Our last meeting was very special.
For one thing, I discovered that August in Bavaria means vacation. Or actually: vacate-shun. Everybody vacates town and shuns the things they normally do. With this, our first meeting of August was marked by many visitors. All those visitors came on vacation to us! That was great because they even actively participated in Tabletopics and showed that they too, understand and are able to apply the leadership lessons in ancient chinese warfare.
Due to the fact that most of our members were on vacation somewhere else, we had no prepared speeches but instead we focused on evaluation. Now, how do you evaluate when there are no speakers?
The creative answer is: with a little technology and thanks to the greatest speakers series, we showed three great speeches (Jim Key “Never too Late”, Robert Hince “Let’s Fly over the Rainbow” and Darren Lacroix “Ouch”) and had three great evaluators mastering the challenge of evaluating these great speeches.
Thomas, Georg and Mel showed us that careful listening and paying attention to all aspects that make up a great speech can lead to useful and constructive feedback to great speakers. Yes, they showed us, that even the greatest speakers can continue to improve. No matter how advanced and experienced a speaker is, they keep working on getting the final details down.
Our next meeting is also in August, people are on vacation. Nevertheless, those of us who will be there, will enjoy another learning experience: an educational about the communication and leadership tracks and how you too can benefit from Toastmasters and from Prostmasters.
Our next meeting happens to be on the first day of the international conference in Vegas. That is just about the time when they announce the new brand. Everybody with a smart phone should check out the social networks where you can find the details in real time – also during our meeting (for once)!