Dear Rheinredner,
last thursday was our English Speaking evening and it was even more special this time.
The meeting was not only conducted by our club but we took advantage of the still ongoing situation that we are only meeting online at the moment.

Cologne meets London

We connected with our fellow Toastmasters from the Central London Toastmaster Club. If you weren’t around, you missed a lot.
After an introduction round, Honor led us through the first part of the evening.
We heard four prepared speeches:
  1. The first by Patrick about „The greatest Speech of all Times“, in which he quoted three speeches that could be considered the greatest speech of all times.
  2. In the second speech, „The old Lady“, Mark didn’t just pull an old lady’s leg.
  3. The third speech „All roads lead to Rome“, Katharina pointed out that leaderships has many ways – but should have a clear goal.
  4. Gandee told us with „Lockdown Awakening“ some of the positive aspects he discovered during the past months.
Gandee’s speech was voted „best prepared speech“ of the evening.

Tabletopics and Evaluation

Mila Suankulova presented us six table topics by asking questions like „You know it’s time to visit your parents when…“ or „You know you should flirt with the phone company’s sales representative when…“.
Six toastmasters found very funny and interesting amendments to these sentences, but the Sarah Bahss‘ story about the talk with the sales representative was voted best.
After a great first half, I had the opportunity to lead through the evaluation part, where Sheila (for Patrick), Vikash Kumar (for Mark), Melanie Panzone (for Katharina), Sabine (for Gandee) and Christian (Table Topics) gave all high-quality reports.

Get together via Zoom

In the end, we had a fantastic evening and sat together for a while after the meeting with a drink.
I want to thank everyone for their participation. This evening showed us that although we can’t meet physically right now, the situation still offers the chance to connect with Toastmaster Clubs around the world and benefit from their skills and habits.
The Central London Toastmasters will be happy to have you as a guest during a virtual meeting. And if that’s not your thing, it might take a while, but there will be again the opportunity to visit them on a trip to London (Thursdays, 6.30 GMT at The Shipwhrights Arms, close to London Bridge).
Greatful for all who joined and happy to see you all back next time ????