Christmas Dinner Together With The Bombardier Toastmaster Club

The more, the merrier, so what better way to celebrate Christmas than with another Toastmasters Club? Zuriberg TM decided to join forces with Bombardier CH TM. We were also honoured to have Bigi Vitolic Koblet as a guest. So it was that on 13 December, 27 Toastmasters gathered in a room whose tables had been decorated for the occasion. At Michelle’s request, most of the guests wore suitably festive clothing. Guests had interpreted Michelle’s Christmas dress code (“be creative”) in different ways: There were eye-catching shades of red (Hong, Nicola, Stefano, Alma, Karina, Franziska, Petra, Piotr), amazing jewellery (Michelle, Daniela), Santa Claus hats (Etienne, Stefano, Karolina, Franziska), blinking lights (Margherita, Piotr, Thomas), seasonal neckwear (Ben) and a suit (Paul) which showed that “Toastmasters” is an anagram of “ate most stars”.
Before the evening officially started, old friendships were renewed and new ones made over drinks which had generously been provided. Sergey was unfortunately unable to attend, so his deputy, Nicola, then formally opened the evening. She introduced our Toastmaster of the Evening, Stefano, who led us through the unusual format. The evening began with a keynote speech from Jack Vincent of Zug TM. Jack is an author, sales advisor, speaker and trainer and the lively delivery of his speech entertained the audience and warmed us up for what was to follow.
In the best Toastmasters tradition, the remainder of the evening required participation from us all. First, Karina invited small groups of guests to take the stage for a series of mini debates, each of which was based on a theme related to Christmas. After a break for dinner, Paul invited everyone to play Taboo. The Guessers of the Reindeer and Elves teams (Margherita and Piotr, respectively) did a magnificent job of trying to read the describers’ minds. For the describers, it was like Table Topics, only with 5 Unwords of the Day: they had to try to explain something without using these words and without using body language (unlike Toastmasters speeches). Despite this, almost everyone managed to explain the words which they were given. The contest was very closely fought, but in the end the Reindeers beat the Elves by a very narrow margin.
As those of you who were there or who have seen Massimo’s photographs will know, it was an enjoyable evening with a lot of laughter. Thanks to all who attended and special thanks to all who were involved in the planning and preparations.

Division E Humorous and Table Topics Contest

Division E contest of Humorous and Table Topic speeches took place on 22nd of November. Our club was well represented: Michelle and Hicham were competing in the Humorous contest while Margherita was competing in the Table Topics contest. This was not the easiest Division contest, as English-speaking competition consisted of 8-9 participants in each category while many of participants had significant contest experience.

We can all be proud of our Zuriberg contestants, as they have improved significantly from the Area level and were totally committed to give their best performance on the Division stage.

Now regarding the results. We have one Zuriberg member who was placed among the three contest winners. Hicham with his humorous speech “The unofficial guide to getting married” became the WINNER OF DIVISION E HUMOROUS CONTEST. His speech was evaluated to be the best among the other eight speeches and he will therefore continue his journey by giving his winning speech during the District 59 Fall Conference in Madrid taking place 11-13 of November.

Please join me in congratulating Michelle, Margherita and Hicham on their achievements!

Area E4 Contest October 11th – what a great evening!

Dear Zuriberg Toastmatsers.

What a great evening it was last Tuesday !

As the chief judge for the English contest, I arrived at 18:00. The room was still empty apart from tables and chairs. Within minutes people started arriving and the room was quickly filling up. What an excitement and what a buzz! There were people from many other clubs, some participating as speakers, others supporting their speakers or as guests. I counted 43 people, with 5 or 6 other clubs present.

The vibration increased in the room as everyone said to old and new friends. As the Judges, contestants, timers etc were being briefed and visitors welcomed.
What an energy in the room.

We enjoyed such wonderful speeches, three in English and one in German. All amazingly well delivered, funny and full of energy.

What followed was the table topics contest. How well this was done by every participant! Just imagine impromptu speaking in a contest.
And the winners of the Humorous speech contest are….. # 1 Hicham and #2 Michelle of our Zuriberg club !

Let me tell you, because if you were not there you surely missed something. Michelle delivered the speech that she first tried-out in the workshop several weeks ago. So great to see how her story had progressed from just a few ideas then into a wonderful speech. Thank you Michelle.

And the winner? Our Hicham! How proud he can be for the speech he delivered. What progress Hicham has made since he joined our club. So well delivered this story funny and sad at the same time.

Congratulations to Margherita for winning the table topics. So good to see how she fearlessly approached the table topic contest and delivered her speech in her own natural way.

Special thanks go to Stefano, the contest chair. The weeks before the contest he had been preparing diligently, making sure everyone knew what was expected of him/her. And on Tuesday night he guided us through the evening with his Italian flair and energy that made this evening for everyone a success.

Best Regards
Ben Nordemann

Area E4 – International Speech and Evaluation contests

Zuriberg Toastmasters Club is very proud to host the International Speech and Evaluation contests for Area E4.

Contests:
We are hosting four contests:
1.  International Speech contest in German
2.  International Speech contest in English
3.  Evaluation contest in German
4.  Evaluation contest in English

Date and time:
29th March with registration from 6:15pm

Location:
Blue Monkey Restaurant
Zunftsaal
Stüssihofstatt 3
8001 Zürich

Agenda (DRAFT):
18:30                 Briefing for contestants

18:30                 Briefing for judges, time keepers and counters

18:15 – 19:00    Registration and Order Dinner
Click <here> for the full agenda details

Cost:
Please purchase a meal for dinner or pay a CHF20 cover charge. Attendees are politely reminded that the room hire is covered against the cost of a meal and Zuriberg covers all other costs. This requirement is waived for contestants.

Questions:
Please contact one of the contest coorganizers.
Karina Castella (karina.castella@gmail.com)
Tim Birch (tim.birch.tmi@gmail.com)

Many thanks and we very much look forward to welcoming you to the International Speech and Evaluation Contests

Storytelling Workshop (Pimp your story and make it stick)

Zuriberg Toastmasters Club is very proud to host a special workshop about storytelling
on 2nd February 2016 (with registration from 18:30)

Workshop
Have you ever wondered how to make your stories stick?

Are you a toastmaster trying to create impact and ready to step out and share your story? Whether you’re preparing for your icebreaker or or delving into one of the many advanced manuals, wouldn’t it be great to have a way of creating content that people easily understand and gets them so excited that they run off and share your stories with the world? What if they could remember you and your project in easy and fun ways that engage other people and help them figure out what they want and why your project is so important to them? 

If all of this would interest you, Storytelling made Simple has been waiting for you. Using a simple story telling framework that is based in cognitive science and naturally organizes information in a way that is easy to digest for people’s brains, we will take your stories and turn them from Fiat Pandas into Ferraris or from Porsches into Electric cars (depending on your distinguished taste and purpose).

Registration:
Members of Zuriberg should register their attendance via easySpeak (click here), other Toastmaster members, could you send a short email to Tim Birch (tim.birch.tmi@gmail.com) including confirmation of your club name.

Full Details of the workshop click here

Christmas Edition club meeting (Dec 8th)

Zuriberg Toastmasters invites you to a special “Christmas Edition” meeting on Tuesday, 8th of December.
This will be a dynamic and exciting evening with a Christmas quiz with prizes for winners, drinks (wine) and desert sponsored by the club, inspirational speeches and more.
Nicola will give a presentation about the toastmasters opportunities beyond the initial Competent Communicator (CC) track. After following the narrow canal of the Competent Communicator track, aspiring toastmaters enter open waters of Advanced Communication Manuals. Nicola will provide guidance in navigating your way through advanced manuals to achieve your specific speaking goals and to further strengthen your confidence on stage.
We are very fortunate to have Lesley as the hostess of the evening. In additional to being professional speaker and trainer, Lesley is also an expert in conducing fund raising events. If you are looking for a public speaking inspiration, observe how effortlessly Lesley will guide us through the evening and influence the mood of the audience with just a few opening words.
One of the youngest members of our club, Jessica, will give her first “Ice Breaker” speech. Last but not least, an experienced member Tim will deliver his final speech from the CC track. Tim prepared a speech to inspire and will demonstrate all speaking tools that he learned and practiced in his exciting toastmasters journey.
Join us for this evening of celebration, learn new skills and challenge yourself, and above all – have lots of fun.
Venue
Where: Blue Monkey restaurant (Stüssihofstatt 3, Zurich), 2nd floor.
When: Tuesday, 8th of December, 18:45 – 21:30

Upcoming meeting on 10th of November

We are very excited to invite you to the upcoming meeting of Zuriberg Toastmasters club on 10th of November.

This is the evening not to miss!

We expect a perfect blend of 3 speeches from beginning, middle and finale of the Competent Communicator (CC) speech track. This is a rare opportunity to observe how level of speaking techniques grows during the Toastmasters journey.

One of our most skilled members, Kevin, will give his final (tenth) speech from the CC track. Many of current club members were inspired to join the club by his growth as a speaker. He will give an inspirational speech on the topic that he personally is very interested about. Some of our club members may even change their travel schedules to watch this speech alone!

But it gets even better! As a general evaluator of the evening we are excited to expect our club founder, Lesley, who is a professional speaker and trainer, winner of several European speaking competitions, and one of the most skilled speakers in Switzerland. We will not only hear, but experience her powerful speaking style and will get her advice on giving feedback and the evening in general.

On top of this we have a team of experienced members to facilitate the evening and to make it dynamic and fun. Joining us is a wonderful way to get to know new interested people with international experience.

We are a dinner club and there will be Asian fusion food offered around 8PM, so come hungry! This offers our guests and members the complete evening experience with both fun agenda and a nice dinner in a company of like-minded people.

This meeting will take place in Blue Monkey restaurant on the 3rd floor on
Tue, November 10, 6:45pm – 9:45pm
Address: Blue Monkey, Stüssihofstatt 3, 8001 Zurich