I’m still on holiday in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but I found an interesting note in today’s edition of WAZ Bochum – the local paper of the regional newspaper: Someone called Eva Masuch is going to found a Toastmaster Club in Bochum. The first meeting shall take place in the “Haus der Freunde” (house of the friends… of the Ruhr-University Bochum) next Monday, April 20th at (the articel doesn’t say).
A toastmaster is the person (man or woman) offering toast at the a dinner or some other formal meals, e.g. a wedding. There is an international organization that tries to teach people how to give public speeches. I think, it’s mainly an anglo-saxon thing. Nevertheless, the German toastmaster movement – with clubs in Berlin, Munich – focusses on giving speaches not in German but in plain English. The groups seems to aim at teaching people to speek freely – in English, with not more than school English. That sound interesting to me. I will try to have a look at the group and the way they work. Due to the newspaper article, everybody gets a manual.
The weekly appointment is the same time/day of the week the English natives speaker meetings take place in Game and Grunewald in Bochum. Well, “native speaker” are a minority there but working language is English.
According to the WAZ you shall contact the organizer:
“Infos gibt’s per Email (toastmasters-bochum@email.de) oder unter Tel. 0234/32-29368 (tagsüber).” (WaZ, 16.04.2009)
# Vera Demuth on April 22nd, 2009
Hallo Herr Schmidt,
beim Googlen zum Thema Toastmaster bin ich über Ihr Blog gestolpert und sehe, dass es englischsprachige Treffen in Bochum gibt. Danach habe ich bisher vergeblich gesucht. Haben Sie mehr Infos (vor allem die Ansprechpartner der beiden Gruppen), die Sie mir mitteilen könnten?
vera DOT demuth AT web DOT de
Vielen Dank und viele Grüße
Vera Demuth
# Dirk Schmidt on April 30th, 2009
If you are looking for a contact to one of the groups just mail me (or write a comment). I will talk to the people organizing the round tables and hope to publish contact addresses soon.