Budapest Toastmasters Club Conference: Monday 5th March, 6.30 p.m. at the Kempinski Hotel, Erzsébet tér.

Budapest Toastmasters announce that the Club Conference shall be held on Monday 5th March, 6.30 p.m. at the Kempinski Hotel, Erzsébet tér.

On Monday 23rd January the Club elected Peter Fekete to the position of Club President, following the resignation of Andras Barath.

    Peter has already met with several of the members of the Committee and other long-standing members not currently on the committee.  He plans to contact all past members in the coming period in tandem with the development of the long-term strategy, to which all members are invited to contribute views. 

    If you are interested in competing please contact Bea Bincze, Vice President Mentoring, who is the organising the event.: -
mentoring@budapesttoastmasters.org,  
A booking form will also appear shortly.
    If you wish to participate in the survey please send Peter your comments using the form below.

Following the establishment of ExxonMobil as a separate Toastmasters club, our Thursday meetings will now revert to CEU Business school.  Check the location map for the precise location!

Peter Temesvary had the honor of being a judge at the Morgan Stanley club's fall competition last Tuesday. Peter reports back on a fun evening, with great speeches and plenty of entertainment.

There were four contestants in the Humorous Speech Contest. Kristof started things off with a talk about why he resents his girlfriend trying to always change him. Anna Maria told a wonderful story about her grandfather escaping from a Russian prison camp, only to take the train in the wrong direction, toward Siberia rather than back to Hungary. Viktor had the audience laughing with his tale of trying to get from Bonn to an island in Croatia, spiced with a dazzling array of costumes and props. Finally, Csaba talked about the trials and tribulations of pregnancy (his wife's).

Unfortunately two of the contestants were outside the time limit, which left Anna Maria to take the spoils and the first place award. There were also four contestants for Table Topics, which Viktor won by putting together a perfectly composed mini-speech reflecting on the quote "I love deadlines. I love to hear the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."  All in all it was a very enjoyable event, and a very professionally organized competition.

Morgan Stanley holds their meetings on Tuesdays at noon (and meetings are held to a strict schedule of 1 hour), and they have recently started a Hungarian session every second Thursday, also at lunchtime.

(submitted by Peter Temesvary)

New initiatives brewing!

Traditionally, the summer is a down time for Hungarians – but not so for the newly elected executive committee of Budapest Toastmasters!

A common desire to take the bull by the horns and get on with things seems to have overtaken these members and new initiatives are brewing.  Here we take the opportunity to review what has already been achieved in the short space of time, and what is on the horizon.

David Saddington – website engine of change!

David Saddington was elected to the newly created position of VP Information Technology.  David had already been working in advance of the election on a redesign of the Club website as his project for the Leadership Track.  His work has already come to rapid fruition, and this very website is designed by David Saddington! 

“David’s work on the new website is a classic example of synergy in action,” says VP Leadership Track, Peter Fekete.  “His work not only makes a huge contribution to the functionality of the Club, but also makes a crucial contribution to the progress of the Leadership training programme within the Club.”  David’s work began by identifying the strengths of the existing website and where there was need for change.  The excellent features of the existing website, and  particularly its ability to facilitate these very news broadcasts was retained, while new functionality, as a vehicle for communicating the benefits of the website to potential new members was enhanced.  “David worked in a particularly sensitive way to identify the needs of his clients and deliver a product that catered for all needs.”  We are very grateful to David for his work.

President, Andras Barath sets challenging targets

The Executive committee has already met twice since the election.  The second of these meetings was combined with an extensive officer training under the guidance of Area Governor, Klaus Hammer.  Klaus is not only Area Governor but newly elected President of the ever-expanding and dynamic Bratislava Club.  “If there is one Club to rival in the European region, then that is the Bratislava Club”, says Andras Barath.  The Bratislava Club narrowly beat our own Club in terms of new members over the past year by 58 to 53; however, they outperform us on gaining awards – competent communicators, Bronze, Silver, communication and leadership track! 

The friendly rivalry is a stimulus to both parties.  Andras, at the officer training set challenging targets for the coming six-month period.

VP Education, Anna Laszlo, has plenty to say about evaluation

There was a call from the very efficient and all-present VP Education, Anna Laszlo, for even higher standards with regard to the quality of evaluations.  She aims to form a sub-committee to look into ways to improving the standard to the evaluations.  The aim is to increase the loyalty and participation of more experienced members.  Joining with her is VP Mentoring, Bea Bince, who also seeks to improve the quality of the mentoring programme offered by the Club.

VP Membership, Balazs Kuzsel, undertakes a heroic task!

An impressive outcome of the meetings was Balazs Kuzsel’s decision to develop a spreadsheet database of the progress of all members within the Club.  This is a real case of leading from the front, for such work is not to be lightly undertaken, for it involves a good deal of routine administration, data input and motivating people to come up with information that has been lost. 

Balazs is also the Club’s representative at ExxonMobil, where he and his wife, Barbara Metz, have taken on a leadership role in introducing Toastmasters to fellow ExxonMobil employees.  They have already prepared a new and exciting video for the internal promotion of the Club, and together with ExxonMobil senior manager, Rana Razzaque, have vowed to promote the training programme of the Club to employees.  As an active first step a lunch time event is being planned.

Party! Party! Party!

The humorous and table topics contest in September looms.  Atis Szabó and Peter Fekete are teaming up to bring to you a bonanza event of great comedy and active participation.  “We hope to announce the details of the event shortly,” says VP Hospitality, Atis Szabó, "but we are expecting it to be a big one, with opportunities for partying and clubbing as well.  We hope to promote this event as a cultural one to the widest possible audience here in Budapest.”  Watch these reports for further developments!

The Annual General Meeting of the Budapest Toastmasters Club was held at the Central European University last Monday, 30th May, 2011. We are pleased to announce that Andras Barath was elected to be our President for the year commencing 1st July, 2011.

Convening the meeting

It was duly established that there was a quorum. The meeting and election was conducted by Peter Fekete as Chairman of the Nominating Committee. President, Hans Peterson, presented the report of the Outgoing Committee. The report was adopted by the Assembly with one emendation proposed by Mary Murphy. The full report follows at the end of this article.

Martin Herget and Geza Levai were appointed as vote counters for the ballot. There followed four proposals put forward by Peter Fekete and seconded by Andras Barath for changes to the constitution of the Club. These were

1. To create an Exco position of VP Mentoring 2. To create an Exco position of VP Information Technology 3. To change the title of the Sergeant at Arms to VP Hospitality and to alter the responsibilities of that position accordingly. (See below in the addendum.) 4. Conduct of elections: in event of uncontested elections to proceed by acclaim rather than by secret ballot. Daniel Farago proposed a 5th item. 5. A resolution that the incoming Exco should investigate the possibility of establishing an advanced club of dual members.

Mary Murphy also called for a clear distinction between the roles of the new VP Mentoring and VP Information Technology and that job descriptions should be written for these roles. This request was duly noted, but no vote was taken on it. Voting on the five proposals was by secret ballot and the results were as follows.

1. Passed unanimously by 25 votes to 0. 2. Passed by 24 votes to 1. 3. Passed unanimously by 25 votes to 0. 4. Passed by 24 votes with 1 abstention. 5. Passed by 22 votes to 2 opposed and 1 abstention.

Election by acclaim

As resolution 4 was passed without contrary vote, the election proceeded by acclaim. The following officers were duly elected in order. 1. President: Andras Barath 2. VP Education: Anna Laszlo 3. VP Public Relations: Istvan Szurop 4. VP Membership: Balázs Kuzsel 5. Treasurer: Istvan Grafjodi 6. Secretary: Imre Pakozdi 7. VP Hospitality: Attila Szabó 8. VP Leadership: Peter Fekete 9. VP Mentoring: Bea Bince 10. VP Information Technology: David Saddington All were elected unanimously except VP Hospitality, where there was one abstention.

The election and AGM was duly closed by Peter Fekete, who handed over to Hans Peterson for the conduct of the second part of the evening.

Speeches by Roxanna Laszlo and Lila Suka Dasa

After a well-earned interval during which refreshments were served there followed a more regular meeting during which Roxanna Laszlo gave her 10th speech and Lila Suka Dasa gave his first. Roxanna’s speech was evaluated by Mary Murphy and Lila Suka Dasa’s by Peter Fekete. The Club was also host to visiting members from the Vienna clubs who were conducting research into the Hungarian Reform Programme.

Andras Barath has already called his first Exco meeting for Wednesday 3rd July.

Outgoing Executive Committee Report 2011

During the year the following officers served: Hans Peterson as President András Baráth as VP Membership Dániel Faragó as VP Education István Deák as VP Public Relations Anikó Kiss as VP Hospitality István Grafjódi as Treasurer Marya Kaska as Secretary Peter Fekete as Past President and VP Leadership Track.

It has been an exciting and eventful year full of successes for the Budapest Toastmasters Club. It began with the introduction of a new venue for the Club at the offices of ExxonMobil. This development was inspired by ExxonMobil manager Ian Woodhouse, whose witty responses in Table topics competitions have astonished many. The mantle of the organisation was taken up by the brilliant team of Barbara Metz and Balázs Kuzsel, very ably assisted in their endeavours by Krisztian Berta. The event, held on Thursday evenings, regularly draws a large crowd of both ExxonMobil employees and regular members, and is becoming increasingly popular. The recent promotional video, in which many members of the ExxonMobil team participate, is a fantastic display of humor and professionalism and should serve to draw in more members in the future.

“Large numbers” has been a feature of the year. Long gone are the days when one could turn up to a meeting and meet – all of two other people. It is not uncommon to have meetings of 30 or so members, and the Monday evening sessions and Tuesday morning events at the California Coffee Shop near the Bazilika are very well attended. Many thanks also to the Central European University for their continued support and hosting of our club, and a particular warm thanks to Judith Mandy who acts as our coordinator here.

There has been a good deal of partying during the year. The spirit of fun got well under way with the October conference organised by Peter Fekete at the Béke Hotel. Although this was only our Club competition it was attended by over 70 members and their guests and the dinner was a resounding success, as well. Club founder, Willy Benko gave the key-note speech on the theme of combating recidivism among Hungarian prison inmates. Table topics contestants were Martin Hergert, Daniel Faragó, István Deák, Kriszta Medgyesi, Geoffrey Thomas and Ian Woodhouse. Humorous speech contestants were Dániel Faragó, Anikó Kiss, Marya Kaska and Geoffrey Thomas. Geoffrey was in good form that day and won both competitions. Kriszta Medgyesi came second in the Table Topics and Dániel second in the Humorous speech contest. Geoffrey went on to win both competitions at the Area conference held later in Győr, and competed again at the division conference in Most in the Czech Republic.

With partying now well underway – what better than to hold a Christmas Party! This was organised by Anikó Kiss, who also came up with the brilliant idea of a competition based on making Christmas toasts. Anikó also won that competition with a brilliant appeal for sympathy for aliens from outer space visiting this bizarre planet.

In April the Budapest Club with its sister club, Morgan Stanley, became hosts to the Area Conference. The Conference was organised by Peter Fekete. It was another resounding success – this time an International affair with visitors from Austria, Slovakia, and Germany. The event was MC’d by – Hans Peterson and Daniel Szentimrey-Harrach, President of the Morgan Stanley Club. The highly experienced veteran, Leopold Ziegler, from Austria – otherwise known as “the flying toastmaster” – was our Contest Master. We were very pleased that this event gave an opportunity for our Budapest clubs to make closer bonds with our neighbours, both in Vienna and Bratislava. The Vienna clubs, with their long established experience, were able to supply most of the programme leaders. The witty Keynote address was given by the outstanding diplomat Christian Biever, and there were inspiring workshops by Austrian based professional trainers Imre Remenyi on “How Top Speakers Master Content”, and Charlie La fond on “Public Speaking: Nature or Nurture?” Olga Durakova from Bratislava and Mary Murphy from our Club gave an outstanding workshops respectively on Online Marketing and Impromptu Speaking.

The day proceeded to the speech competitions. One distinctive aspect was the German Language competition. Many thanks go to Martin Hergert, who gave a target speech at short notice, and our commiserations to Ken Ohlen, whose detailed analysis of that speech won him much fame and honour, but not the competition. Otto Schwere and Markus Albrecht from Vienna won both competitions. In the English language competition our representatives were András Baráth and Katarina Kultanova for the International Speech contest, and Peter Fekete and Michael Ulicny for the Evaluation contest. Katarina and Michael were from the Bratislava club and were invited by us to represent us at the conference as a gesture expressing our hope that the Bratislava Club will soon be able to join our Area officially. In fact, both Michael and Katarina won their respective competitions, and Katarina later won the Division contest held at Nuremberg, thus she represented both our Club and hers at District level in Lisbon, Portugal. Ken Ohlen and Peter Fekete also went to Nuremberg to represent our club there.

With all this going on one wonders whether there was time for anything else, but there were several other initiatives this year. Not least was the introduction of marathon speechathons, the work of VP Education, Dániel Faragó, ably assisted by Anna László. We had the opportunity to drink and snack then as well. We have done very well award wise: with Competent Communicator awards going to Dániel Faragó, Barnbas Szilágyi, András Baráth and Roxanna László. We also congratulate Peter Temesvary on the outstanding achievement of attaining the Advanced Communicator Bronze Award, and to Mary Murphy, with the highest crown of all, this year – the Advanced Communicator Silver award.

With Peter Fekete as our first member to attain the Competent Leadership award, he put some steam into our leadership track after Christmas and the following members are now participating in it: Dániel Faragó, Julia Fuöp, David Saddington, James Poplasky, Balasz Kuzsel, Hans Peterson, István Deák, Istvan Khel-Reinle, Barbara Metz, Barnabás Szilágyi, Krisztian Berta, and Bea Bince. We are looking forward to more members joining this group, and are anxiously waiting to see who will be next in attaining the Competent Leadership award.

Among the other administrative successes, we congratulate Hans Peterson on his successful redesign of the website that has enabled improved communication with the Club and also made it possible to avert the ignominy of being called “spammers”! The expanding needs of the Club mean that there is a further need for website development, and we thank David Saddington for his investigations into this, culminating in his report. David has also undertaken this as a project within the Leadership Track, and the results of his work will soon be apparent on our website at www.budapesttoastmasters.com.

Another minor victory, we finally obtained a banner for the Club and had it embossed with our name. Wonders will never cease! Financially, we are in good shape. Accounts for the April conference show that we made a profit of 22,724 HUF, on a total budget of approximately 500,000 HUF. We did not aim to make a profit and in fact budgeted for a loss of 50,000 HUF. The Club balance currently stands at 622,615 HUF.

Membership, under the careful direction of András Baráth, has also increased. At the beginning of the term there were 37 active members, today we have 58 members – an increase of more than 50%. This growth was due to the impressive success of adding 40 new members, since we must also report that 13 of the original 37 members have left Budapest, and another 6 have left the club for other reasons. With so many new members, of the Mentoring program initiated early this year will help to deepen our new members and reinvigorate older members given the added opportunity to develop their skills by mentoring.

Our Club last year was awarded the honor of being a Select Distinguished Club, and we are pleased to announce that we are now eligible this year for the title of President Distinguished Club, which is the highest award possible. We hope that these achievements will contribute to District 59 beating out all other districts as the best in the world as measured by achievement points. So congratulations are due all-round.

In this report we have tried to focus on the main events, and to highlight prominent contributions. But remember, the club is about all of you – your speeches, your development and your participation. It could not survive without the ongoing active support of all of you. Thank you for everything. In the name outgoing committee we wish all the best to the Club and all its members in our future progress.

REPORT PREPARED BY HANS PETERSON AND PETER FEKETE *

Addendum: The Sergeant at arms

Description of role from the International contitution

The sergeant at arms is the seventh-ranking club officer. Standards outside of the club meeting are to: Schedule meeting location; maintain club equipment in working order and check after every meeting to ensure adequate supplies are available, attend club executive committee meetings; attend district-sponsored club officer training; arrange for a replacement and for assistance if necessary; prepare successor for office.

Standards at a club meeting are to: Arrange the room at least 10 minutes before the meeting begins; make sure the lectern is in place, the banner displayed, evaluation forms and ballots distributed, awards, supply catalog, progress chart and educational material displayed, place cards arranged and name badges available; greet members and guests and arrange for guests to sit with members; greet the area governor and other visiting officers and escort them to the club president; arrange for food service at meal meetings; ensure the meeting starts on time; collect ballots and tally votes for awards.

PROPOSAL 1. Change the title of the officer role to VP Hospitality. 2. Transfer all of the responsibilities of the second paragraph to the collective responsibility of the committee. 3. Change the first paragraph to:

The VP Hospitality is a member of the Executive Committee. Standards outside of the club meeting are to: oversee the management of all social functions of the Club; schedule meeting location; maintain club equipment in working order and oversee that adequate supplies are available, attend club executive committee meetings; attend district-sponsored club officer training; arrange for a replacement and for assistance if necessary; prepare successor for office.

Election

The Budapest Toastmasters Annual General Meeting and Election of Club officers for the Year Commencing 1st July 2011 will be held at the Central European University (Frankel Leo U.) on Monday 27th June, 6.30 p.m.

We urge all Club Members and Associates to attend.

The evening will be divided into two main parts, separated by an interval for refreshments. The first part will commence with the report of the outgoing committee to be delivered by outgoing President Hans Peterson. After that there will be a proposal to alter the Club Constitution by the addition of New Roles for the Committee. Thereafter, there will be the election proper.

In the second half of the meeting there will be three programmed speeches.

New Roles for the Committee

The rules of the International Organisation permit any Club to create additional officer roles as they see fit. Our Club already has one additional role in the position of VP Leadership. The strong interest in participation on the Executive Committee has prompted Peter Fekete (Current VP Leadership) and Andras Barath (Current VP Membership) to propose the creation of two additional positions. They say, “There is so much to do that it seems a shame to reject any offer of help.” The two proposed positions are, VP Mentoring, and VP Information Technology. At the same time there is a proposal to change the remit of the Sergeant at Arms to officially retitle this role, VP Hospitality.

At the present all the positions on the committee are uncontested. Nonetheless, it is expected that all nominees who agree to stand for election will express their strong support for the Club, their commitment to the role and an outline of their proposals prior to election. Each speech is scheduled to last 1 to 3 minutes. The election may then proceed by ballot or by acclaim, according to the general will of the Assembly. In the event of contested elections, each nominee may call on one Member from the Assembly to also speak on their behalf.

Elections take place in the order of precedence as laid down by the International Organsiation, followed by any other additional officer roles, in the order of creation.

President, VP Education, VP Public Relations, VP Membership, Treasurer, Secretary, Sergeant at Arms (VP Hospitality), VP Leadership, followed by VP Mentoring and VP Information Technology if created.

Many of the nominees would like to take this opportunity to say in advance something about their plans for the coming year.

Andras Barath has been nominated for President.

“Toastmasters offers an exceptional opportunity for self-development and this is especially true for the Budapest Toastmasters club. I always enjoy the professional yet friendly meetings even at those early hours on Tuesday mornings…The most important task for the club leadership is to maintain this special atmosphere which is our biggest asset. On the other hand we have to build the club further to make it stronger and have the Toastmasters education more widely recognised in Hungary.

As president I shall focus on three main priorities: 1) Speeding up the development of our existing members – both on the communication and the leadership area. 2) I would increase the focus on retention so that the club has a higher number of experienced speakers and even higher quality meetings. 3) Increasing the membership should remain high on our agenda since this is the bread and butter in the long-term development of the club.

Growing the club while retaining it’s unique culture – this is what my motto is.

Anna Laszlo has been nominated for VP Education

“As VP Education, my main task will be to assist in the scheduling of speeches and roles and organizing events, all with the purpose of raising the standard of the club. My goal is to lay down the basis for a successful cooperation between members and committee members and make the process as user-friendly as possible.”

István Szurop has been nominated for VP Public Relations

“I decided to accept the nomination for the VP Public Relations position because I would like to help run this Club in return for the intellectual engagement and self-development opportunities its open and supportive atmosphere offers me week by week. If elected, I promise that – by leveraging my 15 years experience in management, marketing and consulting – I will continue and further develop the good work of my predecessors.”

Bea Bincze has been nominated for VP Membership

“I plan to keep up the good work Andras did so far. Key areas of focus will be the increase of the membership, and to understand and address the needs of the members.”

Imre Pákozdi has been nominated for Secretary

“My intention is to provide a safe and precise logistic environment for the Committee. This means organizing the sessions, taking care about the agenda, keeping the time limits and the thematic limitations and recording the decisions properly.”


Peter Fekete has been nominated for VP Leadership

“I will continue to work energetically for the Club to help build it into a leading charity and voluntary institution in Budapest. The Leadership track is the vital partner programme to the Communication track and both mutually support the other. I intend to develop the track effectively into a vehicle for self-development and to provide a ready source of innovation and leadership within the Club.”

István Grafjodi has been nominated for Treasurer

István is currently unavailable for comment. He is the acting Treasure of the Club and a founder member of its Articles of Association as a Charity. He sends his good wishes and promises to continue to work efficiently to look after the financial affairs of the Club.

Article written by Peter Fekete

Area Conference

On April 9th Budapest was host to a very successful Area Conference. Attended by more than 100 people at the Beke Hotel it was a truly memorable occasion featuring wonderful competitions in English and German, as well as great workshops that in all respects lived up to their billings.

International Event

Impressarios for the day were Club Presidents Hans Peterson (Budapest Toastmasters) and Daniel Szentimrey-Harrach (Budapest Morgan Stanley). Their double-act and running commentary was very entertaining. Other Clubs to show up in force were the German language speaking club, Vienna Rhetorick, lead by Christian Biever, who also gave a memorable Keynote speech, and the Bratislava Toastmasters Club, lead by Olga Durakova, who gave an excellent workshop on online marketing for Toastmasters clubs. We extend our heartfelt thanks also to the other workshop presenters, Mary Murphy, Imre Remenyi and Charlie LaFond. The other clubs represented were Vienna Toastmasters, Vienna Speakers and Vienna International. Yes “international” was very much the theme of the day!

Bratislava

We were very pleased that Bratislava was able to join us in such great force for the conference. Although Bratislava, being “undistricted”, are not officially part of our area, they have taken a dynamic role within our region and have organised many events. It was therefore only natural that we should reciprocate and warmly welcome them to Budapest. In this spirit of cooperation our Budapest club invited Bratislava to nominate one contestant in each of the categories to represent both of us jointly in the competitions. Our representatives were, therefore, Andras Baráth and Katarina Kultanova for the International Speech contest, and Peter Fekete and Michael Ulicny for the Evaluation contest.

Congratulations!

Congratulations in the German contest to Otto Schwere and Markus Albrecht who came first and second respectively in both competitions! Warm Thanks to our great Contest Master Leo Ziegler. The Bratislava-Budapest connection did well. Katarina and Michael came first in both their respective categories. Morgan-Stanley also featured prominently with Steve Nelson coming second in the International speech contest.


Wining streak!

The winning streak did not end there! The Division Contest was held inn Nuremberg on Saturday 30th April and once again Katarina won. This time Michael came second in the Evaluation contest, and Steve third in the International speech contest. This outstanding performance means that the joint team of Budapest-Bratislava is represented at the District Conference by Katarina to be held in Lisbon on 20 to 22nd May.

Katarina’s speech

Katarina’s speech is a sensitive and insightful exploration of what motivation really means. Exploring her own experiences and Indian mythology she advances the thesis that motivation must come from within and cannot be whipped up from external influences. She delivers her speech with both drama and passion, and we wish her all the best for Lisbon.

The Nuremberg conference

The Nuremberg conference was a lovely occasion drawing together participants from Southern Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. It was a delightful event led by Morag Mathieson (Division Governor), Tara Majumdar (Contest Chair), and Margaret Jankowsky (DTM), who gave an Educational workshop on what makes a great speech.

For any of you who have not visited Nuremberg we can say that it is a beautiful city full of history. A key feature of the weekend was an entertaining walk around the walled city lead by Margaret Jankowsky, who would have little difficulty getting a job as a professional tour guide. Thanks to Daniel Szentimrey-Harrach we were able to find the rotating ring on the famous fountain that enabled us to make a special wish. Nuremberg is well worth a visit.