What a wonderful evening! We got a new competent communicator in our club. Tonight Sukhminder Singh gave his 10th speech with the title back to basics and earned his competent communicator award.
Competent communicator Sukhminder
In addition the presidents distinguish club ribbon arrived at our banner. Our immediate past president David Mathieson is proudly presenting it to you. He has our reasons to be proud. During his leadership our club did very well in all areas important to Toastmaster’s: education and personal growth.
David presenting the presidents distinguished ribbon in front of our banner
Even so our banner already has quite a few ribbons it still can handle more! ?
Toastmasters club provides a friendly environment where you can not only practice your public speaking but also get the feedback from our experts for further refinement.
Similar to many others, Mazhar has initially attended the Toastmasters Erlangen club as a guest. Now, He has taken a further step in order to improve his speaking skills by joining the club as a member on the first meeting of the year 2020.
We at Erlangen Toastmasters welcome you to attend any of our upcoming meetings and experience yourself how the club can support you to achieve your public speaking Goal.
On December 18th we decided to have our X-Mas Meeting. As always we would have a party with wonderful food, a white elefant gift exchange and of course lots of table topic speeches. This years location we choose “Chez Mathiesons” as opposed to a normal restaurant.
As you can see from the pictures: We had a blast. The food was shared in a potlock fasion. It was plenty in variety and quantity. We started with Kir (almost royal) as aperitiv. Had first round of table topics before we went to the main course.
Then Dorleta was so kind to play a little a “left-right” game with us, where Steve and myself were the lucky winners.
After dinner we did the white elefant gift exchange as every year. And as every year we got a little into a sportive mode and it was easy for everyone to explain in a 2 minutes speech, why his or her gift was a perfect match.
We sing an old Scotish carol.
With a little singing we came towards an end of a wonderful evening.
We thank Morag and David very much for offering their home for this special meeting and look forward to see many of you in the next year again.
The first speech a new member gives is called “Ice Breaker”. Lei Li has joined Erlangen Toastmasters club only a month ago and he has delivered his Ice Breaker speech on November 20, 2019. He talked about himself by focusing on how he is improving himself through quitting—
worrying about opinions of others,
limiting believes of himself and
meeting expectations of everyone
The title of his speech was ‘I Quit’. We are proud of him and also encourage individuals like Lei Li to join Erlangen Toastmasters in order to become the better version of themselves.
For a good reason our tagline is: where leaders are made. There is a dedicated program in Toastmasters where you can learn and grow your leadership skills. Our member what are you going advanced in this program so far, that she received the official title: Advanced Leader Bronze
Olga receiving her new ALB badge
Congratulations to Olga for progressing in the program and achieving this award.
Feedback
We all grow best when we receive feedback. Of course we also need to grow in giving feedback. This evening Axel showed us how he tackled this challenge.
While giving feedback in itself is based on what you see you nonetheless can prepare for it. Axel showed us his script and paper template to give feedback. We can see that the name of the receiving person is so important, that he writes it on top and bottom ?
Feedback template from Axel
When looking more closely you can also see come out that Axel always structures his feedback in three sections
Observations and quotes marked with an eye ?
Impact on him and the audience marked with an arrow ==>
Potential hint for improvement or wish
Zooming into Axels template
Thank you Axel for showing us your structure so clearly and hands on.
Level 3 in Pathways
As a third highlight of the evening we could congratulate our member Morag to finish level III in the new education program pathways. Morag is our first member in doing so.
I also took a picture of our president Michael handing over the level three ribbon. Yet somehow my mobile phone went out of battery and did not store it. Sorry for that and of course none the less: CONGRATULATIONS MORAG!
For a leader it is unavoidable to stick out of the crowd. When doing a morning walk today this picture reminded me of a leadership trait.
You see a rather unspectacular apartment building. Many balconies, one just like any other. There is one small exception. One tenant dares to stick out with a colorful flag.
Not everyone may support the cause. The tenant may even receive some pushback for various reasons. Yet:
A leader brings a cause to our attention.
It always takes a first step. As Toastmasters we practice to move slightly out of our comfort zone and take that first step.
