After several rain-related cancellations in 2017, we finally held a second episode of the Munich Toastmasters outdoor meeting on 26th June 2018.
It was worth the wait! We couldn’t have asked for better weather. The atmosphere coupled with the participants’ enthusiasm made the meeting at the steps of the “Glyptothek” truly remarkable.
Our club president, Damian, kicked off the meeting in his characteristic graceful style and set a theme of history going on.
Adeel, in his role of The Toastmaster of the Evening guided the audience through the agenda and introduced the speakers. The historical anecdotes ranged from Brutus and Antony’s speeches and the split of the Roman Empire (by a pair of Caesars) all the way through the post-world war era and beyond.
A very energetic Table topics session was moderated by Dimitrios where the participants talked about the sense of making grand structures. The winning Table Topic Speech (by David) made a humorous yet formidable case of demolishing the old behemoths.
The agenda was rich with two prepared speeches also themed around history. The first, delivered by Ralf Grabuschnig was a fantastic rendering of the fruits and perceived pitfalls of being a historian. David Sen’s speech embellished the evening with a travel through time themed around our meeting location. Ingrid aptly led the evaluation part of the meeting with her team (Leonor, Lal, Reed, Blaz) giving valuable feedback to all the speakers.
One highlight of the meeting was that all the speakers had the opportunity to be videotaped. This is something which can be very helpful for individual improvement and we intend to formalize it for our regular meetings.
There was a constant healthy contingent of passersby who stopped attentively and lent a curious ear to the proceedings. Another small highlight was when a young guest, 9 year old Hana, got inspired by the proceedings to overcome her shyness and speak before an outdoor audience. This underlined what toastmasters is all about!
The meeting concluded with an overwhelming insistence by the attendees to have such outdoor events more often. We surely will organize such events in the future!
Thanks to all the participants who made this meeting memorable.