Although the icebreaker speech has been a respected component of the Competent Communication program for sometime, the first recorded use was around 1820, almost exactly 100 years before Toastmasters started.
It was very apt that Munich ToastMasters Club chose to celebrate the 90th anniversary of that event with an Icebreaker evening. The weather tried to contribute to the theme with temperatures hovering just above zero. The atmosphere inside the meeting could not have been any more different; a warm mix of interested guests, nervous newcomers and experienced entertainers. We were all treated to no less than 5, excellent icebreaker speeches: ranging from the trials and tribulations of learning English in China to the audible vagaries of German culture, from personal values hewn from adversity by love to the drive to change ones transposed ethnic community we ended with a speech on intercontinental interconnected roots of origin.
Whilst none of the speeches spoke about ice, the Toastmaster of the Evening excellently entertained us by quizzing the speechmakers with some fairly outlandish questions on everything about ice and ice breaking. This truly international evening was rounded off with a celebratory drink of German Sekt – without ice, of course.