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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

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!