Change is the law of life

                As John F. Kennedy said, we cannot avoid change. But what it is more important is how you tackle the changes in your life. Do you embrace the change or you try to avoid it until it crosses the road in front of you?

            In our club when a chance of change arose -we are changing the location- the Toastmaster of the evening, Sandra Duarte, did not let this opportunity pass without making us reflect about how we deal with all the changes in our life. The message and the vibe of the night were clear and present throughout the whole session: change is good, change is progress!

                I will continue the changes by focusing on the content of the evening and not on the messages given by the attendees. In this way we can learn or refresh important leadership and communication skills.

            We are very grateful for being in an amazing place: Nauart. Here a sneak preview:

And now about our session of the night:

               Our technical team worked on their listening skills as grammarian (Camilla) and ah-counter (Beatriz) and time management skills when timer (Luisa). The rest of the participants improved their critical thinking by being evaluators (Rayane, Madalina and Jelena) and general evaluator (M.A.), toastmaster (Sandra), speaker (Julia, Olga and Oliver- prepared speeches; Catalina, Geo and Isabel for impromptu speeches) and table topics master (Laia). 

These being just some of the abilities gained by being an active participant, because each role can help you develop multiple abilities. For example, being a grammarian helps for your listening skills, critical thinking, giving feedback and time management.

              We had 3 speeches during the evening: Julia-project 4-how to say it and Olga and Oliver-project no 5- your body speaks. Thus, we learned about how to deliver a message clear, accurate and vivid with correct grammar, but also how to use the body language to express ourselves when speaking.  

With Julia we learned how important is to use visual aids, other more than a presentation, for example a yo-yo, domino, and candies. Also, she guided us through imagination in her own experience, thus connecting with the audience and she used repetition to support her message. 

Olga started with a question in order to relate to the audience, used a lot of metaphors and great humor. She had 3 points for the body of her speech and a very strong conclusion: Life your life as you run a marathon! 

Oliver, put us to raise our hands if we have the same situation as him, technique used in order to connect to the audience and draw their attention. He also had different roles that he played in his humorous speech that made it very entertaining. 

 

               The evaluations during the second part of the session were very instructive. One of the main techniques used is the sandwich technique: 2 or 3 good points followed by 2 or 3 points to improve. Also, it is important to remind the objectives of the projects and if they have been reached or not. 

 

               Laia presented the table topics and she started with giving us a very good structure for the speeches, because even if it is a 1 to 2 minutes speech it still should follow a stucture: into-anecdote, body-2 points, conclusion. 

 

               Least, but not last we had a great general evaluation, where we learned about how the grammar was used, how many extra sounds were in the speeches, our timing and  what was great plus things to be improved for future sessions. 

 

               Ribbons were offered and our president, Jelena shared with us her thoughts on change and how we are managing the challenges as a group. 

 

               All in all, a great session with very good vibes that put smiles on our faces and motivated us to keep improving our skills and also face the changes in our life with optimism. Change feels good!

By Georgiana