Blog

The meeting on the 9th June was another successful and outstanding night. Although the venue was moved to the top floor, people’s passion was not being impaired – more than 20 members and guests attended the meeting on such a lovely summer evening.

The key word of the evening was ‘surprisingly’ – indeed surprisingly three of the speeches are all for manual 2 – “to organize your speech.”

The meeting started with the speech from Anna Korovatskaya -who led us to her journey ‘search for meaning’. Anna’s speech focused on her personal experiences – from her childhood dream of longing for a pair of Western Jeans, to her dreams came to – a happy marriage, a nice flat and a good job. Then Anna realized that happiness is not just about to fulfil your material needs, its more about the happiness inside. Its not an easy journey, Anna had the courage to reveal to the audiences about the shadow in the past, and how she faced it and fought it. At the end, Anna told us ‘happiness is not something to search for, it’s something you can create’.

Another two speeches are rather scientific but still interesting. Julia gave us an insight about the theoretical background of Genetic Modified Organism, and the benefits for producing GMO crops for human beings. She also added scientific proofs making her speech more convincing.

Etienne gave us the speech about Money. His speech shared a lot of knowledge about the histories and functions behind the money. He even brought a gold bar trying to demonstrate the value of money.

The table topic for that night was really a nerve breaking one. Everyone had to answer some unexpected questions from children about “Why?”. Our friend from toastmaster Barcelona club was asked ‘Why does rain smells funny?”. She provided the answer with “all rain smells funny, but they smell differently, the rain smells nice in the country side and smells bad in the city.” That is a quite environmental concept.

The highlight of the evening was from our guest Daniela. She was asked by “why the leaves turned red in the autumn?” Daniela gave the most impressive table topic speech I have ever seen. She illustrated that 4 seasons represents four different ladies. E.g The lady from spring is young and dynamic; the lady from summer is fertile and mature. While the lady from autumn is a witch who want to show people all the colours of the world before winter is coming. The speech is full of imagination. Also the language and the emotion in the speech was excellent!!

Followings table topics were: Kevin answered “why chickens have no toe” by given the fact that he used to have “chicken script” in his writing. Tatyana demonstrated that human beings have toes because they need to do yoga and their need to paint their toenails to look sexier.

The best speaker of the night was Anna Korovatskaya, the best evaluator was Katarina Korzova,  and the best table topics is Daniela.

 

On Tuesday 26th May 2015 Lesley Stephenson will coach a special educational session on “How to evaluate”. This will be a very instructive workshop for all.

Providing critical feedback in a constructive and supportive manner is a cornerstone of Toastmasters. A well delivered evaluation not only motivates the speaker to continue onto their next project but the evaluator learns some invaluable leadership skills.

The workshop will be held in the Carolistube of the Blue Monkey.

This is a great opportunity to improve your evaluation skills – so don’t miss it!

A little about Lesley Stephenson:
For those members, who many not already know Lesley, she is an international keynote speaker and communications expert. As a sought-after corporate trainer, Lesley helps hundreds of clients each year to reach communication excellence. We are truly privileged that Lesley will be sharing her experience and knowledge.
Tim Birch

We are very pleased to announce that Sergey Sarykalin achieved first place at the Division E – International Speech Contest Switzerland.

This is a major achievement and we are very proud of Sergey´s success. We would also like to thank all other contestants for the effort.

We wish Sergey all the very best at the next level of the contest, which will be held at the D59 Spring Conference in Porto 15-17 May 2015

On the 3rd of March Zuriberg will hold its Club Speech/Evaluation Contests

• This meeting sees the start of the Toastmasters International Speech Contest. This is the first round and involves members from the Zuriberg club. There are actually two contests being held in parallel namely the Speech and Evaluation contests.

On the 17th of March Zuriberg is proud to host the Area E7 Toastmasters International Speech Contests.

• This is the second round and involves members from clubs in Area E7. Two contests are again being held in parallel namely the Speech and Evaluation contests.

On the 25th of April the Divisional Level will be held in Lausanne

Winners of the area contest will attend the divisional level in Lausanne.

 

 

On an exceptional basis we host our club meeting on October 21st instead of October 28th. In November, the schedule reverts back to normal, with the next upcoming meeting on November 11th. The venue and starting time are the usual ones, Blue Monkey at 18:45.

Hope to see you there!

Area contest on Tuesday, October 14

Zuriberg is taking part in the Area 7 completion at the Turicum Toastmasters club on 14th October. Even if you are not a competitor, you are most welcome and encouraged to attend. Not only will you experience some excellent presentations but have a great time.

Clubs belonging to Area 7: Zuriberg TM, Swiss Life, St. Gallen, Toastmasters Zug, Turicum TMZH will compete in German and English in the following disciplines:

Humorous Speech
Table Topic Speech

All details about the location and registration can be found by clicking on the following link
Competition and Registration Link

Hope to see you there!
PS: To ensure all formalities are completed on time, contestants should arrive between 18:00 – 18:15 and others between 18:30 – 18:45

Another evening of contests awaited us, this time it was the Area Contest. Nicola Lutterotti welcomed guests and fellow toastmasters, many of whom had travelled far to attend this evening. Kevin Boomsma lead us through an evening of exciting speeches, evaluations and fierce but friendly competition.

Vaclav Matousek started out the speech contest with “More tourists, please”. Vaclav told us how he wants to fulfill his lifelong dream of opening a perfume museum in his home town in Bohemia, Czech Republic. Combining his artistic interests and his love for chemistry, this museum would include many interactive elements. For example a 4D movie theater where the sense of smell is added to the 3D experience. We all shuddered imagining the smells associated with a Dracula movie.

Mie Hanson was the second contestant and encouraged us to “Face your fears”. She told us how, out of fear, she missed an early opportunity in life. This experience, and witnessing a friend overcome her fear of swimming, encouraged Mie to face her own fears. Joining Toastmaster helped her to face her biggest fear; public speaking. The friendly faces in the audience encouraged her, and we got to enjoy her great speech because she overcame her fears.

Our third contestant of the evening was Mark Alder with his speech entitled: “Some dreams come true”. As a child, Mark could not believe that planes could fly, but the cards from his deck of cards did not fly. In an animated speech he illustrated why some dreams come true and others don’t. A clearly defined goal is necessary, but not sufficient. He convinced us that not only do we need to believe in our dream, we also need to make others around us believe. The bigger the dream, the bigger the team of believers to make the dream come true.

After these three riveting speeches, the judges cast their votes and while the vote counters determined the winner, Kevin interviewed the speakers and shed more light on the ideas behind the speeches.

The ranking of the speech contest was: 3rd: Vaclav Matousek, 2nd Mie Hanson,  Mark Alder took the first place.

After a somewhat delayed dinner, Oscar Swine from the Mosquito Hill Toastmaster Club gave the target speech for the evaluation contest. In a speech that was easy to relate to, he dissected the pros and cons of his hometown of Brighton and his current home of Zürich. The weather, the people, opportunities for growth and also the consideration of finding a woman were factors in his assessment.

Anna Bot, Ben Nordemann and Katja Töttler evaluated the speech, pointed out it’s strengths and made suggestions for improvement. The judges for this part of the contest decided that Ben Nordemann had the best evaluation, followed by Anna Bot and Katja Töttler.

This concluded the regional speech and evaluation contest. It was a great success and the winners can go on to compete in the Division Contest on the 3rd of May in Bern. All others are invited to support their competing club members and to enjoy the speeches of all the area contest winners.

It was a great contest and we are excited to see you on April 15th for a regular TM evening!

Michelle Sabatini guided us through the eventful evening as the Chairman of the night. She introduced the Target Speaker, Tulia Lopes, who delivered a speech for the Evaluation Contest participants to evaluate. She led us on a philosophical trail of thoughts on whether happiness is timeless or time-framed, explaining a very complex matter in an understandable way. Tulia is Area Governor of Area E1, a member of Zurich Toastmasters as well as the “Walk the Talk” club. Following her speech, one by one, the evaluators, Henrik Karlsson, Ben Nordemann and Anna Bot were able to give their evaluations on this excellent speech. Ben Nordemann gave the best evaluation and was chosen the winner of the Evaluation Contest.

After the break, we listened to three speeches. First up was Vaclav Matousek, who took part in the International Speech Contest with his speech “The Perfume and Smell Museum”. He presented his idea of a potential museum in his home town in the Czech Republic and the rivalry between that and the adjacent town for tourists. His idea of a museum where you could possibly watch and smell a Dracula movie was very intriguing and fun to listen to.

Charmiene Maxwell-Batten, coming all the way from San Antonio as a guest speaker, talked to us about empathy, giving a very informative speech on this feeling. She spiced up her speech with facts and her own life experience, involving the audience by asking questions and giving a very heartfelt speech.

Surprisingly, Piotr Skoczylas agreed to take part in the International Speech Contest without any preparation. His speech sparked with ingenuity as he thought of talking about his two flatmates with whom he shared an apartment during university. He made us laugh by recalling funny moments and won the International Speech Contest with this truly outstanding speech.

It was a great evening and we are looking forward to hosting the Area Contest on the 1st of April here at our club!

The evening was begun by Marijke Habermann, who, despite initial stumbling, delivered a very interesting speech on the mantra “Do what you love, love what you do.” In an insightful speech, she explained that this attitude can devaluate the actual work you do and not make you live in the moment.

Zhe Nie, in his ice-breaker speech titled “The journey of running” took everyone of us on a journey with him through his life experiences that were always connected with running. With humour and originality, he mastered the task of speaking in front of the club for the first time wonderfully.

Next up was Vaclav Matousek, who, in a fun and unique way, described how important that spark of ingenuity in humans is and how, therefore, he is an optimist when thinking about the future. He managed to present complex and usually rather boring information in an easily understandable and exciting way.

Our last speaker tonight was Alister Smith, who made everybody laugh with his use of props: He chose to speak about costume parties and what he learnt from them, connecting interesting bits of history with funny stories and pictures from costume parties he attended. He convinced the audience and won the award for best speaker.

After an informative evaluation round, which Paul Seaman won due to an outstanding evaluation, Thomas Portenseigne took us on a trip around this world’s museums during the Table Topics. There are many special and funny museums in this world, and the Table Topics speakers had to make up reasons on the spot why we should all visit for example a museum about UFOs or one about bananas. Adrian Engler won Best Table Topic Speaker by holding a hilarious speech about a museum in India, which exhibits toilets and his experience of toilets in Russia.

All in all, it was a great evening, and we are all looking forward to next meeting, where we will be holding an international speech and evaluation contest. I encourage everyone, members and guest alike to come and take part in this exciting event!

Even though Table Topics sharpens our impromptu speaking and fast reaction skills, this Toastmasters meeting pushed some of us even further: After two speeches and their evaluations, there was a debate, a special and exciting event, where Toastmasters are challenged to improve their ability to think on the spot.

Before the debate took place, Rouven Krauer explained to us in his first speech, the ice-breaker, how speaking without words has had such a great impact on his life. From dreaming of becoming a cowboy to helping others understand what their horses are telling them, Rouven gave us a witty personal account of what was and still is important to him: communication without words.

After that, Vaclav Matousek, who had to use vocal variety in his sixth speech, told us about how he made the best out of a discouraging experience and used an electronic diary to find new techniques to evaluate himself.

Following the two speeches, everyone was curious how the debate would turn out. Even though the format was new and a bit unusual, the two debating teams shared their knowledge on the motion “Should animal testing be banned?”. The opposition team was Marc Suter and Paul Seamen while Adrian Engler and Anna Bot made up the proposition team. The event was chaired by David Kearney.

The proposition team argued that animal testing is usually cruel, that the medicines gained from such experiments are not always safe or that we even might miss out on important medical advance, and that there are valuable alternatives we should consider. However, the opposition team convinced the audience by arguing that animals do not suffer the same as we humans do, are not as advanced and that we are superior to them. Also, they argued that many scientists support animal testing, and that if we supported the motion, we should become vegetarians. They explained that animal testing is a terrible, yet necessary evil for medical advance.

After the audience had a chance to ask challenging questions, it was decided that the motion should not be supported. Everyone enjoyed the debate format, which is very different to prepared speeches, but also suggestions for improvement were offered. At the end of the meeting, Adrian Engler received the award for having completed the Competent Communication Manual, a great achievement, since it means that Adrian has successfully held 10 speeches and has grown and improved over time.