’t know the contestants personally, the risk of bias is much smaller. Thank you, Margherita, for all that you have done for our club.

Tim: Thanks you for being such a reliable and well organised treasurer and past president of this club. Even though we haven’t seen you as often as we would have liked to, I dearly remember our common projects like the evaluation workshop a few years ago, your contribution as an area director and your availability to give evaluations outside of this club. Thank you Tim for your enormous contributions!

Thanks also to you, Vanessa, for organizing two contests and for accepting to take over the role as VPE. Your reliability and hard work are the pillars on which our club rests. I am really grateful that we have found such a wonderful and mature person as a key officer for our club. You will do a great job and you can always count on my support.

And thanks to you, Riccardo, for always preparing the agenda even when you didn’t have time to join our meeting and for being such a good sport. I very much hope that you will stay faithful to our club – we all very much enjoy your great sense of humour.

Thank you Svetlana and Farhad for being part of the team even though you didn’t have time to commit as much as you might have liked.

Many thanks to you, Roland, for agreeing to be this years’ president, for regularly contributing with much valued evaluations and presentations, for helping to organize our birthday party – that by the way was enormously successful – and for supporting Vanessa and the other members of the new committee.

I wish you all, Vanessa, Roland, Alice, Harry, Thomas, Richard and Joanna all the very best and hope to see you often in the months to come.

And finally, many thank to all members past and present. It is your enthusiasm and commitment that makes Zuriberg Toastmasters Club strive.

A big hug to all of you,

Nicola

2022-06-142022-11-30

The new 2022-2023 Board has been elected !

On 10 May 2022 Zuriberg Toastmasters Club elected a new Executive Committee.

A warm welcome to the new officials:
Roland Straub (President), Vanessa Stournari (VP Education), Alice Nuslova (VP Membership), Richard Bruckner (VP Public Relations) and Thomas Mühlegger (Treasurer), and Harry Loots (VP Mentoring). A huge thank you to Santhiago Alves Vieira for chairing the elections and ensuring smooth proceedings.

We are still looking for a Sergeant at Arms, a Secretary and an Auditor. Interested? Please reach out to our President-elect.

2020-11-11

Hybrid Is The New Black!

What an evening! Our first hybrid meeting, at Blue Monkey and on Zoom was a sucess. We had fun, we struggled a bit with the technology, we learned a lot and…
We will do it again!

Every last meeting of the month will be hybrid. What does that mean? You show up at the Blue Monkeys as usual, except if for whatever reason you do not feel like being there, you simply sign into a Zoom meeting and will have all the advantages of being in our wonderful room as well as being in your safe place.

2020-08-26

“Eloquence Beyond The Stars”

We met at Platzspitz parc in Zurich for an outstanding outdoor meeting! This is the real public speaking experience. Our members were courageous and took the challenge. Thanks to everybody who participated!

[evp_embed_video url=”https://www.zuribergtm.ch/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/MeetingPlatzspitz.mp4″]

2020-03-08

At the Zurich Toastmasters Club

Our member Eric has visited the Zurich Toastmasters Club, by the way the first club being founded in Zurich.

2020-01-15

X-mas Party 2019

Let’s celebrate diversity together!

At our last meeting of 2019 we had our Christmas Party. We dedicated this evening to celebrate the diversity that makes our club so rich in inspirations, support and joyful atmosphere.

We also took a moment to reflect about what we can be grateful for before jump on the new year resolutions! Thanks to our committed members! You are making Zuriberg the fantastic club it is!

2019-10-27