Is This Not Diversity?

It’s interesting how Words of the Day can sometimes define a whole session: Diversity was such word and diversity we had indeed, both in guests and visiting Toastmasters from other clubs as well as in the speeches, evaluations and table topics presented during the evening. Never a dull session at TM Barcelona!

After our President Marion Chevalier greeted guests and members, José Bellocq skillfully assumed the role of Toastmaster and introduced his team for the session: Mariyana Tasheva as Timekeeper, Sandra Almeida as Ah-Counter, Oleksandr Raspopov as Grammarian, and myself as the one who’d take six –sorry, two- pages of notes in order to fulfill his role as Blogger.

It was time for the first Ice Breaker of the night: ‘From Who I Am From?’ was the question proposed by Regina Fullana, who framed the description of her parents in the Taoist concept of Yin and Yang – a nice way of expressing their complementarity. We learned that his brother is an avid traveler, and that she’d like to follow his steps in this regard. Having a dream is the first step towards getting there Regina, just like in Toastmasters!

‘I decided to get out of my comfort zone’. This was one of the first phrases in Joseph Beale’s Ice Breaker, titled ‘The Most Important Decision Of My Life’, in which we learned that he moved from Manchester to Barcelona seeking new challenges and the sense of personal growth. Well it appears to have worked, because he confessed he’s now in love with Barcelona – and with his girlfriend, whom he met here and with whom he’ll get married in September. Congratulations!

Now, as I was writing those lines above I asked myself, ‘Hey… are you sure you want to share all this positive, valuable information with everyone over the net? What if somehow revealing our ‘secret’ worsened the experience?’. This is the question Sandra Lensen from HP Toastmasters Barcelona raised through her speech ‘To Share Or Not To Share’, in which she made us note how businesses, places or events can quickly get crowded and their quality suffer should they become too popular.

The Tables Topics of the evening were no simple task; Rayane Bachammar thought out interesting ways to defend the case of diversity - in front of a UN commission, no less. Ambrós Abellana, Lucasz Zagroba and Blanca Ozcariz did a nice job convincing us to dance Sardana/Masai style, wear Italian suits with African tutus and even interpret our dreams through a Freudian/Indian/Australian methodology.

I’m sure you’re now convinced this really was a diverse session!

The General Evaluator Agnieszka Gut presented her comments in a very visually manner, intensively using the blackboard and adding another dimension to the information conveyed. With this, the meeting was adjourned and we all went to the bar for, yes, you guessed it - a diversity of well-earned beers…

Isaac Riera

(PS. Pictures to follow as soon as they become available, stay tuned)