My first time...

The good thing about first times, is that all of them take us out of our zone of confort. Why? Simply because we are trying something new!!! is it good? is it bad? Everybody can share their experience, but for sure, the best its to try and get a new experience allowing us to increment our knowledge.

Last wednesday, we had the first english session of the year, and our new President, Mariyana Tasheva, had the role of toastmaster of the night for first time this year, she seems a bit stressed but, so far, she managed the session properly.

We had a few guest that came for very first time to a toastmaster session, the reason that called my attention the most was about one girl, she will perform an speech for a wedding next may for first time, seems pretty interesting reason to join us, don't you agree?

The theme of our session was "Changes and transformation", good subject, fully aligned to the beginning of the year!

After the presentation of the technical team (Rubén Martinez-Fanais as Timekeeper; Catalina Maldonado as Grammarian and Marc Majoral as Ah-counter ). I had to highlight I never heard before he word of the day, "Wisecrack", did you know about this term? I have to say that Catalina did her homework (in a record time, after getting the role of grammarian one day prior the session, good job!).

We went directly to the speeches, I was a bit surprised, it was the first time there was no joke, it seems that the ritual we follow during our sessions was a bit lost, fortunately, this was solved later during the session.

The first Speech, by Lukasz Zagroba, was about how to improve the way we control our atttention. It was good to see two or three people in the session were following the instructions to focus their breathing, as it was the example provided to start the improvement of our "focus" skills; unfortunately I lost my focus and did not take a picture of it!

Afterwards, Madalina Burghelea finished the competent comunication manual with a inspirational speech, using a nice subject,  her version of the storie of the ugly duckling! I would say, with a a flawless style despite the fact sometimes she spoke a bit fast; I guess this happens when we try to speak at the speed we think or because the pressure of having the time keeper with the bell ready to ring!!!

Speaking about the devil, yes, the bell rang during the evaluation of Lukasz, it seems Ambrós Abellana lost the focus on the time used to provide his feedback, as you can notice below, the red light was on prior Ruben made use of the ring.

 Javier Macias, in his role as evaluator, confirmed what we all enjoyed, a great speech from Madalina.

Following the session, we had a new first time, or I should say, a new tool; Marion Chevalier, as table topic master, brought to the session a nice little box with more that 100 table topics:

We had a different table topic session, as Marion explained 10 different ways to start an speech, as result, 10 volunteers were able to participate, including a guest (bravo!!!) or part of the technical team like the grammarian or the blogger, were happy to try this "table topics box" for first time :-)

I have to mention that the general evaluation of the session + the reports coming from the technical team had a positive balance, having only two speeches performed with a high note and with a several use of the word of the day by most of the participants. We had a joke, coming from Miguel Angel Garcias Tarrazona, the General Evaluator of the session.

In order to close this entry, I encourage you to get ready for your next first time, it should not hurt, and if it does, such pain should not last long. Finally, I want to share with you the pictures of the speakers receiving their certificates, in case of Lukasz, he finished his mentorship period:

While Madalina finalized her Competent Communication Manual,

I take the opportunity to wish you a great beginning of the week and see you all on wednesday!

Paul Conde