29/07/15 – Last day before holidays

The session last Wednesday started with a great phrase from our President Jelena – “Don´t change who you are, become more of what you are”. Focus on what/who you are and develop even more.

Jelena informed us that it was the last session before holidays and welcomed the guests. And she also brought some flowers to our dear colleague Laia, who recently got married – Congratulations!!!:

Claus was the Toastmaster for the session and the theme selected by him was “Expansion and Expression” – just like the summer, that is expansive because it takes you to the beach, the mountain, the city… and it is expressive because it makes you feel, love, impatient,… So we had “summer” as a guest with us during the whole session, and the people performing different roles told us what they like to do with summer during these days.

Claus asked for someone to tell us the joke of the day and… this time it wasn´t Ramón! Unbelievable! It was Camilla and we can confirm that she can now compete with Ramón for the best joke of the month.

We then went on with the agenda for the session and the presentation of the Technical team – the word of the day was TAN/TANNED, which was only mentioned by Rayane during the whole session.

Maria Luisa Gomez presented her Ice Breaker, her first speech – “A Portuguese girl in Barcelona”. During the speech we learned a lot about Luisa, things like her secret last name - which she presented with lots of humor -  her studies: first Physics and then Language and Business Relations, places were she has been: China, Portugal, searching for a job, enrolling in a theater group, joining Toastmasters Club in Portugal… And all this finally took her to Barcelona and to meet the people in the Barcelona Toastmaster Club. Maria Luisa, thanks for sharing all this with us!

Paul Conde presented his first Entertaining Speaker speech – “Comfort Zone? No thanks…”. Paul started the speech with this phrase: “The bigger risk of all is the risk of a risk-less life”. And asked, how many of us are now in our comfort zone? And how many want to leave it? A great way to engage the audience. We also learned a lot about Paul with this speech as he walked us through the difficult choice he made moving from Mexico to Brazil, cancelling personal commitments and changing working plans. But he knew this was an opportunity that happens once in a life time. He has continued leaving the comfort zone ever since. Congratulations for your first Entertaining speech!

And the third speech of the day was performed by Madalina Burghelea. It was her 4^th speech “Nothing is for free”. She made us think about what we are doing with our personal information when she told us that her data in Facebook (after using Facebook for 3 years) is now worth more than €200. And warned us that “we are the product they are selling”. She convinced us to support her by providing different data and by letting us know that “privacy is an illusion when they give us free tools”. She ended up the speech by proposing a new model – Pay for privacy. Well done Madalina!

After the speeches, we went through the feedback provided by the evaluators:

-          Olga evaluated Luisa on her Ice Breaker, confirming that she had achieved all the objectives of the speech, using the sense of humor, asking a question, gesticulating and using visual aids.

-          Judit evaluated Paul, confirming as well that the objectives had been met, making us laugh with a very easy story to follow.

-          M.A. evaluated Madalina, providing a very detailed feedback about the information provided and how it was provided.

In all cases, the evaluators identified the positive points and also raised those things that can be improved and that always help us to continue growing.

We then started with the Table Topics, guided by Rayane, who started with the creation of a story where everybody participated by saying a new phrase linked to what the previous person had said. This type of exercises keeps our brain active.

The speakers in the Table topics were Enrique, Jelena and Georgiana. Enrique spoke in front of a public that had paid €500 to hear him talk about his expertise in “eye contact”. Jelena demonstrated that speaking in public is something you do with your heart. And Georgiana showed very well how to convey confidence with body language.

Georgiana also received a couple of prices for her Ice Breaker and her Third Speech:

The General Evaluator was Mariyana Tasheva, who made a very good summary of the session. And Jelena closed the session with a couple of reminders:

1-      Humorous and Table Topics Contest on Sept 23^rd

2-      Next session will take place on September 2^nd. See you all then!

Bea García Díaz