BASF - BASF Toastmasters

16 Jul

26 July: Our 1st offline meeting in 2021

Dear BASF Toastmasters and Guests

You are cordially invited to our next Toastmasters meeting on 26 July 2021. Please do join us for the “Meet and Greet” session at 17:45. The meeting itself will start at 18:00.
Please check the agenda on EasySpeak . There are still several roles left. Grab them as soon as you can!
If you are interested in joining the meeting online by Skype please let us know to get the access code. We look forward to welcoming you and spending a wonderful, entertaining and productive evening together. Should you have any inquiries, please feel free to contact us.
You are welcome to join the meeting as an external visitor, please take a look at the meeting information.

Coronavirus: Precautionary measures at Ludwigshafen site

names of participants will be kept to identify possible contacts in the event of a COVID-19 infection
wear a medical or FFP2 face mask when entering the building
if the meeting room doesn’t allow a distance of >1,5m to each other a face mask is mandatory

17 May

Mind Mapping (part II) on 31 May 2021

Have you been to our Toastmasters workshop in March about “Mind Map & Creating Action”? Or haven’t? No matter, join in on 31 May and create a mind map by yourself! At first Martin will give you a very short introduction / summary about the principle of a mind map. And then it’s time to design a quick mind map on your own to a given topic. Following in small groups you’ll merge the individual maps to the group’s mind map and share the result. Furthermore this workshop offers small activities to be creative and speak.

Let’s create an atmosphere of fun and learning; Toastmasters and guests are very welcome to join in — please prepare

a peace of paper and a pen
a bell (!!) e.g. a bicycle bell, cow bell — if you have . . .

We kindly ask you to register →here.

27 Apr

How to Survive Table Topics (10 May 2021)

Are you the one on the stage to answer the Table Topics® Master’s question? Sweaty hands and a hot head? No words in mind? No idea how to fill the next two minutes?

You’ve got the chance to find out more about Table Topics® and how to approach the successful delivery of an entertaining speech. Have a look at some strategies and methods that help you to find the right words.

Overcome the scary ideas in your hot head that are slowing you down in being an excellent impromptu speaker! Join in to our workshop by registering →here.

06 Apr

Not foolish but creative — our online meetings in April

Our meetings in April will be in “classic” Toastmasters style. You can expect interesting speeches, an extraordinary portion of entertainment in Table Topics and valuable feedback supporting everyone in improving public speaking and leadership skills.
Starting her journey with Toastmasters Amina is going to present her Icebreaker and introduces herself to the Club. Working on the path of “Visionary Communication” Ximeng is going to focus on “Effective Body Language” — for sure a challenge when using a webcam. Everyone is welcome to get better in impromptu speaking as Table Topics will be part of each meeting.
Wanna contribute with a “Creative Mind”? Choose whatever you like for a short presentation in the beginning of the meeting and train yourself to catch the audience’s attention. As usual meetings will be held with Skype and guests are welcome without any obligations. If you have questions feel free to contact us!

19 Feb

Renew your membership now and be with BASF Toastmasters until September

Dear fellow Toastmasters

currently we are still meeting online — so participation in our Toastmasters meetings is just one click away! As you have been with BASF Toastmasters in the past I’d like to share a look at our upcoming (educational) activities in the next time:

08. Feb “Develop (with) Toastmasters”
We would like to get your needs to develop skills regarding communication and leadership — this session will be moderated by experienced Toastmasters from neighboring clubs
22. Feb “The Classic”
Toastmasters meeting with presentations of new members and power members
08 March “To be prepared or not to be prepared”
We are going to focus on Table Topics and “Off the Cuff” speeches and offer one slot for a prepared speech
22 March “Workshop”
Area F1 Toastmasters show you how to improve leadership and feedback skills
April 2021 “Flower Power”
Inviting you to visit the Flower Festival in Freinsheim
Mai 2021 “Spring Into Action”
Debating / speaking with mic / Table Topics® Gala / upside-down-meeting, last year we had to cancel our series of meetings with an extra portion of fun and learning so we hope we can make it happen this year!

All of us are looking forward to have personal meetings at Toastmasters again. Nevertheless once we will meet face to face again we plan also to include those members who have diffculties to reach out to BASF Ludwgishafen site all the time. In September 2020 we already had successful “hybrid meetings”, we want to continue doing so and invite members to join us by computer wherever they are.

Please contact our Vice President of Education Lei or me if you have further questions.

Reinstating or renewing your membership is easy. To do so we kindly ask you to remit 6 x 8 EUR / month = 48 EUR (2021-04–2021-09) to our account!

17 Jan

BASF Toastmasters meets Sherlock Holmes

Dear BASF Toastmasters and guests,

You are cordially invited to our next special online meeting, details as followed:
What: Virtual Escape Room – online game
When: Monday, 25 January 2021, 17:45 CET
Where: Skype (contact us for access details)

Please note that the game is optimized for laptops/ desktops and can be played on all standard browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox…). Pen and paper are not required but could come handy.
We would appreciate if you could confirm your participation beforehand, so that we can make the necessary technical preparation.

21 Nov

Three Reasons Why

Are you looking for reasons to spend your Monday evenings virtually with us? Now, look no further.

Reason #1: Sharpen your virtual communication and leadership skills. Covid-19 has triggered a paradigm shift towards virtual meetings. Business trips, which deemed indispensable just a year ago, now look superfluous. Experts reckon that virtual meetings are here to stay. Without the luxury of body language to accentuate your message, your new tools for effective communication will be, among others, your facial expression and vocal variation. Also, explore digital tools with us and start impressing your colleagues at work.

Reason #2: Network virtually. At BASF Toastmasters, social distancing means socialise distantly. We are part of the global BASF Toastmasters network which consists of 13 clubs in Asia, Europe and North America, the Area F1 family (Rhein-Neckar) and the Toastmasters International. Whether you are a seasoned networker or networking newbie, our virtual meetings offer you a unique opportunity to polish your virtual coffee-break skills.
P.S. Join our Yammer and MS Team groups if you have not done so already!

Reason #3: Because you want to have a fun evening with fun people. Really, that goes without saying.

06 Nov

Global Open House 13 Nov 2020

BASF’s Toastmasters Clubs all over the World organize an online “Open House” on Friday 13 November 2020. The events will start 11am CET in Malaysia, transfer to Germany (1pm CET) and finish in North America (3pm CET). The whole event will focus on Leadership – Communication – Networking – Education with speakers of diverse cultural and professional background sharing their perspective on these topics.
Four speakers will represent BASF Toastmasters Ludwigshafen. Listen to Rolf’s speech about “Connecting with People”. Learn with Martin “How to Conduct Productive Meetings”. “Get Better at Impromptu Speaking” by joining Melanie. Or find out with Jan Lukas “Why Al Won’t Take Over the World (Yet)!“.
All of the speeches and discussions can be found here. The “Open House” is an online event conducted on a WebEx platform. Please contact Weng Khong or Martin for access details!

30 Sep

Happy together!

This last Monday we had the opportunity to retake on site meetings again in BASF Toastmasters. After more than 6 months performing online meetings it was time to meet our fellow Toastmasters again.

Online meetings have its own advantages because they provide an easy access for other toastmasters around the globe to connect and interact with our recurrent team in LU. Connecting from home also implies a decrease in personal contact which given the current situation can be beneficial to avoid the transmission of Coronavirus.

This was one of the main reasons why several members of the club still requested the possibility to participate online (together with our on-site members) so that they would not miss the opportunity to continue improving their public speaking skills.

For this reason the club conducted the first hybrid meeting, connecting people from home with our members from Ludwigshaffen that were sitting in our meeting room. The meeting went effortlessly and the feedback received from our online-members was very positive and reinforced the idea that hybrid meetings are indeed a great opportunity to connect both worlds and facilitate that everyone feels included wherever they want to be.

Mondays meeting started with a short round of introductions and later continued with one of our members presenting a very nice well done speech about happiness, having in consideration that the topic of the day was “HAPPY TOGETHER” 😊

We later continued with a short break and the “On-site” members got the opportunity to get to know a little bit better all new faces attending while also drinking coffee together. Afterwards we performed a TABLE TOPICS session where impromptu speaking took place and members needed to create imaginary stories at the same time they were given different pictures about totally different unrelated topics. Many funny crazy stories happened there! It was a great evening and a happy reencounter for all our members in BASF Toastmasters!

07 Sep

BASF Toastmasters returns On-Site!

Since Covid started, our meetings have been affected and we haven´t seen each other as wanted! Now that the summer is ending, we are foreseeing a possibility to start our F2F meetings on-site again! We would be very happy to see your beloved faces again, taking the existing Covid requirements into account!

According to a TEDEx guys (they seem to know what they are doing), effective presentation skills reduce miscommunication, which is likely the biggest cause of work-related stress. That means better presentation skills lower the stress on presenters which means the successful delivery of the message we are trying to transmit, so let’s improve all together and show off what are we capable of!

Next meeting will be held on the 14th of September in Ludwigshafen (BASF) and we are really looking forward to welcome you all again.
Since BASF Toastmasters could not meet personally for so long we also plan to have a picnic at the beginning of September. Join in to see members and guests and spend a few hours outside at the end of summer!