Dear Zuriberg Toastmasters and Friends
The new Calendar Year started for Zuriberg Toastmasters Club past Tuesday, 10th of January 2023 as lively and animated as the year 2022 ended. With ‘CURIOUS’ as the theme of the evening, an Evaluation Workshop, 4 prepared speeches and 4 great evaluations the agenda was packed and promising. And everybody delivered! Yours truly presented an introduction to Evaluation Theorie with emphasize on how to prioritize and structure successful feedback. Reference notes can be found here.
The speeches by Kevin von Niederhäusern, Gabriel Espadas, Svetlana Sailer and Hugo Schotman were varied and rich. We learnt about overcoming fear and apprehension when speaking in public, why we should never underestimate the (emotional) intelligence of animals, the wondrous relationship between neuropeptides and the human emotional stages and last but not least a lot about the motivation of Hugo Schotman to once more devote time and energy to the practices thought at Toastmasters! To all the speakers a great compliment for the effort and time they have put-in in preparing.
As the evening was essentially an Evaluation Workshop, evaluators had to overcome a significant hurdle to deliver their assessment. In a twist to normal procedure, evaluations were given right after each speech and evaluators had only two minutes to prepare. The result was astounding: Precise, coherent and on-point feedback delivered in pleasant, encouraging ways. Admittedly, with one exception all evaluators were well versed in the art – but the one exception, Alice, did as well and eloquent as did the longstanding pillars of Toastmaster knowledge: Santhiago, Harry and Tatyana. A big thank you goes to Nicola and her evaluation team members: Yesenia, Rafael and Emilio for the supporting roles and great general feedback on the whole evening.
The next meeting on January 24th 2023 is the Zuriberg Club Contest with 14 participants in 3 different categories! Please join us for an evening of great performances and help cheer and celebrate the brave girls and guys throwing their hat in the ring!
With kind regards and best wishes for a productive and successful (dry) January
Please click here for details of our next club meeting
Roland Straub
