15th Dec 2010

Quick update from our last meeting before Xmas ... you see all roles on Easy-Speak anyway: 4 Table Topics about getting to know people, or getting rid of them again - Thank you, Maria del Mont! This was followed by 3 Icebreakers and 1 speech project #5. Marc told us why he joined Toastmaster, and in between we got to know a little about his work. Ana told us about the 3 most important decisions in her life: a European rail trip, going to London and going the Camino de Santiago. That last one must have been fun, because she met an interesting guy there, who would follow with his own icebreaker right after her: Riccardo from Italy shared some of his own adventures with us, closing the circle back to Ana, and sharing the link to his blog. Peter presented us The 7 P's = "Proper Planing Prevents Piss Poor Performance", a very nice, entertaining yet informative spin on the 5 P's of marketing. Our speech evaluators were full of praise, as always. Many thanks to Joan, David, Djanira and Dale. Among the learnings & recommandations for improvement, we heard how important it is to know where your hands are - ideally outside of your pocket, and how walking or pacing from left to right can give the impression of nerviousness, as well some hints on eye contact and facial expressions to compliment the body language that we project with your hands, arms and the rest of the body. General Evaluator Sue pointed out that we should try to have the chart with the TM Educational Tracks and the current DCP status visible. From the other reports I really liked Marisol's list of special words we use, which I as a foreigner still struggling with Spanish at times did indeed appreciate.

David closed of his 6 month of President, congratulating our 4 speakers who earned themselves a ribbon each (photo above). The Year 2010 has been the most successful in the club's history, so we can all be proud of our achievements. David will now be Immediate Past President, responsible for the nominations in preparation of the next elections. January we will welcome M.A. as our new President, who hopefully recovers from his cold ahead of Xmas ... you've been missed, Sir, thank you for making the extra effort to come to the committee meeting before the normal session!

Felices Fiestas, everyone. Yours, Kai.

2010 Reverse session and Xmas party

On Wednesday Dec 1st our Club had the first of the two last sessions of this fantastic year 2010 for Barcelona Toastmasters. Almost 40 people attended the session so we had to book a larger room at EAE. Being it a completely reverse, upside-down session, the choice of the Word of the Day was totally appropriate: "Surreal" (thanks Sue!!).

The reverse session dynamics, carefully prepared in advance by our VPEs Cormac and Pilar, implied that we started the session by evaluating the session (M.A. the General evaluator using his crystal ball), then evaluating the Speeches, then actually doing the Speeches, next we did the Table Topics (thanks Liz and Judit for the name raffle), announcing the Table Topic theme (David had to make magic), finally Peter our SAA welcoming everyone to the session (please turn your mobiles offfff).

Both the evaluators (Djanira, Kai, Sue) and speakers (Pilar, María, Marina) had to guess and/or adapt their speeches and evaluations to what was coming next, making it all the more fun, and, surreal!

After that we all enjoyed a well-deserved Xmas dinner party at the Llar del Pa Torrat, our classic hangout after sessions. Adrian made some pics of the evening!

Have a great "pont",
Marina
VP PR, Barcelona Toastmasters

P.S. The one who must REALLY have thought we're surreal is the unnanounced-waltz-in-late guest whom we never identified, never got an e-mail from him requesting to come, and who of course didn't get the info that we were conducting a Reverse session. As we say in Spanish, debe haber flipado!!! jejeje