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!