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On Tuesday 11th August 2018 instead of our regular meeting, Zuriberg Toastmasters held a debate night. The evening consisted of two debates, each with two teams of two people. Debating is a great opportunity for teams not only to develop their speech giving skills, but also quick thinking, logical argument forming and answering on the spot questions.

Our first competent Debate Master started the night off as debate master proposing the motion “This house believes that all disposal plastic should be banned by 2020”. The debate between the proposition and opposition soon got underway, with some exciting questions at the end. A brief evaluation was given, with some relevant feedback.

After the dinner break, the next debate followed from another one of our experienced members, with the more theologically themed motion “This house believes that it’s nice to be important but more important to be nice”. Again another tense but exciting debate ensued. 

The night was an overall success, both the audience and debaters learnt something and was a nice change from the usual program. The winners were announced and a small gift awarded to the winning team.

Thank you all for your attendance, participation (especially those who took a role) and for the feedback given. A particular well done to the winners of the debates.

Here are a few pictures of our last meeting. Many thanks to our committed member Luis Cuesta for the photos

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Here are a few pictures of our last meeting where we had many interesting prepared speeches and very entertaining TableTopics. Many thanks to our committed member Luis Cuesta for the photos

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By Nicola Von Lutterotti

What a cheerful evening we had last night. Thanks, Lesley and Michelle, for a wonderful set of games! They brought astonishing salesperson qualities in some of us to life – especially in Mark and Etienne who excelled in selling Christmas gifts no one really needed. The money we raised will be spent at the first meeting in January!

Kyle demonstrated most vividly, what it means to have a Toastmasters meeting in a train travelling at 300km/h: with strangers stubbornly remaining on a seat owned by Toastmasters (for 3.5 hours), conductors rudely interrupting Table Topic Speakers and passengers shoving debaters who were just about coming to the point. This is Toastmasters in real life. May those who weren’t there regret to have missed this memorable event for the rest of their life!

Finally, Hicham’s hilarious taboo game (since Tuesday internationally spelled tabu) challenged us to use our brains one last time. Julia, the guesser, was amazing. She sometimes found out the correct word by reading our minds. Wow, we foresee a great future for her.

Dear members of Zuriberg, have a wonderful Christmas season and a happy, successful and fun new year. Talking about happiness, success and fun: The best way to get all three is to come to our club meetings! The next one will be on January 16th!

Cheers and see you next year, Nicola

By Tatyana Mishchenko

On Tuesday, 7th of November, the Zuriberg Toastmasters Club had another hilarious, dynamic and exciting night!

An experienced Toastmaster of our club, Kyle Bullus, gave a workshop with the title: “Mastering Disastering”. We learned and exchanged ideas about how to stay cool when props, visual aids and technical devices fail us at the most important moments during presentation, in front of an audience – and how to prevent such disasters from happening in the first place. Continue reading “How to prevent disasters from ruining your presentation”

by Michelle Sabatini

What an evening!

Not only the clubs of Area 4 met and competed but also Area 2 joined the evening!

The result was 8 distinct contests during a single, very intense, evening that brought together around 50 members from 7 different clubs!

Margherita Brodbeck Roth and Daniela Ivanovovà chaired the evening with enormous professionalism. The positive energy they invested to organize and manage the evening were highly inspirational.

Margherita guided us through the humorous speech contest in English (one for A4 and one for A2), German and Italian. Daniela challenged the Table Topic Contestants of the 4 contests with 4 different questions:

• If you were a superhero, which super power you would like to have? (English Contest A4)
• What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? (German Contest A4)
• Where would you like to live if you had to leave this country? (English Contest A2)
• Statistics says that 6-years-old laugh 300 times a day. Adults laugh 15 times. Why do kids laugh more than adults do? (German Contest A2).

Continue reading “Area contest – 10th October 2017”

By Mark Cannell 

With Autumn well underway and the darker nights creeping in, what better way to keep up the mood than with a club contest. And boy what a contest it was. On Tuesday 26^th September at the usual location at Blue Monkey in Niederdorf, Zuriberg Toastmasters club held their Humorous and Table Topics Speech contest in English.

The evening began with the Humorous Speech competition and all five participants did a highly commendable job with much applause and uproarious laughter from the audience. For some it was their first time conducting their humorous speech, whilst others were veterans, but all succeeded in entertaining the audience. Margherita Brodbeck Roth was the contest chair and did an excellent job at guiding us through the evening. Well done to Hicham Adamou coming in first place, Stefano Ortelli coming in second and Michelle Sabatini in third.

Continue reading “Zuriberg club contest: Humorous Speech & Table Topics. September 2017”

by Margherita Brodbeck Roth 

After a long and for most of us relaxing summer break we have resumed our regular sessions on Ferragosto.  The day goes back to the “feriae Augusti”, celebrated across the Roman empire to remember the victory of the first roman emperor Augustos over Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra. With Chrisitanity it became the day when Catholics celebrate Assumption day and in today’s Italy it is when the large companies and government office go on holiday – and all stands still..  

We are different, to us it has been the day of return, to enjoy each other’s company, to welcome guests and to enjoy two fantastic speeches and a very original table topic setting. Our grammarian kicked us into dhspr when sharing the word of the day, – haughty (arrogantly superior or disdainful) with its remote origin in the Latin “altus” or high. An high we went and grabbed for the stars. 

After a first speech asking for more, Lesley Stephenson stood up to the challenge of holding an impromptu stalk on a meaningful but also controversial topic. In “What we can do to revert global warming” we learned so much stretching from the slightly amusing – stop drinking alcohol because we happen to generate heat in the course of it –, to the more serious aspects of the matter. She truly not only enlightened but also entertained us. Moreover, she graciously shared some valuable suggestions on how to succeed at public speaking.  

Continue reading “Let’s toast to a welcome back from our summer break”