Dear fellow Toastmasters,
Thank you all for a very warm meeting last Tuesday, led by very well-dressed Gabriel Espadas as our Toastmaster of the Evening 🙂 We were very pleased to be able to officially welcome Stefan Müller to the club as our newest member.
Some congratulations are in order: to Roland for winning best speech, Roberta for best evaluator and Samira for best table topics! Also special mention to Vadim, who completed his level two on Tuesday in preparation for the International Speech Competition, and to Vanessa, for successfully building her speech around the theme of the evening, “anchoring”. Fereshdeh also did a great job as Table Topics Master, for keeping people on their toes and coming up with very interesting questions that explored many different aspects of the theme of the day.
We have a lot of events coming up in the next few weeks
1) On October 22nd we will be celebrating Toastmasters 100th Anniversary in Zimmerleuten. You are very welcome to bring guests – this is an excellent opportunity to show them what Toastmasters is all about.
2) On November 19th we will hold our very own Novice Competition. Everyone who has not yet completed Level 2 is encouraged to participate. Please reach out to me if you’d like to compete!
3) On November 26th, Toastmaster Club Zuriberg is once more celebrating its Annual Award Dinner! Please read the message below from our former Club President, Roland Straub, who will be hosting the evening:
Based on the great experience past year, the Committee decided to continue the enticing experience of an Award Dinner in the format we successfully introduced last year. One of the main reasons for continuing this tradition is to provide more speakers the opportunity to come on stage and practice the specific and challenging speech format of a Toast – this is after all what most of you will be asked to do at least once in your lifetime – be it in a family setting or any other social or work-related setting.
I chose a most unusual Toast as the ‘Leitmotiv’ for the upcoming Award Dinner 2024! Not so much because of its content (which I do like though) but to provide an example how divers, unexpected and relatable Toasts can and should be.
What to expect?
On the evening of November 26th 2024 four (4) members have the opportunity to give a Toast to a fellow Toastmaster of their choosing. You may ask: ‘What should such a toast entail and why should I make the effort to do so’?
The answer is quite frankly is, a Toast can be about any aspect of a fellow toastmaster (or of the Club as a whole) that has left you with a real sentiment and a lasting impression!
It is an occasion to congratulate a fellow member in public for a personal quality, a special contribution or just for the fact of contributing positively to the community of Toastmaster Club Zuriberg. Toasts can be humorous, somber, congratulatory or even – in a polite and entertaining way – positively critical. Without aspiring to lexical accuracy I’d define a ‘Toast’ as a call to a gathering of people to raise their glasses and drink together in honor of a person or a thing. The words spoken in such a moment are significant because the heightened attention will make them stick longer and clearer in the audience’s memory.
How will the event be organized and how can I participate?
If you’re tempted and interested to give a Toast that evening please get in touch with Anna Franzen through WhatsApp or at afranzen11@gmail.com on a first come first serve bases. In order to create the necessary anticipatory atmosphere only the speakers and the VPE shall know who the recipients of this 4 toasts will be.
What is required?
The only important detail is: The speakers will have to ensure that their respective recipients will actually attend that evening.
To make it an eligible project the toasts for this evening must be for a minimum of 3-5 minutes but you may also choose a speech of 5-7 minutes. Contenders please get in contact with Anna Franzen to individually select and decide on the project fitting their respective Pathways path!
How will I benefit?
Giving a toast that evening presents an excellent opportunity to hone your public speaking skills and at the same time honor a fellow member of Zuriberg Toastmaster Club. Thanks to a positive and meaningful evaluation you’ll enjoy an additional benefit: you will be betterprepared for the next occasion you’re expected to give a toast – be this at a family, social or a business event.
The winning speaker will become the holder for one year of the Challenge Trophy for the Best Zuriberg Toast of the Year!
TME, Roland Straub
Please click here for details of our next club meeting
