President
The Clarion is out !
The Clarion, the newsletter of our Toastmasters district (District 59 – continental Europe) is out.
You will find an interview of Pat Johnson, the Canadian worldwide president of Toastmasters International, an article about the why, what and how of leadership, as well as some pictures of the latest district convention in Lissabon. A really interesting edition !
Spring District conference in Lisbon
The district 59 conference took place in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 20th-21st. It was a very enjoyable conference.
Lisbon is a wonderful city and, after Barcelona, I can say that Toastmasters has pushed me to visit cities I had heard of, but I would have probably never visited otherwise. The see was splendid and the temperature was close to 25°C.
The conference itself was remarkably organized. The stage was the amphitheater of a business school. The two contests were very interesting, but I think what struck everybody was the keynote, given by Darren LaCroix, former TM world champion of public speaking. He gave everybody a great advice. What you need to become a great public speaker is first and foremost “stage time! stage time! stage time!”.
Let’s translate these words into action ! Please volunteer for a role for our next meeting on June 16th and send an email to
vpeducation@toastmasters-stuttgart.com to do so.
Also, the next District conference will take place in Basel, Switzerland on September 3rd and 4th 2011. This is so close to Stuttgart, so don’t hesitate and register today to hear some great humorous speeches and evaluations and have a lot of fun !
Club and Area F1 Contests
The club contest in the two categories International speech and evaluation will take place on March 17th at our regular venue (the IBM Klub) at 07:30PM.
The International Speech Contest is basically an “open” speech lasting five to seven minutes. The only consideration is that a member must have completed at least six speeches from the Basic Communication Manual in order to compete. Also, a hint for this speech contest is that inspirational and/or speeches that emotionally move the audience will be a speech that has
a better chance to win. The winner of these competitions has a chance to move forward all the way to the World Championship of Public Speaking at the Toastmasters International Convention in the summer.
The Evaluation Contest is just that, an evaluation of a speech. There is a speech given and then all of the contestants will evaluate that one speech.
All members in good standing are eligible to compete. The winner of these competitions has a chance to move forward to the District Conference in Lisbon in May.
Of course, we highly recommend competing if you are so inclined. It is a good opportunity for expanding your horizons and for personal growth. Please let us know if you would like to compete in either, or both, contests.
But if you decide not to compete, that is ok too. If that is your option, then we really need people to help at the Club Contest and the Area Contest, which will also be held in the Stuttgart area on April 9th at the Hotel Albert in Stetten (Filderstadt). The winners of the club contests from the English and German speaking clubs from Karlsruhe and Stuttgart will compete against each other for a place at the Division contest. As it is with the club meetings, there are a lot of roles to fill to make a contest successful.
Please let us know if you would be able to help !
Check the dedicated page to the contest to learn more about the coming Area contest.
Club Officers Training
Our next officers training will take place in Mainz at the Restaurant Extrablatt (Bürgerhaus Mainz-Lerchernberg – Hebbelstrasse 2, 55127 Mainz) on January 22nd 2011. The training is offered in English and in German.
This is the preliminary agenda:
11:00 Start
11:05 Warm-up
11:20 Overview about first 6 month
11:40 Guest speech: Motivation/Self motivation
12:20 Break
13:20 Successful Club Series
13:35 Club success plan/ Tops + Flops
14:35 Option 1: New Contest rules + Rules for Judges // parallel Option 2: Easyspeak introduction
14:50 PR event preparation
15:05 Q&A
15:40 Feedback
16:00 Finish on time
If you are interested in participating (even as a non-officer), please send email to president@toastmasters-stuttgart.com
Christmas party: location change !
The location of our Christmas party must change. It will now take place at the IBM Klub, Schönaicher Str. 216 in Böblingen, where our usual meetings take place !!
The Christmas party will start at 7:30PM.
I hope to see you all there and don’t forget to bring an inexpensive gift for the White elephant game, as many guests as possible, and your good mood 🙂
If you need a lift from the S-Bahn station Böblingen to the IBM Klub, please let me know at president (at) toastmasters-stuttgart.com
See you Thursday for a great Christmas party!
Report of the Fall district conference in Barcelona
Amy Hamilton, Kelly Brown, VP Education, and Hervé Marcy, president, represented the Stuttgart International Toastmasters Club at the District conference that took place in Barcelona last week end.
It was an excellent event, and for at least a good reason: Amy has reached the third place of the English-speaking table topics contest ! Congratulations for this amazing performance !
From an organizational perspective, we have abstained to vote for the budget of the district because the assembly could not reach a quorum and any decision would have hence not been valid.
The educational sessions were good to excellent and the quality of the speakers was impressive and extremely inspiring.
It is also a very nice opportunity to meet people from all over Europe.
The next district conference will take place in Lisbon, May 20th and 21st. You can already register and benefit from an early bird for both the conference and the hotel !
Take the chance to discover a new country, new people and great speakers !
Stuttgart International Toastmasters Club Christmas party!
The Christmas party of the Stuttgart International Toastmasters Club will take place on Thursday, December 16th.
This will be a social event to celebrate and get together. Table topics will be organized but there will be no prepared speeches. This will be a dinner event, but we will be ordering food from the IBM Klub Restaurant. We will be meeting in our regular meeting room to accommodate as many people as possible, but we will try and rearrange the tables so that it is more compatible to a dinner type of event.
The party will take place at the IBM Klub, Schönaicherstr. 216 (as usual !)
At what time ?
– 07:30PM
What should I do ?
– invite guests ! This is a wonderful opportunity to discover the club for newcomers !
– send a confirmation email of your presence to president (at) toastmasters-stuttgart.com as well as the number of guests you bring to help us organize the party
– we would also like to continue with the “White Elephant” gift exchange that was already organized last year. These type of gift exchanges are always a lot of fun, and most often you end up with something you like.
If you don´t know what a “White Elephant” gift exchange is, come to the meeting and find out. For those who would like to participate, bring a wrapped, inexpensive gift (7-10€). If you do not want to participate, that is ok too.
We hope to see you there !
Division F Fall contest: victory for Amy !
The Division F Fall contest for humorous and table topics was organized on Saturday, November 30th 2010 in Mainz. It was a very good contest on both English and German.
Amy Hamilton fantastically represented our club: she has won the English table topics contest and hence will compete in Barcelona for the District 59 contest, which means the best speakers of continental Europe ! Congratulations to her !
Here are the videos of her performances in the table topics contest and in the international speech contest: Thank you Amy, we wish you all the best for Barcelona !
Public relations miscellaneous
Our club was mentioned in an article of the “Stuttgart Citizen” about communities in which people can get involved in the Stuttgart region.
Thanks to Howard, our former Sergeant at arms for having advertised for the club !
Area F1 Toastmaster Contest Results
It was an enjoyable day in Karlsruhe for those of us who attended the Area F1 Toastmaster Contest. Amy Hamilton and Katharina Weyland represented our club very well. In the Table Topics contest, Amy took first place, and Katharina took third. In the Humorous Speech contest, Amy took second, and Katharina took third. That means that Amy will move onto the Division F Contest in Mainz on October 30.
Others from our club attending the contest in Karlsruhe were Kelly Brown, serving as Chief Judge for the English contests, Monique Raster, serving as Contest Master for the English Humorous contest and judge for the German contests, and Joachim Schwartz, serving as judge for all of the contests – German and English. Thanks for their help and support.
We hope that you will consider attending the Division contest and supporting Amy as well as hearing some great speeches.