Development

My Presidency is coming to an end... and that's a good point in time to look back on the past twelve months.

First of all: Both the Toastmasters International and our internal end-of-May figures are here, and they're exciting! Not only is Mercury the biggest Toastmasters Club in Area 59C2 (Berlin and Leipzig), we also had the highest number of active members ever since we started recording it in March 2007.

And there's more. Although we've seen a real generational change at Mercury in the last twenty months, we'll be Distinguished Club in the Toastmasters year 2007/2008 (meaning we achieved between 50% and 70% of the organisational and educational goals in the Distinguished Club Programme). That's more than we could expect!

We're also still the only club in Berlin providing our members with professional video feedback on a regular basis after our former member Peter discontinued his video service. All videos are easily accessible from within our unmatched Mercury Online Services which support both our members and the Board and allow all of us to focus on what really counts at Mercury: Training communication skills.

Throughout the past months of contiguous change, all current Mercury members, and foremost the Board members, have contributed to Mercury's stability and future and hence our success. Your enthusiasm is Mercury's strength!

Being Mercury's President was a unique experience I will never forget. After two and a half years in active Mercury Board positions, I'm looking forward to being Immediate Past President during the upcoming Toastmasters year, coaching the new Board. I'm absolutely positive that we all together are going to see another successful Mercury year!

In March and September, when it's usually time to renew Toastmasters memberships, the Clubs face moments of truth because membership ends automatically for those members who do not explicitly renew.

The official membership figures for end of April and October are therefore important for a Club's start into the new six-month membership term.

And again, as of end of April, Mercury is the biggest Toastmasters Club in Berlin, followed by the German speaking Meisterredner Club. (Actually we're even the biggest club in Toastmasters Area 59C2, which covers Leipzig as well.)

Let's keep up the Mercury spirit! Thank you all for your excellent contributions to Mercury's success!

Oh, before I forget... That doesn't mean we don't want to grow! So bring a friend or colleage, and/or be our guest next time. Here's the agenda of our upcoming meting: http://www.mercury-toastmasters-berlin.de/public/agenda.php

It's done... the Mercury website and the Mercury Online Services are now jointly residing on the same server, unified under our new domain http://www.mercury-toastmasters-berlin.de/!

Thanks to extensive preparation, the transition went smoothly. This move is an important step for Mercury in many respects and I'm both relieved and delighted that it has been taken successfully.

Please solely use our new web address http://www.mercury-toastmasters-berlin.de/ in the future. Thank you, and excuse any inconvenience you may have been facing!

I'm happy to announce that the Mercury members have ratified the Board's decision to lower the monthly Mercury membership dues from EUR 9,- to EUR 6,- for future membership dues payments! This significant cut was possible because of three factors. First, the development of the Euro/US$ exchange rate leads to lower fees which we have to pay to Toastmasters International. Second, the dedication of three Board members leads to savings regarding our costs for the beamer, the video processing and archive and the website. And third, Mercury's unexpected growth during the last months lead to a better ratio of Mercury's fixed and proportional costs.

A big Thank You to everybody who contributes to Mercury's success!

If there is a key responsibility for a Toastmasters Club's President then it's supporting the balance of individual member motivation on the one hand and the stability of the framework which the club provides on the other hand. All concrete assignments the President assumes arise from this maxim.

When I visited another Toastmasters club recently, I heard people say several times that Toastmasters was a support group. In a way it is, but seeing Toastmasters from this angle is so limiting. Or would you say you're going to a yellow ball hitting support group? Probably not. You would say you're training tennis. So see Mercury Toastmasters as a training platform.

You might still object that there is no trainer at Mercury. If you're thinking this way, I'm asking you to consider three aspects. First, for many occasions, we all qualify as your audience, and speakers can learn a lot from their audience. Second, Mercury has a number of members with a valuable professional background. And third, you won't meet enemies in your life -- only friends and teachers. So you'll definitely meet teachers at Mercury...

For the second half of my presidency, I'll focus even more on finding and maintaining the right balance of your training needs -- your motivation -- and our training platform -- the great framework called Mercury Toastmasters.

And where are we today? As of end of 2007, Mercury is clearly the biggest Toastmasters club in Berlin. We today also have the highest number of active members ever since we started the statistics. And we're currently the only Toastmasters club in town which provides full service video feedback and beamer technology on a regular basis.

A BIG THANK YOU to all Mercury members for their manifold contributions to our success story! Let's keep up the Mercury spirit!

For years, Mercury has welcomed new members not only at the club meetings, but also on the website.

In former times, a static web page was updated. With the introduction of the News blog, we announced new members in blogt entries.

We're not going to do so in the future, though. We believe that welcoming our new members in real life, both at and in between our club meetings, is what really counts. We don't see additional value in the announcements on the News blog.

Therefore, you will not read new member announcements here for the time being.

MERCURY GIVES A WARM WELCOME to our newest members:

David and Matthias

We're proud you're with us!!

In March and September, when it's usually time to renew Toastmasters memberships, the Clubs face moments of thruth because membership ends automatically for everybody who does not explicitly prolong.

The official membership figures for end of April and October are therefore important for a Club's start into the new six-month membership term.

According to those figures, Mercury is again the largest Toastmasters Club in Berlin, followed by the German speaking Meisterredner Club.

I'm touched by Mercury's success! A huge round of applause to all our members! Let's carry on this development!