Yawwwp!!!…Munich Prostmasters!
Yawp!
With a startling roar that spread like shockwaves throughout the room, we heard Christian quote Walt Whitman and introduce the word of the day. Yawp! the Barbarian war cry that exults courage and instills fear in your opponent, like the All Blacks rugby team performing a haka! the cathartic scream clearly resonated with many in the audience, as several speakers were glad (and talented enough!) to weave the cry into their speech or table topic talk.
Tonight´s sequence of prepared and impromptu speeches could be described as “delightfully normal” for many reasons: the near-timeliness of the start of the meeting (7:22pm, to the near-satisfaction of Chris M), the friendly table topics led by Stephanie, followed by three great speeches (#1, 3 and 7 respectively from the Competent Communicator manual) and equally energizing evaluations. We congratulated Samuel for delivering his inspiring ice-breaker and Ineke for completing her 40th speech, rewarded by a coveted gold pin to mark the occasion.
Perhaps as a result of the thrilling group dynamic that evening, we witnessed a cascade of guests who announced they decided become official members of Prostmasters (great decision, guys and congratulations!) – including Tim, who will lose his status of “eternal honorary guest”! If we were operating these meetings as a business we´d be proud of our NPS (Net promoter score), our conversion rate and consider new members signups a great ROI on the efforts invested in making the meetings entertaining, structured, inspiring, and just plain FUN! The club appreciates new additions to the group as they often bring fresh ideas and contribute to the continuous improvement of our processes. Case in point: Armin (a.k.a. “the nerd”) took the “Ah-Counter” role to a whole new level: he created his own master template to capture not only your “ah´s”, but also your “fillers” e.g. “now”, “so” and the like, as well as so-called “False starts”. If you have the pleasure of filling the coveted role of “Ah-counter” in the near future, the “Feedback on steroids” template will be available on our portal!
For our fellow members who could not join us tonight: you missed the opportunity to
a) vote for our new Sergeant-at-Arms aka Stefan D, who now officially has a ‘license to kill’ (as in: “make a killing in being a great sergeant”!), and
b) answer the poll by Christian, who has the arguably enviable role of organizing the Club´s Christmas party on December 17: if you have any strong preference between bringing home-made dishes to the club or celebrating at a nearby restaurant, please contact Christian!
The year is slowly coming to a close and speeches on December 17th will revolve around the theme “Christmas” – perhaps we might be lucky and see some winged angels and bearded Santas in the audience? Until then, Ho Ho Ho… or should we rather say: Yawp Yawp Yawwwp …?