What do you do to improve the world? 28th February

Thursday, the first of March of 2018 it had been snowing in Barcelona, and despite the freezing temperatures, there was a packed room at Toastmasters Barcelona club; around 30 people between members and guests. Then the question arrived: "what do you do to improve the world?" It came from Marc Majoral, the Toastmaster of the evening. He said that "it is not needed big actions but just small actions like coming to a meeting on a cold day like today helping one another to become a better communicator. Just by doing that you are building a better world." This question was the theme of the evening, and thanks to it, we were able to discover new things about the members of this club. For instance, Raffaella Bertolli, the grammarian of the evening, went to Israel and Palestine with an NGO to help the population during the war or Adrien Frouin, the timekeeper, went to Tailandia through an NGO to teach English to children. Luca Magagni, one of the speakers, told us he helps beggars giving them spiritual comfort and money and Manolo López, one of the evaluators, said he likes helping the elderly to carry bags.

The first speaker was Luca Magagni who gave us a speech entitled "BBB(B): The (almost) 4 B's in my life" from the advance manual: "The Entertaining Speaker." He entertained us by relating his adventure from Berlin to Barcelona. His evaluator, Sean Palit, highlighted that it was a very touching and inspiring love story and the great use of the scenario that Luca made. Sean also gave him some tips to improve the speech. 

Paul Conde was the second speaker of the night with his speech entitled "Me...diocrity, myself and I". He also worked on an advanced manual: "Effective coaching". He persuaded us not to get out of our comfort zone, but to make it bigger by doing things that make us happy. His evaluator, Manolo López, said that Paul was an excellent speaker with good control of the body language, use of the stage and voice projection and gave him some suggestions to improve the speech.

On the second part of the meeting, Soledad Castellano presented the table topics which were related to the theme of the evening; how to build a better world. The table topics speakers had to pick up a piece of paper where there was written "a good action" and then to improvise a speech from one to two minutes. The actions written on the papers were; "blood donation", "spread some kindness", "volunteering", "to buy second-hand clothes" and "fostering an animal." Isabel asked us: "what is the most valuable thing, which is part of your body, that you can share with people?" And Zuzana encouraged us: "to be kind each other by saying nice words, inviting a coffee or asking how can I help you?...Those little things that really matter at the end of the day." The speakers, among them some guests, were excellent and called us to action. 

Later on, Sandra Almeida, the general evaluator, encouraged us to applause even more and with more enthusiasm at the end of the meeting. The energy of the room was increased and some "bravo and guapa" were said in the public. It was a way to remind us that with the applause we help the fellow Toastmaster who is on the stage at that moment and therefore a way to improve our world. Sandra highlighted the excellent choice that Soledad had made with the table topics cause it made it easy for the speakers. She evaluated the whole meeting giving useful tips to improve some roles of the session. She received a round of applause for her constructive evaluation.

"The ah-counter", Anne-Sophie, gave an accurate report of all the filler words like" ah, eh, em..." that were used on this meeting. The grammarian, Raffaela Bertolli, gave her report about the use of the word of the day "Ufology", the right use of the language, rhetorical devices and poetic sentences and quotes like "Happiness is making things that make us happy" or "How much does it cost to be kind?". The Timekeeper, Adrien Frouin, told us that we had been on time.

To conclude, Sean Palit, the president, introduced the new members; Alexa, David and Olga and Manolo Lopez announced that the international speech and evaluation contest would be on the 21st of Mach at Barcelona Toastmasters club. There will be a contest in English and another one in Spanish. Manolo encouraged all of us to participate in this contest to organise the greatest contest in Barcelona. And we will receive all the contestants with a warm and welcoming applause because we understood the power of small actions in this meeting.

See you all at the next meeting!

Blogger: Olga Escribano

Sesión de Barcelona Toastmasters – 18 de julio en ASET

Me alegra haber podido asistir a la última sesión de Barcelona Toastmasters en ASET antes de las vacaciones de verano 2011, ha sido muy interesante y divertida.

Les cuento un poco el desarrollo de la sesión: Al principio nuestra Acting President , Marion Chevalier dedica unas palabras de bienvenida y pide a nuestros invitados de lujo, Ana y Alberto, que se presenten, después da la palabra a la toastmaster de la noche, Tanja Bach.

Tanja nos recuerda las vacaciones. Ella es alemana y nos cuenta que cuando llegó a Barcelona, le parecía raro que las personas salieran de la ciudad a pasar las vacaciones de verano a otros sitios, ya que generalmente en su país, las personas se quedaban a disfrutar de su ciudad cuando hacía buen clima, algo que me parece muy bien y que yo haré este verano :-)

Después de su charla introductoria, Tanja presenta al equipo de la sesión: David Gonzalez (Time Keeper), Clara (Ah Counter) y Marion (Grammarian), quienes describen muy bien sus roles. Posteriormente pide un voluntario para contar un chiste y Ana (nuestra invitada), se lanza al ruedo y nos hizo reír con el chiste de “la foto y el policía” :)

Después de reírnos un rato, llega el turno de los discursos de la noche, Tanja presenta al primer participante, Javier Macías, en su tercer speech titulado “MRI Brief Therapy”.

Javier comienza su discurso con fuerza y nos ilustra con ejemplos sobre la terapia breve, en resumen (Javier, corrígeme si estoy mal) nos dice que hay veces que tratamos de solucionar los problemas con las mismas soluciones y no siempre lo logramos, que debemos intentar con otras, cambiar las soluciones, nuestros métodos: “Si algo no te funciona de una manera, cambia y haz algo diferente”.

El siguiente discurso a cargo de nuestro experimentado compañero Joan Fabregat, titulado “Extrañas actitudes…animales”, -por el que recibió otro reconocimiento (felicidades)-, nos cuenta la historia de un palomar que pertenecía a su hermano y sobre la vida sentimental de una paloma que pertenecía a un palomar y quería vivir en otro, muy divertido.

Después de los espectaculares discursos, nuestra toastmaster de la noche presenta a Marisol Cifuentes, quien fue la General Evaluator de la sesión.

Marisol presenta a los evaluadores de los discursos de la noche: Estefan (quien evaluó a Javier) y Cristina (quien evaluó a Joan) y una vez realizadas las evaluaciones, que por cierto me parecieron muy bien presentadas y detalladas, pasa la palabra a Tanja (la toastmaster).

Y llegamos a los Table Topics, Tanja presenta a Mont, la Table Topics Master de la noche, quien toma la palabra, da su introducción y pide un voluntario para el primer table topic.

El afortunado primer voluntario fue quien les escribe ahora, yo (Antonio San Juan), la verdad es que no me pude resistir y menos con los ánimos de mis compañeros :-) (gracias!), después nuestros invitados Ana y Alberto también se animaron a participar.

Ya casi al final de la sesión en ASET, el equipo técnico (ah counter, grammarian y time keeper) nos dan su feed back, casi todos estuvieron dentro del tiempo, hubo pocas muletillas y una que otra repetición de palabras.

Continúa Marisol (General Evaluator) y nos dice sus opiniones generales y recomendaciones sobre la sesión, entre otras cosas comentó que los evaluadores deben intentar hacer sus introducciones más cortas para que tengan tiempo suficiente de centrarse en los puntos a evaluar.

Finalmente Marion (Acting President) toma la palabra y pide a nuestros invitados que nos den su feed back y después pasa la palabra a Stefan (Sargent of Arms), quien cerró la sesión deseándonos:

“Felices vacaciones de verano”.

Por: Antonio San Juan