TEAMWORK: the path to success

Teamwork as a fundamental piece for success is what Marc Majoral, the Toastmaster for the night, used as a leitmotiv for the last Barcelona Toastmaster session, on Wednesday 8^th March.

And in fact, once again, our teamwork, as PRECISE as usual, led all of us towards an unforgettable, funny and surprising experience.

As a pillar for any Toasty, cooperative work provides any of us with many benefits:

·         We can solve problems more easily and get better ideas from other (no matter if theirs are better than ours!). In our clubs, there are hands for any task: everybody is good at something, even if it’s only at clapping hands.

·         Teamwork boosts motivation to improve as individuals and as a team. The many contests our club has participated in and even won are good examples.

·         The after-session meeting, at a near coffee bar, is perhaps one of the greatest advantages: our team members enjoy a unique opportunity to get to know one another even better learn and discover interesting facts about our mates.

·         Last but not least, it reinforces interdisciplinary activities: we all have our own style when preparing and delivering a speech. But if we LISTEN attentively enough to our mates, we will discover new and different ways of performing and we may be inspired to do differently, leaving our comfort zone.

“LISTENING”. Our President, Catalina Maldonado, reminded us the importance of listening, and not only hearing, to the most interesting things people around us can share. It is a great way to grow.

And it was just about being time to listen to the prepared speeches for the night. They were promising.

Jelena Vetockina delivered her 8^th speech of the Competent Manual:  “What matters more”.

What matters more for you? Have you ever thought about it?

For Jelena, love matters more. She has discovered that since her sister in law got pregnant. An echography shows the audience the evidence of a new life in their family. A brand new life that can teach you so many things: for instance, that the size of an embryo of 5 weeks is like a pearl, although it’s big enough to have already a beating hearth and a working brain. Or that at 24 weeks, it’s like a mango size and he/she can hear music and voices¸ although the brand new parents usually don’t know what to talk about with their baby.

The miracle of life made Jelena wonder about what it feels being parents and the answers she got made her think ever deeper. Having children brings so many wonderful things:

1-have fun together with your babies

2-a sense of fulfilment

3-a change for better in your life

Nevertheless, being parents also brings many fears:

1-an endless worrying and the loss of relax and carefreeness

2- a strong sense of responsibility. You are not alone any more

3- no more personal wants and needs. Your children always come first

The search for truth led Jelena towards the key to overcome all those fears. It’s as simple and as hard, at the same time, as LOVE. Love is the answer: love for life, for your family.

What matters most in life? Don’t get wrong: no good job, no travelling, no party, no friends… LOVE MATTERS MOST.

We were still flying on the wings of love, inspired by Jelena’s touching speech, when Teresa Rubinat shared with us that she has a dream. And it wasn’t the dream of finishing her 5^th speech of the Advanced Manual of Interpretative Reading, it definitely wasn’t!

It was nothing but Martin Luther King’s dream, shared with hundreds of thousands of people 52 years ago, on 28^th august 1963 in Washington, during his immortal speech in front of the memorial of Lincoln.

Teresa, you were right: all its content is still applicable and valuable today for the whole mankind.

I have a dream…Teresa made us have a dream, that same dream of 52 years ago. Her strong voice, full of passion and feelings, made us fly back to Washington and live that magical and unique moment. Proud, strong, sure of herself, Teresa made Martin Luther King come back to life, in front of us. She made us feel proud of what we have achieved as a human species.

Her body, her expressions, her hands were amazing tools to express and share with us what she certainly felt during her speech: humbleness and proudness, strength and fear, will and desire to make all of us feel free.

Thank you Teresa for helping us virtually to join our hands and sing: “Free at last. We are free at last”.

Full of love, passion and freedom, it must have been hard for Paul Conde, the first evaluator for the night, to grasp our souls back to earth!

Nevertheless, he is great at humour and with a huge smile started Jelena’s speech evaluation, highlighting a great structure, a fantastic use of visual aids and her humour and body language. Thankfully, Jelena’s speech was not intended to inspire, because imagine the big issue after the session: most of the girls might want to get pregnant!!!

It was then the turn for Michael Chackal: no easy issue evaluating Teresa in an advanced manual, Michael knew it. There were so many good aspects and so few improvement areas… The fact is that both Teresa’s interpretative reading and Michael’s gentle but professional evaluation made the whole audience wish to reread King’s speech again, at home, with plenty of time and renewed attention. Thank you both of you!

20:45 - time was flying and it came the funny, relaxing moment of our impromptu speeches.

Joan Marc García Corominas, as Table Topics Master, made us all thrill and wish we had stayed home when he announced that there would be NO VOLUNTEERS for the night…It was about time to stop putting people into trouble by asking them out of the blue to offer as a volunteer. That is cruel and unfair.

His choice? Easy: Joan Marc had already chosen the starring guests for this part of the session beforehand!!!

JULIA for instance had to talk to her husband in order to convince him in an emotional way to have 5 kids. To be truthful, we think she almost made it!!! Congrats!!!

MERCÈ on the other hand wanted a second husband for herself: a three-member marriage and had to convince her husband in a rational way. Mercè: I clearly understood the many advantages you listed!!!

CRISTINA, one of our guests had a hard task: how do you explain to your long lasting friends that you don’t want to meet any of them anymore, because they are not “useful” to you? Good job Cristina: we guess THEY won’t wish to see you again!!!

OLGA was so witty that she could invent a new way of playing chess: me-against-myself chess, with the player moving from one side to the other of the chess set and trying to be smarter than him / herself… Wow, hard task….

GUSTAVO became a generous general manager of a company and had to announce to his team a great piece of news: all the workers would have to do the cleaning in the company, showing they were a great team and saving money to increase the Steering Committee bonus. Gustavo, if you had had an apron and a feather duster at your disposal, we believe you would have convinced everybody!!!

21:20 - time is running out…what a pity L

Rayane Bachammar, as General Evaluator for the night, was nevertheless very good at making the whole audience smile once again: elegant, gentle and funny, she underlined the great teamwork that our club had done from minute 1: PRECISION (word for the night), HUMOUR, PROFESSIONALISM, GREAT PREPARATION AND BIG FUN…Toastmaster Barcelona certainly deserves being the oldest club in town.

And we also deserve all your support next Saturday, 11^th April for the Contest that is taking place at IPSI School in Barcelona.

The applause and the ribbon Teresa Rubinat got for the 5^th speech of an advanced manual is the best proof of our team spirit and what you can aspire to be with a little effort, a big compromise and great fun.

Thank you Toastmaster Barcelona!!

Doriana Bagnoli

Blogger for the night (by mistake! J)

Some photos: