One year from now we will flourish!
Wednesday, 25th of March, 2015
Yet another great evening at Barcelona Toastmasters Club.
And how can the start of it be
more motivating than this: imagine your most powerful position and stand up and
transmit confidence!!! You, the reader, should take a small break and try it
too! And after that you should raise your hands and imagine that you won
something or your dream just came true. Feel free to also add a “Yeeey!” to it.
Did you feel more active and empowered?
Of course, because Catalina, our president, has this
wonderful ability to put everybody in the present moment and have them ready to
experience and participate in a great session. Her message of this evening was
that our body language is very important when delivering a message or a speech.
The
Toastmaster of the evening was Gustavo Loewe.
Did you ever feel stuck
somewhere, like a mouse that runs in circles in his wheel, without getting
anywhere? Others might join your sprint as well. But where do you want to be in
one year? How you are going to reach your destination? How can you jump from
the everlasting spinning wheel and move further? In case you haven’t guessed
yet, here lays the theme of the evening and almost every participant had to
share with us her or his one-year goals. But I am very confident that
everybody present took at least a small moment to reflect about this. You can
do it too. Feel free to include it in a comment below or just leave a comment, so we know
you’ve read this!
The
roles as grammarian, ah-counter and grammarian were wonderfully
explained by Claus, Enrique and Eduard. Claus, as a grammarian, inspired us to
use words that can create pictures in our speeches. Metaphorically speaking, (the phrase of the evening) put a picture
on a hock and catch everybody’s attention.
The
next part of the session was also a real delight with Marc Majoral, Rayane
Bachammar and Madalina Burghelea as speakers of the evening.
So,
what do you choose between writing and typing? Marc Majoral convinced us in less than 7 minutes that “handwriting has still a place in the modern world”.
It’s even better than typing because it improves your memory skills (by
summarizing and synthetizing information), is more effective in taking notes, doesn’t
contain distractors such as emails, games, chat, internet! And it is fun! In
case you ever feared that our “sons of our sons will need a specialist to
understand our handwriting”, fear not: the pen is an instrument of “past,
present and future”.
What
more you can wish from such a great evening than having Rayane Bachammar
talking about adventure, strong emotions and exciting experiences, all in just
one speech? And even telling you that you don’t need to go far in order to have
all of them in just one trip? For Rayane, “Air Couscous” is the way to go. She
made me think that I should try it too. Why? Because you never know when you
can reach your destination= adventure, you can have hell and paradise in the
same place, which for sure can offer some strong emotions. Moreover, you never
know who you are going to meet, thus exciting experiences. All aboard!
A bit
more serious topic, but highly needed and contemporary issue of our dear
Toastmasters and guests: evaluations. Who can be better to approach this topic
than Madalina Burghelea? She did it with style and structure and taught us to
start by writing down the goals of the speech, use 3 good points and 3
improving points with examples. Don’t forget the examples! Give tips on how to
improve and make your conclusion a great encouragement. Most important write it
as the speech unfolds. It will help you record the examples and have a better
evaluation. And now, apply it!
After
such a good presentation of a worthy evaluation who dares to evaluate the
speakers of today?!? Nobody else than Jordi Varela, Nacho Tellez and Emilia. Emilia has been our special guest of the evening, coming from
Prestigious Speakers. Thank you, Emilia. All three did the evaluations as real professionals. Plus, who thought that
evaluations can be motivational even for the rest of the audience, not only for
the speakers?
Furthermore
on the agenda: Table topics or impromptu speeches offered by Marina Alvarez
Azon.
Marina talked about the need to adapt to the audience in using our words,
expressing our attitudes. And she made a good point through this exercise: try
to not use a word and describe it, so that others will know what you are
talking about. Ohhh, and also the next 5 words that are most used to describe
it.
For example, describe “guitar” without the words “music, play, instrument,
piano, string”. Hard, isn’t it? Well, Camila told us about this “wooden device
that makes dancers dance”, I talked about some streets where you can do all
sort of activities (word “shopping”) and Juliana, from Australia, talked about
this country that has mountains and sun and seas and it’s surrounded by other countries (word “Italy”,
no “ pizza, boat, pasta, south, weather). Looking forward for Marina’s Icebreaker.
Our
general evaluator of the evening was our dear Jelena Vetockina. Great presence,
great good points, great tips for improvement. Also the reports from the technical
team were full of praise.
Thank you, Gustavo for this wonderful reflection. And for
the session to end with a festive feeling, our advanced speakers: Rayane
Bachammar and Madalina Burghelea received each a ribbon for their achievements.
Annd the
session has ended, but the evening just started! Thus, members and guests are
invited, welcomed and wanted for the after session drinks, where some informal
magic is taking place, mostly in the form of really interesting conversations. Isn’t
it, Nacho? :)
See you all next week!
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