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The 'Black Forest' is a German-English Toastmaster Club based in Brussels, Belgium. Its training program helps members improve their public speaking skills, gain confidence and practice leadership. Meetings take place twice a month.
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“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
Jerry Seinfeld
Do you want to conquer your fear? But don’t know how? Have a look at Black Forest Toastmasters!
When paint on a canvas ages, it sometimes gives way, if there is one, to a painting underneath. This is referred to as “pentimento”, where the artist repented, or changed his mind. By way of introduction, each of our members last evening scraped away the paint on their own canvas and told us a little about the portrait underneath. Answers were as diverse as Botticelli, Caravaggio, and an almost forgotten little girl. It was an interesting exercise in seeing what was there once through what is there now.
Robert Kirchner brought us to the end of the world in a most delightful way. As Table Topics Master, we found out how freeing that day will be, and how alien invasions could make it more interesting.
Christopher Gregory sealed the Black Forest deal with his ice breaker speech of how his travels informed who he is, and we look forward to more as long as his travels don’t take him away from us too much! Brian Ward epitomised the theme of the evening by inviting us in through the window of Brian to see a Brian that we don’t see as much of as we should. As his Vocal Variety speech, he give us a new take on The Three Little Pigs that was rich in voice, characterisation, movement, charm and humour. It was like being told a bed-time story. Monique Blokzyl carried on the charm with a very well thought out origami lesson that, with visuals and great personal attention to everyone, had all of us enraptured in making paper jumping frogs and helping one another out in the process. Monique, if the day job doesn’t work out, there’s a born kindergarten teacher in you dying to get out!
It was a magical evening, not only because it was so much fun, but at the last minute, members jumped in to fill those few empty roles left to make it a successful meeting. Thanks one and all for letting new light into the club!
Epiphanies!
Brrrrr!! April is proving a bit chill, but March was a hot month for Black Forest Toastmasters.
On 8th March we had our club contest and the gongs were taken away by Agnes Tarnai for a very poignant speech of how to ease one’s way through the speed bumps of life, and Ildiko Papp in the Evaluators category. Unsurprisingly, they each took second place in the Joint Areas B1 and B2 Spring contest in Mons in on the 24th. Well done
On 12th April, Black Forest had an epiphany. And another. And another. I don’t think I’ve seen a word of the day used so often, it might have been “the” or “and”. Brian Ward gallantly stepped in at the last minute and did yeoman’s work for his first time out as Toastmaster of the Evening. Ira Bel took us on a Homeric journey for his table topics based on the Odyssey. We had two speeches that evening. Brian Keener led off with a poetry reading of his own work on the story of a hapless skunk, and Lars Sudmann entertained us from The Professional Speaker manual on how to lead one’s life to balanced success.
April 26th will see Brian Keener leading the meeting with the theme New Light through Old Windows, and maybe a surprise or two from new faces peering in….
Unfortunately, the Black Forest meeting of 23rd February had to be postponed, but some of us were delighted to be the guests of Toastmaster’s Fonske Leuven for their 4th Evaluation Contest.
Four contestants, Manie Conradie, JoanCeuterick, Koen Vanderhoydonk, and Martin Jugmans were in contention for Best Evaluation of a the Target Speech, “Late to My Own Party”, by Brian Keener. Our own Margarita Tuch was the Contest Manager with Kassandra Rothenstadt as Sergeant-at-Arms.
All contestants performed well and gave their evaluations with insight not only to what they heard and saw, but more importantly to what they didn’t see and hear, and even because the contest was about the evaluators, the guest speaker took away ideas of great value from four different perspectives. How lucky is that?
After the contest was concluded, and Tassos Natsakis had led us through a Table Topics session of esoteric Shakespereana, Manie, Joan and Koen gave their prepared speeches of the evening. Joan spoke forcefully of a secondary economy (Let’s: Let’s Do It!) whereby the Greeks could adopt a Japanese system of public service voluntary credits, that was an intriguing option to a beleaguered financial system. Manie wove an anxious tale (Shaking the Foundations) of bureaucratic woe over his immigration status just before Christmas that thankfully, because of patience and persistence like an ant with a rubber tree plant, came to a happy ending. Koen raised goose bumps on this writer’s arms with an inspiring story of how giving his father the gift of a positive view, helped him not only face and overcome but to pass the same gift on to others.
Margarita interviewed each speaker in turn, bravely tackling pronouncing their names (when one’s own last name is a mere syllable, this is no mean feat), then the judges delivered their verdict: Martin was voted as runner up, and Manie swept the boards for Best Evaluation and Best Speech of the evening, resulting in two bottles of bubbly that were too big for his pockets!
Black Forest had a lovely time as guests of Fonske Leuven, and plans are already afoot for both clubs to cooperate in future activities. It is exactly this kind of camaraderie that enriches Toastmasters and makes it such a rewarding experience.
Oh, it was so much fun! We’re casting the Cisco boys on to pastures new and they banded together to give us a wonderful send off by taking over the meeting and turning it into laugh-filled and rewarding Toastmasters evening. We also said goodbye to Ingo Thon who gave as his valedictory a very good reason to join Toastmasters.
Rares Sufana was our Toastmaster of the Evening and was clearly having a good time of it, thus ensuring we did too. Robert Stachowiak took us through a range of table topics that had young men talking like old conservatives and old ladies swearing.
Two of our Cisco friends said their farewells by giving their ice breaker speeches. Sebastien Keller took us on a charming road of reminiscence through his school days and the struggle to find what he wanted to do and overcoming pitfalls to achieve it. Hauke Kreft took us on a journey through his life in the army, his favourite employer who carried a baseball bat, encounters with people he never expected to meet, and all with a musical soundtrack that, if you’re not careful, you’ll miss. He thus left us with his father’s wisdom: go through your life with open eyes.
Ingo Thon gave his farewell speech by showing us, on tape and from his heart, how far he had come and what he was given by his time at Black Forest Toastmasters. Your writer had the honour of being the Evaluator for this final speech, but perhaps the greatest accolade came at the end when, asked for her assessment of the evening, our sole guest remarked how the greatest thing that could be said for BFTM was the tape of Ingo of his early days with us, and the easy, confident speaker he had become with a recent professional presentation.
That’ll do, Tiffy; that’ll do. So long and thanks for all the fish.
WHAT CAN YOU SEE?
When we speak to an audience, in a sense
we want to tell them a story, and send them away with something they didn’t have when we first opened our mouths. Any good
story has pictures, and Robert Stachowiak as Table Topics master challenged us to come up with pictures through words with masterly abstract questions (How’s it going? Tell a joke. A picture is worth a thousand words.)
Lars Sudmann showed us how to see, then see again, how visuals can work for us or impede us, or rather, the message we want to give our audience. Visuals should be
chosen for their support for what we want to say and should be simple, clear
and even elegant; making full use of a screen in an eye-catching way that grabs
the attention without overloading the senses; avoiding clutter and harmonising
the visual helps send the message home, and with all this in mind, don’t be
afraid to get creative. For more on Lars and his message, check out his website at http://www.lars-sudmann.com.
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Fun at the district conference
What would you answer in the English Table Topics Contest if you would receive two eggs instead of a verbal question from the contest master? Joe Ann Broger mastered this non-verbal question in a very humorous and playful manner as she turned herself into a cook book author and created a delicious cooking performance for which she became the well deserved first runner-up out of 11 contestants! I don’t know how much cook books she signed afterwards, but Joe Ann was really entertaining!
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Guests: Please register by email to mail@blackforest-toastmasters.com
Members:
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Guests: Please register by email to mail@blackforest-toastmasters.com
Members:
Sign up on Easyspeak
Guests: Please register by email to mail@blackforest-toastmasters.com
Members:
Sign up on Easyspeak
Guests: Please register by email to mail@blackforest-toastmasters.com
Members:
Sign up on Easyspeak
