The two sides of a Toastmasters session

16/01/2016

Our last session of the year was full of lights and shadows, but also of surprises, emotion and good speeches. The opening, as usual, came together with our president Jelena, whose habitual cheerful mood wished us love, motivation and a positive attitude in our lives. Thank you Jelena, we wish you exactly the same!

Catalina was our Toastmaster of the session and the theme selected by her was “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde applied to Toastmaster's human duality”, an original and well-chosen topic that would allow us to think about our own dichotomies. Following the inspiration of the famous novel, she showed a little bottle with “a magic medical potion” that would let the Hyde part of each participant of the night to get out!

After that, she introduced the technical team of the session: Hugo as the timekeeper, Olga, taking care of the crotches, and Mariyana playing the role of grammarian, who introduced the word of the day: BENEVOLENCE.

Enrique gave his 5^th speech of the Competent Communication Manual, titled “By the face”. He explained us some aspects of how facial traits are related with personality, and gave us some tricks (perfectly illustrated with funny examples of famous people) of how to know more about people character just by observing their facial features. Nevertheless, Enrique reminded us that the most important will always be to get to know people by listening to them.

After that, Rayane came with her 2^nd speech of the manual Speaking to Inform, titled “How much do we know about our big neighbor”. She showed the audience that a lot of times, clichés are not only extremely simplistic but also false. She gave us precious information to eliminate some ideas people still have about Africa (it is not a country but a continent, nor a black or poor land, or a place where people living there are traditional or old fashioned).  She took us to a new Africa, much richer than the stereotyped one.

Then, we had a Xmas present: Kornel Doman, a great actor, came to give us an extra speech, and to explain us, that “less is more”. He told us about the power of silence and how to keep our presentations simple by giving some effective advices: Breathe, be yourself or take a pause at the scenario if you need it. There is no problem about it!

After this present, it was time to evaluate the speeches. Catalina motivated us to work on improving our evaluations reminding the audience that an evaluation can be “too Dr Jeckyll” (so soft that we won’t learn anything as speakers), or “too Mr Hyde” (so hard that we could get unmotivated). Fortunately, both Jelena and Judit, found the middle ground putting out positive aspects of the speakers as well as points to keep on working to improve.

The funniest part of a Toastmasters Session is always the improvisation part. Marc, as Table Topic Master, asked to Ambrós, Laia and Bea to talk for at least one minute about some dichotomies… not an easy task but all of them achieved it without problem.

The session was about to finish, but Catalina still had time for more: She put some objects on a table and asked us to select one, find a different meaning for it, and give it as a present to another club’s member.  A special conclusion for a special night. Finally, our General Evaluator of the session, Sandra, gave us very useful feedback regarding the performance of the session.

Bonus track: The final clasp of the year was the goodbye to the fantastic Committee that, during the last months, has done all the club work efficiently. Then, the new group was presented and welcomed.