GUILTY PLEASURES NIGHT
Everything is ready and on time as usual.
Maria Luisa comes with a hammer.
She welcomes the audience.
Jelena starts very energetic as she always does
to introduce members and guests.
First victims of the night fall into her
questions. First raw, easy targets.
Jelena starts by making a few points on “how to connect with our
audience”
- It’s important to connect with the best part of yourself.
- You have to know what you are talking about.
Here are a few similar points on this same
topic:
5. Ask the right
questions to make them think.
In conclusion,
If your audience are apples don’t talk to them
about bananas. You’ll lose them right away.
Now it’s time for first time commers (guests) to
start to sweat. Jelena asks them to stand up and present themselves.
Marc goes first (a new Marc). He makes a short
presentation.
He survived.
Now the turn to a french girl called…. “the frenchie”. Bonjour.
Her english is very good.
Then Carlos from Barcelona.
And finally John Doe from Barcelona also (sorry,
forgot to write your name down)
They all made it.
-------------------------------------------------
M.A. starts introducing the program.
He is using a cheat sheet in his phone while
presenting. Or watching funny cat pics, who knows.
He now talks about the part where volunteers
will be asked to stand in front of the audience for the improvisation part.
He lied about the volunteers thing. They are
selected by finger... no true volunteers :)
The topic of the day that M.A. chose is “Guilty pleasures”
Wikipedia definition: (something, such as a film, television
programme, or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not
generally held in high regard.)
He previously collected information from the
members who are appearing today so we can know each member’s Guilty Pleasure.
(not sure the participants are going to be totally honest on these ones)
M.A.’s Guilty Pleasure “listening to party in the
U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus while running”.
(horrible, unacceptable, shameful. He should
feel big remorse for that…. just kidding. That was just so I could use the word
of the day REMORSE (remember that you can get big applauses by the audience if
you remember to use the word of the day).
M.A. Introduces the technical team (or DJ mix
table as Juan calls it).
1st technical member:
Enrique. Guilty pleasure: He likes “Salvame”. (He definitely should be saved from
that).
The audience enjoyed this guilty pleasure
revelation.
Now he has to stand up and face the audience to
present his role. Tough moments… He is not finding his words, pressure is
rising, the room is feeling hotter, breathe.
Don’t
worry, we all know what the role is...
Enrique finds the words and tells us his role.
His role is to warn the speaker using lights so
he/she knows how much time he/she has left.
If the speaker exceeds the time limit, a bell
will be heard.
Turn to Olga. She is from Moldavia.
The first time I heard about this country long
time ago I thought it was another invented one like Syldavia from the Tintin
comic books that I read as a kid.
Her guilty pleasure is Jamón.
After being a vegetarian for many years!
She fell into the dark side.
Her role is Grammarian. She has to tell people
how to talk proper english.
And she introduced the word REMORSE to the audience.
She will be listening for the word to be said.
She might be feeling remorse herself now.
DJ Juan.
Juan is the Ah-counter. He has to listen
carefully to any ah eh oh eu or any weird sound that’s not a word, being said
by the speaker. Seems easy but it’s a tough job.
I don’t know where this came from but Nacho’s
guilty pleasure was revealed:
“Sleeping
with his best friend’s wife”. RESPECT. (for more details ask him personally).
M.A. now introduces the blogger. I think they
don’t know my name so here it is:
The blogger’s role is to write what happens
during the session.
Now time for the joke of the night.
Ramon’s name came out but it is Juan who stands up voluntarily.
It’s going to be a big battle between Ramon and
Juan for most laughs and best jokes during the Toastmasters sessions.
Juan asks the audience to think in Spanish.
Today is the english session but for the joke to make sense it has to be told
in Spanish.
It’s something about monkeys
And how to call a huge monkey…
And then: “Monaco”! (not the city)
Sorry I couldn’t follow the joke. But it was
fun.
SPEECH TIME
Now the turn for the 1st speaker of the night.
Sean. 1st speech. Ice Breaker.
“If
you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.”
Guilty pleasure: “drinking red wine while listening to the song
RedRed Wine by UB40 after a night of hard work”.
He starts by showing us a book about Paulo
Coelho. A book I haven’t read.
He is explaining the book! Spoilers! Spoilers!
he likes the book because he found it very
inspirational.
He links the synopsis of the book with his life
journey since childhood moving from Indonesia to USA and growing up there. No
wonder his english is so good.
Then going back to Indonesia as a request from
his mother, and some time later away again to the Netherlands. He was confused
about the Netherlands as he until that moment thought PeterPan’s city was
fictional.
There he met a girl who talked to him about
Barcelona so he decided to come. Here he is now enjoying this beautiful
cosmopolitan city.
He made a powerful statement at the end to
conclude:
learn how to EMBRACE Change. Change is
inevitable, it’s constant, and ubiquitous in our lives. But as human beings we
are capable of adapting, surviving & thriving through Change.
“If you’re brave
enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.”
Book:
The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian
shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as
extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the
markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with
the alchemist.
I’m hearing some voices from other members
behind me saying how good the speech was.
i agree. Great Icebreaker speech.
--------------------------------------------
Speech nº2 for Cristina.
“Barcelona Brand”
Guilty pleasure: she loves cheating at playing
cards. (she might know how to win in casinos…)
her speech is about Barcelona’s history.
She divided the speech in 3 (magic number 3)
Industrial revolution
Urban transformations
Opening the city to the sea
1.Industrial
revolution
here a more extended description of Barcelona’s
history
2.Urban transformations
Map of the neighborhoods of the city of
Barcelona and project for its improvements and enlargement, 1859.
During that period many walls were taken down
to expand the city.
3.Opening the city to the
sea
Barcelona started expanding as a city towards
the sea line when she was chosen to hold the 1992 Olympics.
She concludes by saying that Barcelona has
become a great city thanks to
it’s geographic location.
●
identity value
●
creative city
●
and it’s comfort and
wellbeing
------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd speaker Gerard. Speech nº6
“Travel,
but SOLO”
guilty pleasure “I like to sleep with long socks”. I think that was
it.
I prefered Nacho’s guilty pleasure
Gerard talked about his trip on his motorbike
going from barcelona to Italy and up to Albania.
They have Terminators in Albania. But they are
nice terminators.
And they also have beautiful girls who like to
sing spanish songs and take you to the beach and do stuff.
He encourages us all to think about a trip like
that and just make it happen. Don’t look for excuses and go for it. The
experience is amazingly fulfilling.
It was a funny speech with many interesting
anecdotes on this adventure.
Time for evaluations
1.Nacho
evaluates Sean
Nacho’s
Guilty pleasure: (I think that’s the second one): “I go to the toilet with
my phone and send work emails from there”.
Right after starting the evaluation he went for
a high five with sean.
Nacho gave a very positive feedback.
And Sean included the word of the day! That
impressed Nacho a lot.
So many positive points for Sean’s first speech
and just a few things to correct like some eye contact and hands/body
movements.
Sean looked too many times at the floor and his
hands were often together in front of his chest. Better be open and away from
your body, occupying space to make oneself “bigger”.
2.Marc evaluates Cristina (too many Marcs
already)
Marc made a big list pointing out the good
points Cristina did and some to improve.
He recommends Cristina to make the different
points of the presentation at the beginning more clear as it was difficult to
follow the structure.
Maybe some specific years and dates could be
written on the power point as it is a presentation with historical information,
and sometimes it’s not easy to hear clearly this kind of info.
Marc transmits his ideas very clearly but at a
slow pace. Lights at the table are changing fast. The bell is near…Enrique is
ready.
Marc keeps giving tips to Cristina but the bell
rings. End of speech. Game Over.
3.Paul evaluates Gerard Vidal.
Paul’s guilty pleasure: “I enjoy listening to
Mexican music”.
Gerard used the word REMORSE right away.
Bonus points for Gerards voice. Very high and
characteristic.
Gerard was invited to join the contest in May
and participate. Paul thinks he is ready.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
M.A. Takes over to introduce the funny part of
the night with the improvisations.
Time for “volunteers”
Hugo is in charge for “the funniest part of the
session”. Practice improvisation.
30 seconds to think about what to say. 1-2 min
to improvise.
First volunteer is being asked to show.
Paul is inciting Miguel who is sitting next to
him. Miguel is willing to go but his legs say no. Body is not functioning
properly now (I know the feeling. it’s painful).
Paul is giving a push to Miguel… and he raises
his hand. Paul is persuasive.
Miguel has to explain what he likes about
dancing alone at home as a guilty pleasure.
Miguel starts explaining why he likes dancing at
home when he is alone and that his guilty pleasure is doing it while naked.
That was Miguel’s first time going up as a
volunteer. Congrats. The hard part is done.
Hugo now asks for another guy to go as a
volunteer. Catalina raises her hand and stands up.
Paul just choose the next guy for us (Peter).
Careful volunteers, Paul is dangerous.
Peter has to explain why he likes to wear makeup
and women’s bra.
We discover it’s his passion since he was a kid.
Now Catalina can go.
She has to explain why she likes spying on people.
*This part is censored*
----------------------------------------------
M.A. goes for the wrapping up
“if
it’s immoral and il·legal, embrace your guilty pleasure!”
(or it might be the way around…)
Sandra comes to the stage to close the session
and evaluate how the whole thing went.
She asks the table team to give the results of
the day regarding time, ah-coutings and grammar corrections.
Now “Jelena for president” comes again to give Sean his fist badge for his first speech.
Congratulations!
Isabel comes to the stage with Hugo to talk
about the event (contest) that will take place the 13th March. The more the
merrier! So everybody can join. talk to them for more information. They say the
event it’s a lot of fun.
Maria Luisa comes back with the hammer and this
is over.
...NEXT WEDNESDAY 9.
Blogger: Marc Maurey
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario