A remarkably unusual Club Contest

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!

From great speeches to the toilets of India

The evening was begun by Marijke Habermann, who, despite initial stumbling, delivered a very interesting speech on the mantra “Do what you love, love what you do.” In an insightful speech, she explained that this attitude can devaluate the actual work you do and not make you live in the moment.

Zhe Nie, in his ice-breaker speech titled “The journey of running” took everyone of us on a journey with him through his life experiences that were always connected with running. With humour and originality, he mastered the task of speaking in front of the club for the first time wonderfully.

Next up was Vaclav Matousek, who, in a fun and unique way, described how important that spark of ingenuity in humans is and how, therefore, he is an optimist when thinking about the future. He managed to present complex and usually rather boring information in an easily understandable and exciting way.

Our last speaker tonight was Alister Smith, who made everybody laugh with his use of props: He chose to speak about costume parties and what he learnt from them, connecting interesting bits of history with funny stories and pictures from costume parties he attended. He convinced the audience and won the award for best speaker.

After an informative evaluation round, which Paul Seaman won due to an outstanding evaluation, Thomas Portenseigne took us on a trip around this world’s museums during the Table Topics. There are many special and funny museums in this world, and the Table Topics speakers had to make up reasons on the spot why we should all visit for example a museum about UFOs or one about bananas. Adrian Engler won Best Table Topic Speaker by holding a hilarious speech about a museum in India, which exhibits toilets and his experience of toilets in Russia.

All in all, it was a great evening, and we are all looking forward to next meeting, where we will be holding an international speech and evaluation contest. I encourage everyone, members and guest alike to come and take part in this exciting event!