Sesion Especial de Discursos Improvisados

“Otra sesión de TmT”, pensaban los asistentes el pasado miércoles. Cuando Paul abrió la sesión y presentó al equipo técnico nada hacía presagiar el cambio de rumbo de la jornada.

Gustavo comparó el control del tiempo con excederse comiendo…Hugo y Sofía también explicaron su rol de Gramático y Contadora de Muletillas. Y la rutina continuaba con el onomatopéyico chiste de Ramón.

Pero todo cambió cuando cinco compañeros uno detrás de otro, y perfectamente coordinados, nos fueron manifestando lo siguiente:

-       Jelena nos aseguró que “el cambio es la esencia de la vida”

-       Rayane dijo que “los cambios nos dan miedo”.

-       Nacho afirmó que “necesitamos ayuda para romper la rutina y salir de nuestra zona de confort”.

-       Iñaki reafirmó lo dicho por sus compañeros, y

-       Madalina deshizo el entuerto descubriendo que la sesión sería exclusivamente dedicada a Discursos Improvisados.

Jelena ofició de primera Maestra de Discursos Improvisados (en adelante MDI), y propuso una serie de situaciones insólitas:

-       Lidia tuvo que explicar a su pareja que hacía tanta gente detrás de ella…como su club de fans.

-       Guido demostró que se puede salir airoso cuando no encuentras la cartera para pagar una cena en tu primera cita.

-       Beatriz tuvo que consolar a su pareja que tenía la autoestima bajo mínimos por su poca altura.

-       Enrique tuvo que explicar con naturalidad a su cita que sus viajes permanentes al lavabo no escondían nada sospechoso.

Rayane puso en jaque como MDI a los desdichados voluntarios con situaciones insólitas en diferentes peticiones de mano:

-       Judith tuvo que pedir la mano a Paul delante de una audiencia televisiva.

-       Ambrós, ayudado por 300 camellos y un buen número de cabras, intentó convencer a la familia de su prometida que no se casaba por dinero.

-       Olga propuso a Ramón organizar su petición de mano en el marco de una película de terror.

-       Felipe se puso tieso comiendo ositos de gominola para pedir la mano a una compañera de trabajo.

Nacho nos ilustró como MDI que en las citas por internet no todo es lo que parece:

-       Joan tuvo que escabullirse de una mujer con una dentadura más propia de Bugs Bunny.

-       Laia intentó reconducir la parafilia de un sujeto que le succionaba los dedos de los pies en un cine.

-       Teresa comprobó que tenía un 98% de compatibilidad con su ex pareja… el problema era el 2% de incompatibilidad.

-       Alfonso experimentó con estupor que se puede ser rubia, con ojos azules y 90/60/90…y no ser una mujer…

Iñaki propuso como tercer MDI situaciones insólitas que ponen en riesgo las relaciones de pareja:

-       Cristina se las compuso como pudo para hacer pagar con la misma moneda conductas inadecuadas supuestas de su pareja.

-       Eduard se cerró cualquier posibilidad de tener relaciones con ninguna mujer de la sala cuando se defendió de las quejas de su pareja por trabajar demasiado. Sus argumentos relativos al “amor por dinero” convencieron a la audiencia… masculina.

-       Catalina mostró ser una Julieta de armas tomar cuando comprobó las páginas de internet que frecuentaba su Romeo.

-       Lukasz defendió con vehemencia que decirle a un hombre que le recuerdas a su padre (el de ella…) puede desencadenar una crisis irreconducible.

Madalina, cuarta MDI, propuso a los voluntarios unas situaciones que ponían jaque-mate sus relaciones de pareja.

-       La manera de reir sonora y ruidosa de la pareja de Paul le ocasionaba a éste una sonrosidad vergonzante.

-       Ramón le encontró el lado positivo a las horas que su mujer pasaba en el baño:  Propuso integrar baño y cocina en un espacio único…

-       Gustavo nos ilustró con una frase los problemas que ocasionaba vivir en un tercer piso sin ascensor: “estas escaleras no las podemos recorrer juntos”…

-       Merçé hizo escoger a su pareja entre ella o sus calcetines…nos quedamos sin saber que decidió él…

-       Dinar se mostró muy sorprendida y molesta porque su pareja se comió el bocadillo que dejó en la nevera.

Finalmente Madalina hizo un exhibición de frases para cortar con la pareja… encontré a faltar una…la que utilizaré para cerrar el blog de hoy….

¡¡¡¡ That`s all !!!!

Ramón Matabosch 29/11/2014

"Que te ha aportado Toastmasters" (Sesión del 19-Nov-2014)

Queridos toastmasters, en esta sesión tuvimos como tema "Que te ha aportado Toastmasters" haciéndonos reflexionar acerca de como nos ha enriquecido esta actividad.

La sesión fue dirigida por Beatriz F. como Toasmaster, en el equipo técnico Sofia fungio como Timekeeper, Luis Alberto como Grammarian, Joan Marc como Ah-counter y un servidor Hugo como Blogger.

Fue una sesión especial por el hecho de contar con dos integrantes que realizaban su primera presentación: Laia y Cristina, quienes los hicieron magníficamente a continuación les hablare de sus presentaciones.

Laia con el tema "¿Quien soy?", con una presentación fluida, clara y divertida nos relató sus principales actividades, Laia trabaja en el área de Marketing por lo cual a menudo participa en el desarrollo de nuevas campañas publicitarias y sus presentaciones, su deporte favorito es el fútbol, el cual practica desde hace varios años, ademas le encanta la repostería, sin duda excelentes cualidades.

Cristina nos presento "Descubriendo a Cristina" en una amena presentación nos hablo de su vida laboral, Cristina trabaja en el área de estadística, nos contó como en su primer día de trabajo su jefe en ese entonces le gastaba una broma con su nombre llamándola Carolina, diez años después entrevistándose con personal de la misma empresa, pero en otra ciudad, con diferentes personas le gastaban la misma broma a lo cual, a lo cual Cristina con su experiencia respondió con sentido del humor, cual era su verdadero nombre, pero no tenia ningún problema en que la llamaran Carolina. Sabe que las probabilidades de ganarse la lotería son muy bajas, pero aun así le gusta participar.

Para cerrar las presentaciones tuvimos una charla muy interesante titulada "Entreteniendo después de cenar" por Joan Fabregat, en ella nos relato importantes hechos en la vida del ingeniero, físico e inventor Nikola Tesla, de origen Austrohungaro, que posteriormente se convertiría en ciudadano de EUA. Este personaje tuvo una vida laboral muy activa aunque en el circulo científico de la epoca fue relegado por sus excentricidades, a su llegada a EUA trabajo para Thomas Alva Edison, posteriormente fundaría su propia empresa la Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing, sin embargo, fue destituido por diferencias de opiniones con sus inversionistas. Posteriormente laboraría en la Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's teniendo como mecenas a J. P. Morgan un importante hombre de negocios.

Un episodio interesante protagonizado por este personaje fue "La guerra de las corrientes", trata acerca de la decisión en EUA para adoptar el sistema de corriente directa o corriente alterna, hecho que influiría en el resto del mundo. Nikola Tesla apoyaba el uso de corriente alterna vs Thomas Alva Edison apoyando el uso de corriente directa.

Los evaluadores fueron: Judit Permanyer evaluando la presentación de Laia, nos comentó acerca de la sonrisa y la cercanía con el público que genera, Paul evaluando la presentación de Cristina resalto su manejo en los tonos de voz, Jelena resaltó la interacción que tuvo Joan con el publico.

Los Table Topics estuvieron a cargo de Teresa Rubinat, usando como tema el fútbol, planteo 3 objetivos para los publicistas del F.C. Barcelona

- Ondear una bandera del Barça en Tumbuktu
- Cena con el suegro, fan del Madrid, después de una derrota en el clásico
- Explicar a los Culés la contratación de Mouriño

La evaluación general fue realizada por Ana Villar.

Gracias por compartir con nosotros, enhorabuena por estas primeras y exitosas presentaciones.

SOM-HI TM: Una esfereïdora però dolça sessió de SOM-HI (per Ariadna Ribés)

El passat Dimarts 4 de Novembre vam tenir la sort de formar part de la sessió de Som-hi Toastmasters, a la recentment tronada seu, l’arquitectònicament sorprenent escola IPSI.

La Judit P. va obrir la sessió mostrant-nos les decoracions típiques del mes d’Octubre, tant Anglosaxones com Catalanes.

La Doriana B., magníficament disfressada de Bruixa, va iniciar el que no deixaria de ser una sessió amanida amb vocabulari divertidament esgarrifós.

En primer lloc, en Jordi M. ens va deixar embadalits com criatures amb el seu discurs “Atrapant la Bellesa”, una història de conte amb una moralitat (“moraleja”) magnífica; no ens perdem l’autèntica bellesa intentant capturar-la, gaudim-ne! Discurs que la Isabel V. va avaluar amb molta serenitat i amor.

En segon lloc, la Julia P. ens va meravellar amb el seu impressionant “l’Alquimista Murri”, sobre el metge suís conegut com a Paracels (comprensiblement, doncs ens costaria molt recordar el seu nom complet tan bé com la Julia!! Ni més ni menys que Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim!!) i que ens va encisar als que no l’havíem sentit fins ara fer un discurs en català. I va ser l’Aleix qui va haver d’empescar-se-les per trobar algun punt de millora! 

I l’últim discurs que ens oferí la Teresa R., amb el poema “La Pubilleta”, de Frederic Soler Pitarra, que per sorpresa de tots ens va saber recitar sense haver de consultar gairebé mai les notes. I com el seu avaluador Joan F. va dir, ens va saber conduir pels alts i baixos emocionals de la història que el poema explicava, tot i el que suposa interpretar -i no simplement recitar- tot un poema!

En Cormac W., com a presentador dels discursos improvisats, va venir armat amb una ampolla de vi dolç Moscatell, amb la que va ajudar a encetar cadascun dels temes als participants, que amb el roig a les galtes van defensar les expressions; 

Ambrós A.; Me’n vaig al poble

Ariadna R.; Seny i rauxa

Eduard C; Estar més perdut que un mamut

Ambrós A. va donar pas als informes dels tècnics de la sessió (Marina C., comptadora de falques, Blanca O., Gramàtica, i Jordi V. Guardià del temps) per finalment avaluar la fluïdesa i diversió amb que havia discorregut la sessió.

Finalment vam poder compartir entre tots el Moscatell i pastissets de tardor, abans d’acomiadar-nos fins a la propera sessió.

EP!! No oblidéssiu que és aquest dimarts 18 de Novembre!! A les 20h a l’escola IPSI, al carrer Comte Borrell, 243 - 249, Metro Hospital Clínic!! Us hi esperem!!!  

Toastmaster session of November 12th

Today was my 5^th Toastmasters session and it was great! It is incredible how each Toastmaster session, although having a pre-establish structure, is always unique and full of surprises.

The topic selected by Isabel Valdivieso,  Toastmaster of the day, was Athletics. It was a great idea for a topic since all TM members have something in common with   athletes, in the sense that we  invest time and effort in becoming confident speakers. As the athlete Jesse Owens once said: “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”

Isabel had a great team in this session, with Hugo Perez controlling the time of the speeches, Enrique Sanjurjo counting all “ah” “eh” “iii”, and Sofia Lopez analyzing the grammar of the talks.

The first speaker of the night was Julia Ripoll who gave a talk entitled “Dreams that talk about me”. In her speech, Julia emphasized the idea that “dreams are what define us” and she described her own dreams in her Ice Breaker talk.  Julia dreams about happiness and changing the world! Dreams that she defines as “naive” but that actually are what the world needs right now! In order to achieve her goals Julia plans to study criminology, politics, and law. Once she finishes her studies she will apply for a job in the United Nations. Meanwhile she accomplishes all these dreams, she first wants to start helping local people in Barcelona like youth without a home.

Nacho Téllez (1^st evaluator) remarked Julia’s confidence in giving her first speech, the story-start of her speech, and the good use of voice changes she made in order to add meaning and interest to the message. He also suggested things to improve like controlling body movement during the speech, making the structure of the discourse different (from easy to difficult or chronological), and referring to the audience by their names.

Lukasz Zagroba was in charge of  the second speech of the night, entitled “Lessons learned”. Lukasz made us imagine that one day we go to work and our boss informs us that we have been fired. Lukasz went through this situation some time ago, and although he had a difficult time he also learned many life lessons like “change is good”, “minimize the risk”, “listen to feedback”, “you can’t not predict the future”, and “practice those activities you love”.

Magdalina Burghelea (2^nd evaluator) highlighted Lukasz capacity to make confident and relaxed speeches. Furthermore, she also remarked the originality of the topic and the great anecdote beginning of the speech. She suggested Lukazs to make more body postures changes during the talk (e.g. use poses to represent certain phrases of the speech like “up” and “down”) and to maintain the same passion in the voice throughout the speech.  

For the third speech of the night entitled “Swimming in the air!”, Beatriz Fernández Molina talked about the meaning of our dreams. In the first part of her speech, Beatriz reminded us the chaotic and illogical structure that a dream can have, e.g. dreaming about reading, your mom, Brad Pitt and being naked. But is it dreaming “subconscious waste” or does it have any function? Based on her bibliographic research, Beatriz talked about different author’s explanations about dreaming and how they might be connected to real life worries.

Ana Villa (3^rd evaluator) highlighted that Beatriz fulfilled all the objectives of her speech, specifically empathizing her capacity to stimulate all the senses (visual, auditory, olfactory, touch) through the speech and the way she engages the audience by making constant questions. As points to improve, she suggested Beatrice to reduce the use of power point slides and put the same passion and strength at the start and end of the speech.  

The last speech of the night was entitled “The road to Barcelona” and was given by Paul Conde. Paul grew up in Mexico and remembers that his first memory of Barcelona is watching the Olympics games with his family. Together with his mother, they imagined about travelling to different places in Europe. Paul’s profession led him to travel around the world and visit many of these places like Brazil, Madrid, Paris, and Barcelona. In his beautiful speech Paul talked about the difficulties of being far away from his family and the life lessons he learned from this brave process.

Rosa Gonzalez (4^th evaluator) highlighted Paul’s ability to empathize with the audience and generate mental images of the discourse. Furthermore, she congratulated Paul for being so brave in giving this very personal speech and also for establishing perfect connections of the events contained in the story.

We finished the session with some fun table topics, in charge of Jelena Vetockina, were volunteer speakers tried to convince the audience to practice “extreme ironing”, “wife carrying”, and “cheese rolling”.  

Sofía Seinfeld

English Session October 19th

So yes, let’s face It, It has been a very “unique” session.

Last Wednesday I had the chance to participate in my 5th Toastmasters session. My expectations were very high, but at some point I kind of knew what to expect. I know about the structure of the session, the timings, the roles, the content and rituals. But Toastmasters, as any other good and fun things in life, couldn’t surprise me more: all the sudden everything was turned upside down. Let me explain It: we had an unexpected guest from Hollywood (LA), lots of fun at the table topics and some chaos at some point, which resulted in a very fresh and dynamic session and also a speaker (Rose) that wasn’t evaluated since she was providing tips on how to evaluate others!

The evening started with Mariyana (our Toastmaster for the evening) introducing Marlene and her husband our guests from the US. They are in Barcelona for other matters but wanted to get a taste of how we do things around here.

Mariyana continued the session stressing the importance of the smile, which was the theme of the session. Also, interesting enough, the word of the day was Chuffed!

Mariyana introduced the Tech Roles and after that we went directly to our first speaker of the night: Rose Chong.

Rose Chong speech: Keynotes to become a good evaluator

• Rose is a very senior speaker; she looks very confident and secure. Rose makes eye contact and smiles
• Rose starts talking about her mentee, which gave her first speech last week, starting the speech with an "oh my god... why am I here, you are going to scrutiny myself..."
• The speaker points out that a good evaluator is one that evaluates to encourage the speaker, not to criticize for the sake of It.

• There are 3 pillars for a good evaluation
• Mindset
• Preparation
• Encourage.  Live demo

• Rose speaks about the importance of each role,  evaluator, audience, guest, speaker (most important)
• She empathize with the speaker, introducing some very funny remarks in her speach
• Preparation is the most important part for an evaluator. No last minutes are allowed. It’s very important to know the goal of your speaker, so you can evaluate upon those goals: what do you look in your speech?  Voice?  Body Lang?  Improve hand movement?.

 Skills desired for a good evaluator:

• A good evaluator can point out very specific themes. Provides the example of Florian Muek

• Rose recognizes that a bad evaluator make a big impact on the speaker… even discouraging the speaker to come back to a TM session.

• She recommends providing examples with every comment, so the speaker understands the content and the context.

Rose brings an Evaluation template. Areas to cover:

1. Picture the speech
2. Analyze the speech
3. Structure your Evaluation
4. Rate the body language
5. Summary

Lastly, Rose recommends providing encouraging feedback to the speaker for his/her good development.

Second speech: Henric Obegi, Graduation speech

• Henric starts heading the audience, asking for help and empathy: he will need to provide a graduation speech in few days and he needs to practice and the feedback.

• He makes an analogy based on claiming a mountain and getting on top by different ways; depending on the role, the character of each person, priorities, values and experience. Examples of R&D people (creative) vs finance folks or sales and marketing groups. Each group takes a different path and experiences the climbing in a different way.

• He makes a good hearted speech about what has been accomplished.

• Also, he brings some poetical expressions along but always very confident and natural
• The final message turns into looking at tomorrow, but living the today fully (proposing a good party)

Third speech: Thomas Ron Hold, Entrepreneurial

Thomas has a very positive attitude; he shares a natural smile that generates a nice atmosphere in the room.

• He starts speaking fluently about the subject of his speech.

• Early in the speech he shares a personal experience, which resulted in losing his former job. He makes jokes about It, being quite funny about the situation.

• He mentions that life is a roller coaster, with all the ups and downs, and everything is great but the way his bank statement looks like!
• He claims to be an entrepreneur, and seems to be proud of it

• He shares his story after his former job, being a consultant.  Explains the desperation of little activity on the very beginnings (no phone calls nor emails from customers)

• For Thomas, to create something new is what really drives him, not so much the income itself
• He explains that he gathers with other professionals, in a similar situation. They tell their stories, share their experiences, share challenges, meet people, help each other. They network and support each other. This generates a lot of satisfaction.
• Thomas looks very genuine and natural. I have the feeling that he is sharing his story with a group of friend.
• He recommends jumping into it. Get entrepreneurial, realize your dreams. Not be afraid of failing.
• He wrapped up saying that he might like to create a toastmasters club in an area where there is none.

Jelena, Evaluator of Henric

• Jelena remarks the opening and the engaging style of Henric.

• Rapidly she mentions 3 good things.
• Humor, which can be used more often.
• Confidence.
• Good content.

• As well as 3 things to improve
• Vocal variety (Jelena provides examples)
• Play more with pauses, provides examples... silence can be golden
• The take home message: provide more depth

Lidia, Evaluator of Thomas

• Lidia opens up highlighting the confidence and smiling  that Thomas showed
• Also she brings up the good body language and the good use of the ups and downs
• Lidia mentions that It was a good idea to use Thomas’ personal experience since it was inspirational and created connection with the audience
• Some aspects to improve: the way to come into the stage, be careful with the hands in the pocket
• Lidia wants more passion, more emotion in the speech
• As a final remark, she mentions that Thomas could do better at the opening and closure (call to action, more powerful)

Rose is back on stage

With Rose now back on stage, she now evaluates Jelena and Lidia as evaluators. Some key points she mentions:

• Jelena was encouraging towards Henric
• Rose provides examples of good Evaluator’s characteristics
• Finally Rose reminds the 3 steps for a good Evaluator: Mindset, preparation, encourage

Laia,  table topics.

• Laia explains with examples the importance of selling

• Participants need to sell a mysterious object. This object cannot be seen by participants, who can only touch the object they need to sell.
• The 3 speakers were very funny and good sellers. Audience laughed a lot.

MARLEN, General Evaluator

Marlene, the colorful lady from LA explains certain differences between her club and ours. She highly compliments the Evaluation templates facilitated by Rose, as well as her presentation. She explains that in her home club, they do table topics first, and they don't ask for volunteers, the person in charge just chooses the participants! Marlene recommends having the time keeping and Tech Roles always in front of the speaker… speaking of time keeping, at this point we are far from keeping the time set for the session, but Marlene keeps on providing examples of differences between the clubs. She constantly remarks that there is no better than the other… they are “just different”. Way beyond the time scheduled for the session, when we all thought that Marlene’s part was over… we were all mistaken! Mariyana points out to Marlene that she needs to give the word to the Tech Table since they need to evaluate the participants. After that, we all thought now It was over… everyone but Marlene!!! At this point she insists on having pictures with all of us and the brochures of her club back at home (the brochures were really important to her). In the middle of a kind of messy wrap up, Mariyana concludes the session for the day… in the middle of an intense photo shooting conducted by Mr. Marlene’s husband.

The evening comes to an end with some group pictures with Marlene (and her brochures), good wishes to her and of course, as the theme of the day required, lots of smiles around the room.