Last day before holidays

Wednesday, July 27

The session last Wednesday started with 2 news from our President Sandra Almeida – a good one and a bad one. We agreed that we wanted to listen to the bad one first, which was that this was our last session before the holiday season. Oooohhhh… 
But the good news compensated the bad one because…. TV3 (the Barcelona local tv) was recording our session in order to raise awareness about public speaking. How exciting!!! 
We have a couple of photos with our President (Sandra):

and the Toastmaster of the day (Rayane):

Going ahead with our session, Sandra also showed us a video about the “limits” and that they only exist in our head. She encouraged us to be brave and forget about limits. We can do whatever we want!

Sandra then welcomed the guests and asked them to introduce themselves. We had guests from many different places: Poland, America, Pamplona,…

Rayane was the Toastmaster for the session and the theme selected by her was “Improvised speeches”, which meant that we were going to have to improvise during the whole session, not just during the table topics… No one was safe from participating this time… And that was the objective – to take us out of our comfort zone.

And Maria Luisa was the first “victim”. She was assigned to explain the agenda for the day to the group and she was successful. The second “victim” was Enrique, who had to tell us the joke of the day… Hopefully our American guest had sense of humor…

The Technical team was presented:

• Hugo was the timekeeper and he had to introduce the word “salsa” in the explanation of his role.

• Cristina was the ah-counter and she was giving a pair of scissors, which she had to use during the explanation of the role.

• It was the first time Raffaella was doing the role of Grammarian and she was also instructed to use a comparison with an Italian word (her native language) during the explanation of her role. Raffaella also gave the word of the day – IMAGINATION- which was used by many members during the session.

• And finally, myself, had to present the role of the blogger using the body language. I did my best…

Morgane Bideau presented her Ice Breaker, her first speech – “Don´t wait for your dream job, create it”. Morgane shared with us her experience at work. She started very excited with the idea of coming to live in Barcelona, in a job that she liked. But things changed a bit for various reasons. Morgane is a very emotional person and while talking to a friend of her about the situation, her friend said: “and what are you going to do, then?” This is not exactly what Morgane was expecting from him. She wanted her friend just to listen to her and support her. But that question remained with her and made her change her attitude and stop being a “drama queen”.

At that point she started thinking about the things she likes doing: connect with people, find out about their life, create ideas… and she missed being a journalist! So she started to apply these things to her work and she has now more positives than negatives. This is a great example to show that you can create the job of your dream. Morgane, thanks for sharing this great lesson with us and doing a great ice breaker.  Congratulations!

Marc Maurey presented his second speech of the Competent Communication Manual – “The biggest lie ever told”.

“Which is that drug/poison that we all consume every day but that we don´t even realize that we do it?” This is how Marc started his speech and attract all our attention. And what was this poison? MILK!

Marc did a very good informative speech about why he thinks that milk is not exactly the great product that we are being sold and that it is a product obtained by a cruel treatment to the cows. He also explained how milk makes a protein that is too acid for the human´s stomach and this has a negative impact in the calcium and phosphate in our bones, reducing them instead of increasing them, as we are being told.

Marc spoke about other choices available for milk and cheese, made with other products instead of milk. And finished his speech with a question: “Is all the cruelty necessary just to have some cheese?” We have to admit that the speech was thought provoking….

After the speeches, we went through the feedback provided by the evaluators. Prior to that, Judit explained that the evaluations are important because they help to improve our listening and critical thinking.

• Mariyana evaluated Morgane on her Ice Breaker, confirming that she had achieved all the objectives of the speech. She said that Morgane connected with the audience by talking about her challenges, that she had very good body language and the structure of the speech made it easy to follow.

• Jelena evaluated Mark, confirming as well that the objectives had been met, showing self-confidence, emotional connection and vocal projection.

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 Carlos Calvo, who clearly explained how to prepare an improvised speech and gave us a new tip - the PREP technique:

Point

Reason

Example

Point

The speakers in the Table topics were Sean, Emilie and Miguel. Sean talked about a special member from our club that “has done the nicest thing for him” since he arrived to Barcelona by inviting him to a beer and becoming great friends. Emilie explained to us that “the biggest lie that she once believed was true” was Santa Claus! I hope children don´t read this blog… And Miguel explained to us that “if he had unlimited time and money, he would go on holidays to” a Caribbean beach. He then thought about it again and… he confirmed that there is no need to go very far away and have lots of money to go to the best place on earth – his loving island Mallorca!

The General Evaluator was Marc Majoral, who was instructed by the Toastmaster to use the phrase “This meeting was beautiful!” during the evaluation. Marc liked the session so much that he used this phrase 2 times! Marc did a very good summary of the session.

And Sandra closed the session giving the recognition award to Morgane for her first speech. And also to Emilie and Miguel for organizing the Summer party:

And remember that we need to find a new venue for September – see you all in September!


Bea

La gestión del tiempo

Miércoles, 20 de julio de 2016

Manuel, como sargento de armas del día, fue el encargado de abrir la sesión puntualmente a las 19:45. Remarco “puntualmente” porque prácticamente todo lo que sucedió durante la jornada giró en torno al tiempo y su gestión.

Sandra, nuestra nueva Presidenta, después de dar la bienvenida a los miembros e invitados, decidió dar un pequeño salto atrás en el tiempo y explicar brevemente cómo fue la fiesta que Miguel y Emilie organizaron en la playa.

Dejándonos el buen sabor de boca propio de las fiestas en la playa y de sus mojitos, Sandra dio paso a Paul, nuestro anfitrión del día.

Paul se encargó de hacernos reflexionar sobre la gestión del tiempo, presentó a cada uno de los miembros y les invitó a describir el rol que iban a desempeñar.

Morgane fue la cronometradora del día; Carlos, el gramático y Montserrat, la contadora de muletillas.

En cuanto al tema del día acerca de la gestión del tiempo, como era de esperar y como buenos Toastmasters, todos los entrevistados tenían una cosa en común: eran todos muy bien organizados.

Haciendo alusión a su apellido materno en varias ocasiones, Juan inició el bloque de discursos preparados con su “El braille de la seducción”.

Mediante un correcto uso del espacio, movimiento, gestos, expresiones faciales, y contacto visual, el discurso de Juan tenía como objetivo hacer un uso del lenguaje corporal enfocándose tanto en el contenido del mensaje como en su continente.

Como os podéis imaginar, Juan defendió el tema con la seguridad y humor que lo caracterizan.
Juan fue atrevido como nunca, echó algunos piropos y regaló algún que otro guiño. Todo esto acompañado por un claro y acompasado lenguaje no verbal.

Ya que menciono el término “acompasado”, debo decir que Juan fue el único que utilizó la palabra del día propuesta por Carlos.

A continuación, con una elegante transición, Paul volvió a tomar las riendas para dar paso a la sonrisa por excelencia de Toastmasters: Laia.

Laia defendió “Como dijo Maslow”.
Su discurso, del manual de comunicación avanzada, tenía como objetivo convencer a la audiencia de trabajar para alcanzar la misión en cuestión. Debía ser persuasiva y vehemente.

Ayudándose de cierto apoyo visual, Laia nos explicó detenidamente la pirámide de las necesidades humanas de Abraham Maslow empezando por la definición de los cinco eslabones en los que se basa: la fisiología, la seguridad, la afiliación, el reconocimiento y, como cúspide, la auto-rrealización. Cada eslabón era más preciado pero también más difícil de alcanzar.

El discurso fue esperanzador, positivo y convincente. Tres cualidades claramente persuasivas.

Cerrando el bloque de discursos preparados, Paul dio paso a los evaluadores: Hugo y Rayane.

Ambos dieron su valioso feedback y sus críticas constructivas. Destaco el comentario de Rayane: “Gracias por tus discursos, Laia: siempre que los escucho, me vuelvo más inteligente”.


Volviendo al tema del día, antes de dar paso a Beatriz, Paul nos comentó que, desgraciadamente, ese miércoles disponíamos de menos tiempo que nunca.
Por consiguiente, Beatriz, la directora de los discursos improvisados del día, solo pudo llamar al estrado a dos personas en lugar de a seis.
    

Antes de  nada, permitidme que piropee la espectacular presentación del bloque de las presentaciones improvisadas que hizo Beatriz.
Marc fue el primero en estrenar la sección y tuvo que improvisar durante más de un minuto sobre la película de “Máquina del tiempo”.
Jelena, a su vez, tuvo que improvisar acerca de “Regreso al futuro” con el aliciente de no saber dónde íbamos a ir cuando viajáramos en el tiempo.

Siguiendo con los estrenos, Paul dio paso Sean y a su flamante posición de evaluador general.
En primer lugar, Sean pidió los informes a Mogane, Carlos y Montserrat de sus roles de cronometradora, gramático y contadora de muletillas respectivamente.

No hubo demasiadas cosas dignas de mención con respecto al tiempo: algunos hicieron  corto, otros acabaron justo a tiempo pero, en definitiva, no sonó en ningún momento el timbre del terror.

En cuanto a la gramática, Carlos hizo un par de puntualizaciones y remarcó algunas de las cosas que le habían gustado más. Juan se llevó la palma con sus giros de lenguaje y su gracia lingüística sureña.

Las muletillas no tuvieron prácticamente cabida en una jornada limitada por el tiempo.
Sean nos hizo ver también algunas de las cosas que nos pudieron pasar por alto durante la jornada y aportó información de utilidad para próximas sesiones.

Acto seguido, Sandra hizo entrega de premios. Los afortunados fueron Marc con su “Halfway to competent communicator”, Laia con “Advanced speech #3” y Juan también con “Halfway to competent communicator”.

Para acabar, Sandra dio paso a Manuel y él cerró la penúltima sesión antes de empezar las vacaciones de verano.

¡Nos vemos el miércoles que viene, Toastmasters!

Blogger: Joel Fornés

ROCAMBOLESCO

Miércoles 6 de Julio de 2016.

Nuestra excelsa señora presidenta Sandra abre la sesión  dando las gracias al nuevo comité y propone el reto de que miremos hacía el futuro y pensemos que retos seremos capaces de afrontar dentro de un año, compartiéndolo con las personas que tenemos a los lados para retomar esta conversación en dicho momento y ver si hemos cumplido nuestros objetivos.

También hace mención sobre la finalización de la colaboración de la UAB con nosotros, dejando de prestarnos aula para el mes de Septiembre. De manera que busquemos una nueva ubicación para nuestro club.
Después, como se hace habitualmente,  anima  a los invitados a presentarse y explicar sus razones para venir y como han acabado aquí.
 Cristina en su Rol de Toastmaster nos muestra la imagen de un cuadro de Sorolla y nos pide que digamos tres palabras que nos evoque. Se desenvuelve con soltura y desparpajo cual pez en el agua en el desempeño de esta nueva tarea para ella  y comienza la sesión presentándose todos los miembros del equipo técnico.

1st Speech of the day: Carlos – Generación X -  ( Ice Breaker Manual #1)
En un discurso muy pausado Carlos nos habla en su ice breaker a cerca de la generación X, que fueron los nacidos entre 1965 y 1984, y que se caracterizan básicamente por ser inconformistas y JASP (Jóvenes aunque sobradamente preparados).
Su discurso acabo con la siguiente conclusión: “ Lo importante en la vida no es superar a los demás, es superarnos a nosotros mismos. ”

2st Speech of the day: Emilie – El diario de una emprendedora -  ( CC2)
Con una entrada contundente, Emilie comienza su discurso saltando al vacío desde lo alto de una silla, metáfora de cómo abandonó su antiguo trabajo para emprender una nueva aventura laboral.
Dos fuerzas contrapuestas, ambivalentes e irreconciliables dominan el fondo de su mensaje: Lo seguro por lo inseguro, lo convencional por lo nuevo, lo políticamente correcto por la culpa. Dichas fuerzas tiran del hilo conductor de su mensaje, mientras encarna los personajes que representan estas ideas moviéndose consecutivamente a un lado y a otro del escenario.


Algunas frases destacables de su discurso fueron:
“ Good enough is the most perfect.
Tu idea no es perfecta para todo el mundo.
Cuando dejas el vínculo de lo que dicen los demás dejas de intentar hacerlo todo bien a la primera.
Si conoces un emprendedor sólo perdido dile: Inténtalo.
Nunca un hombre va tan lejos como cuando no sabe dónde va. “

3th Speech of the day: Sandra – Zona X: Huye mientras puedes. -  (The Entertaining Speaker (2007-06) #1 )
“ Te aprecio mucho pero ya no queda nada más que amistad y cariño . ¡ Y encima por whatshap ! ”.
Así comienza el discurso de Sandra Almeida Zona X donde nos explica las peripecias que viven aquellos que entran en la friend-zone en una relación.
Nos define friend-zone como un paso más allá de cuando no le gustas a alguien, y un claro síntoma es oír frases como estas o experimentar alguna de las siguientes situaciones:
1.    No me gustas.
2.    Eres maravillosa, pero …
3.    Es que no me imagino mi vida sin ti, tenemos que ser amigos.
4.    No sabes nada de viernes a Lunes de esa persona.
5.    Eres como un hermano mayor para mí.
6.    Te explica como ligó con otra persona, … aquí, en este momento, estas más allá del friend-zone y te aproximas al abismo de los pagafantas u osos de peluche.
SOLUCIONES:
1.    Asumirlos .
2.    Salir cagando leches .
3.    Salir con tus amigos feos para ligar más (llegados a este punto todo está permitido).
4.    Ríete de esta situación .
5.    Si un clavo saca a otro clavo, 50 aún más.
CONCLUSIÓN:
“ No pierdas el tiempo con alguien que te trata como una opción, si no como alguien que te trata como una prioridad ”.



4th  Speech of the day: Rayane – ¿ Sangre en tu móvil ? -  (Speaking to Inform (2006) #4)

Cobalto, Oro, Tantal y Coltan, esta es la receta de la infelicidad para la República Democrática del Congo según nos cuenta Rayane, pues siendo uno de los países más ricos del mundo en materias primas, resulta uno de los más pobres debido a la fuente de conflictos internos e intereses internacionales que esto les causa.
Rayane en un discurso muy emotivo con su habitual expresividad y energía nos regala una exposición muy emotiva informándonos de un tema siempre de actualidad y llamando nuestra sensibilidad sobre los problemas presentes en estos países.
Nos continua comentando que hay múltiples actores en esta representación y tan sólo un 10% de las minas son legales y controladas por el gobierno, mientras que otras son controladas por las diferentes guerrillas o países vecinos que tratan de hacerse con el control.

Entre las medidas tomadas por algunos países está la de EEUU que tiene leyes que obligan a comprobar la procedencia del Coltan, certificando que viene de minas legales.
Rayane nos anima a comprar de una forma responsable y hablar directamente con las empresas, haciendo presión preguntándoles a cerca de su política a cerca de la obtención de Coltan.
Posteriormente se paso a una ronda de preguntas donde Rayane respondió de forma ordenada a preguntas a cerca de la naturaleza del Coltan y como presionar a la empresas, su uso en los móviles etc.

EVALUACIONES:
María evalúa Generación X.
•    Le gusta el paralelismo.
•    Valora el uso de objetos.
•    Buen uso del tiempo.
•    Contactos visual.
•    Usar citas.
•    Básicamente le da la enhorabuena.

Marc evalúa discurso Emilie.
Considera que el inicio del discurso tiene mucha energía, mientras que el final le falta un cierre más contundente.
Le gusta que esté basado en una historia personal de superación y valora positivamente el movimiento escénico representando personajes distintos de un lado a otro.
Le recomienda que ponga ejemplos más cortos y claros sobre la ambivalencia que presenta en su discurso de corrientes positivas y negativas como también simplificar el discurso en aras de una mejor comprensión.
Por último lee conmina a no pedir perdón al público nunca en un discurso y le comenta que el movimiento por el escenario fue un poco aleatorio.

Paul evalúa a Sandra :
La primera recomendación va encaminada a cambiar el título del discurso de Zona X a Friend-Zone que queda más explicativo.
También le comenta que el lenguaje vulgar es valorado negativamente por el jurado en concursos.
Por el resto del discurso le da la enhorabuena.

Mariyana evalúa a Rayane :
Mariyana considera los objetivos principales del discurso conseguidos y el power point adecuado.
Rayane realizó todo su discurso con el teléfono móvil en la mano, cosa que le quitó movilidad por ejemplo para cambiar las diapositivas.
La información estaba bastante bien estructurada, desarrolladla y expuesta de una forma lógica.
Por otra parte el tema era demasiado complejo para poder resumirlo.
Y la transición debió de ser más fuerte y más clara la conclusión.

TABLE TOPICS.
La sesión de table topics Miguel nos explica que los nombres indicados en los papeles. El orador debe transformarse en los objetos correspondientes y tiene 30 segundos para preparar la disertación.
Enrique nos deleita con su habitual humor la sensación de ser un bolígrafo.
Montse se transformó en un acto de prestidigitación asombroso en tenedor delante de todos los espectadores, hablándonos de su familia de mini tenedores, etc.
Ella es la mayor de la familia y los retoños son los tenedores pequeñitos y de pescado. Finalmente nos invita a una cena.

EVALUACIÓN GENERAL :
La evaluación general corrió al cargo de Laia.
Le gusta la propuesta de Sandra de comentar de aquí un año que fuimos capaces de hacer como reto para el futuro,.
Le gusta la idea de Cristina de la imagen con la que decimos tres palabras con las que nos sentimos identificados, pero recalca que no hizo suficiente hincapié en la idea de la foto ni quedo bien explicada.
Dejar que la gente disfrute de los aplausos.
Nos anima a explicar nuestros roles en la siguiente sesión con una potente introducción, un cuerpo y un desenlace.
También apunta a los evaluadores que traten de hacer la evaluación para todos, no sólo para los evaluados.
Felicita a Marc por la tremenda evolución que ha realizado.

Para finalizar la sesión Sandra entrega a Carlos su ribbon de icebreaker.
Nos comunica también que nuestra colaboración con la UB acaba y por tanto debemos buscar entre todos centros alternativos teniendo en cuenta que ya somos asociación.
Nos habla de la próxima fiesta el Sábado 16 de Julio a las 18:30.

HOLIDAY, SPORT AND RELAX!

Last Wednesday July 13th, we had a short but very exciting session: holidays are almost here, we are happier than usual… and somebody is making tourism in a very different way: visiting a Toastmasters Club in another city.

In this session we had the chance to have with us 2 guests from the Toastmasters Club of Warsaw and one guest from the Toastmasters Club of New York.

Sandra, our dear President, warmly welcomed the guests, who were really happy to participate to our session in Barcelona Toastmasters Club and exchange new ideas with us.

Bea, who was the Toastmaster of the day, started the session explaining that during the weekend Murray won the Davis cup and Portugal won the European Championship. They all deserve now relaxing holidays, resting from all that effort.

Now we also start our holiday season, and many of us use this period of time to do more sport than what we normally do during the year. Bea, for example, loves taking relaxing walks on the beach every morning and do some stretching.

Some of us will do different sports during our holidays: it can be swimming, running, trekking or even "sofing" or "siesting"! They have great benefits :-) 

Whatever sport we choose for the summer, it’s important to live at our best during the holidays, relax and have fun, in order to come back in september with enthusiasm and new energy!!

This was the fantastic technical team of the session:

Maria Luisa - Sergeant at Arms

Gerard - Ah-Counter

Sean - Grammarian

Enrique - Timekeeper

Raffaella - Blogger

The 3 speeches of this session were very inspiring. Here’s a short summary of each speech: 

FIRST SPEECH

“Read your audience” – Marc

(5th speech of the Competent Communication Manual – Your Body Speaks)

Marc started his speech describing the situation of a public speaker, who was training for hours and hours his presentation, training every single movement in front of the mirror and learning by heart every single word, to prepare a perfect speech.

When the speaker is finally making his presentation on the stage, he suddenly can see that the audience is…. sleeping!!

The speaker had learned his speech by heart, but he didn’t connect with his audience, he didn’t adapt the speech.

“Some speakers say that their audience is apathetic” – explained Marc – “But they are focusing too much on themselves and not on their audience!”

Marc suggested to personalise our speech, by interacting and asking questions to the audience and listening to their reaction. It’s not something strange, we actually do it everyday in our conversations with our friends and family…

The last tip: “Read the body language of your audience, which is the most powerful language!” 

SECOND SPEECH

“NO” – Mariyana

(6th speech of the Competent Communication Manual – Vocal Variety)

“When you’re young, you want to do everything” – started to explain Mariyana – “but there’s only one word that you don’t want to hear at all, and this word is: NO”

We tend to see the word NO in a negative way, we normally prefer to say YES.

But the word NO can actually protect us in different situations:

1 – We can use the word NO to save our values and principles. For example, we can say NO if something that we’re asked to do doesn’t respect our values.

2 – We can use the word NO to protect ourselves from the exploitation of our kindness. Mariyana explained that a friend of her asked her credit card number to buy a flight, in order to travel in a specific date just for pleasure. She said NO, because her friend didn’t need any help, she was travelling for pleasure, not for an emergency, and she was trying to make an exploitation of Mariyana’s kindness. 

3 – We can use the word NO to better focus on our goals. For example, if we’re trying to find a job and we want to succeed in our goal, we’re not going to say YES every time that some friend is asking us to go out! The new job won’t fall from the sky, we have to make an effort to find it, and the word NO helps us to focus on our goals.

“When you say NO, think about the following!” – concluded Mariyana – “And ask yourself: if I say NO, am I closing the door to something, or am I opening the door to a bigger YES for tomorrow?”

The word NO is a treasure that protects ourselves today and opens the door to new opportunities for tomorrow.

THIRD SPEECH

“What would it take to change the world?” - Miguel, from New York

(9th speech of the Competent Communication Manual – Persuade with Power)

“What would it take to change the world? Love? Peace? Kindness?” – asked Miguel to the audience and continued: 
“It would take compassion to change the world! Compassion, which is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another human being who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”

During the speech Miguel gave us the examples of Mother Teresa and Helen Keller, who both were very compassionate and wanted to help people.

Mother Teresa asked to help people even when she was in the hospital, and Helen Keller was able to smile even if she was blind.

“How can we develop a mind frame of compassion?” – asked Miguel, inviting us to take responsibility of our life. We can’t always say: “It’s fault of this, or that”.

Life happens to us, life is a story, "...but you can tell the story in your way, in a compassionate way!” – emphasized Miguel. We can just start from the simple things. 

Miguel concludes his inspiring speech with a “call to action” that we all can practice: “Smile, like Mother Teresa!”

EVALUATION OF THE SPEECHES

1 - Rayane evaluated Marc’s speech “Read your audience”

Marc’s performance was great, with nice body language and great eye contact. Marc did a really nice speech!

Rayane suggested to improve the conclusion, by making a little summary of the speech and ending up with a strong conclusion. She also recommends to personalise the examples of the speech by involving people from the audience, like saying: “For example, if Jelena and Bea do this, the consequences will be: A, B, C…..”

2 - Sandra evaluates Mariyana’s speech “NO”

Sandra appreciated Mariyana’s strong opening with a question, which could catch our attention from the very first beginning, as well as her “call to action” during the speech.

The speech was well structured, with a strong opening, the body, were Mariyana explained 3 different concepts, supported with practical examples, and a nice conclusion.

Sandra suggested Mariyana to exaggerate a little bit more the vocal tone in the questions, making some pause and accompanying the speech with a more “dramatic” body language.

3 – Paul evaluates Miguel’s speech “What would it take to take the world?”

Paul appreciated Miguel’s speech, not only for the speech itself, but also because he is from New York and he decided to share the speech in Barcelona Toastmasters.

The speech was really appealing, and the great thing is that we all have the power to smile and change the world!

Paul suggested Miguel to adapt the examples to the audience: many of us didn’t know Helen Keller, who is better known in USA. We could have felt more involved with examples like the refugees of Syria or other examples that are closer to our context in Europe.

Paul also suggested to pay attention at the structure of the speech, which has to change if the speech is inspirational or persuasive.

GENERAL EVALUATION – by Jelena

The session started and ended on time, the guests were warmly welcomed and the organisation was great!

The performance was also great:

• The technical team gave a personal touch in the presentation of their roles
• The Toastmaster Bea chose a great topic
• Rayane and Sandra made their evaluations with energy, enthusiasm and sense of humour, giving practical examples and suggestions to the speakers.
• Jelena encouraged Paul to be softer and motivating in his evaluation. Miguel could have improved the structure of his speak, but it was overall it was an inspirining and very appealing speech.

Jelena also encouraged everybody to applaud a lot to the speakers: we have to give them all our positive support!

At the end of the session, our President Sandra reminded us to participate to the upcoming Toastmasters Summer Party, on Saturday July 16th on the beach (Marbella).

AFTER THE SESSION

After the session, we all went to the bar as usual, but this Wednesday we had the chance to share this moment together with our guests from Warsaw and New York Toastmaters Clubs.

It was really great, as you can see:

See you next Wednesday dear Toasties!

Take care!

Blogger: Raffaella

Changing Times

Procrastination and Change 29/06/2016

Change. Change is life, there is no life without change and evolution. And this session marked the last day of the Toastmaster’s year and the last day of the now former committee.

This was a very inspiring session, like always, and an emotive one, with the farewell of our beloved Jelena as president for the last year, and her team of leaders. I’m sure we are all going to miss the energy and positivity of Jelena. 

But change brings new things, new doors open, and a new team will take the reins of the club from the next week so it can keep being the best club in Barcelona!

The new team will have to set goals and work to improve the group…as we all do in our daily lives. And this was the topic of the day: 2016 goals and which ones are we still procrastinating on.

Special mention for the guests we had today, one of them from San Antonio, Texas, and another one from Sagrada Familia Toastmasters Club, among others.

The toastmaster of the session was Paul, our former VPR, our toughest VPR ever I’m sure and he did sure joked about it. Paul invited us to review our personal objectives for the year that are still hanging and work towards them for the rest of the year and take action.

After the presentations of the technical team we proceeded to the first speech. As a timekeeper we had Beatriz, Marc as a grammarian, Maria in the role of Ah-Counter and Gerard, one of the new brand members in his first job in toastmasters, as a blogger.

1^st Speech of the day: Juan – Resignation Letter (CC4)

Juanmi offered all of us an inspiring speech about courage, about fear, about guilt, about pursuing your passion…about all the black and whites that go with a big change in life. Juanmi just quitted his job and he shared with us all the feelings and thoughts he is experiencing these days. 

Change can be a scary thing, and negativity can come and get you in uncertain moments and can snowball and affect all areas in your life. But Juan reminded us that we have to stay positive, everything is for the best, and we should not feel guilty for taking action and ending a situation that wasn’t fulfilling anymore. And fail as many times as you can, failure gets you closer to the goal, failure is success.

Juan gifted all of us with an amazing sentence: “Fear does not prevent death, it prevents life”. And we cannot let fear determine what we are able to do or not

2^nd Speech: Cristina – The cost of primping (CC5)

This speech’s challenge was to use a lot your body to deliver your speech and express the message. Cristina unveiled herself with an amazing use of postures, movement, and characterization to share with us an embarrassing experience she had one day going to work.

That day started with Cristina waking up feeling the desire to dress up a little bit more than usual, to show off, to primp, to feel pretty in the end. And this turned to be a crazy ride to work when she found out that her panties started rolling down her knees! Furthermore, she had to walk up a stairs in the train station and in the entrance of her work! Then she realized that the long skirt she was wearing had a long cut in the rear part to ease the walking and that people behind could see all the mess………when suddenly a man screamed to her: “Señora que se le caen las bragas!!!” 

In the end it wasn’t that bad, she could get to work, fix herself and it only was a little embarrassing experience, one we all should laugh about if we find in one of them.

Cristina used a wide repertoire of body language to convey the message and it was one of the funniest speeches I’ve seen.

3^rd Speech: Jelena – At the manager office: why has the successful sales person performance faltered? (IC – 4)

Jelena divided this speech in three parts: 1^st she explained the coaching method, 2^nd she role played a situation with Sean where she had to coach using the methodology previously explained, 3^rd a brief open discussion about the roleplay. 

Coaching is about improving your life, it’s not only for when you’re sad, and coaching is about changing and learning and becoming a better person to improve all aspects of life.

In the role play Jelena was playing as a manager that wants to address a decrease in performance of the company’s best sales person. Jelena showed great connection with Sean and showed that she is a very good listener as well. She displayed a trustworthy attitude and helped Sean open up and share a bit of his personal problems. Skills of a great coach, that I’m sure she could be.

After these series of amazing and varied speeches we proceeded to the evaluations and then table topics.  

In the evaluations we reviewed and learned some important things like using the 3 second rule when giving a speech to contact with the audience, use 3 seconds to look in the eyes to one person, and then switch. We also learned that is important to have a strong final to wrap up the speech. MA gave us a great view on body language, everyone has a defensive gesture, and we may not even be conscious about it, and it’s a posture we use when we feel nervous. It’s good to be aware of this and try to fix it to grow as a speaker.

Then Morgane hosted the table topics with the participation of our American guest and Alba. Morgane proposed a little game where the participants had to improvise a speech about a future challenge for them using two different attitudes that were selected randomly.

This gave us great detail into how attitudes can change what happens to us. Because attitude makes all the difference, we can never change what happens to us but we can always choose how to respond with our attitude. And it’s a power we all should learn to use every day.

Wrapping up the session Paul welcomed on of our new members, Manuel, and Rayane evaluated the session as General Evaluator. She pointed out once again that the time management is a bit off and that we should work a little more into it and encouraged everyone to be more welcoming to the guests, as is one of the projects of the Competent Leader manual.

Lately it was time to say goodbye to the former committee and everyone congratulated and thanked Jelena for being a great and supportive president. She even got a couple of gifts! Lucky her! Jelena talked for the last time as president and she reminded that the most important thing is friendship. It’s the thing that keeps the club together, that gives the energy to have these amazing sessions and the motivation to keep going on because persons are the most important thing in the club.

Thank you very much Jelena, thank you very much to all the members in the committee. This is a change but I’m sure the new leaders of the club will continue the great job you’ve been doing and that the next president will be probably different, but not worse :D


 Blogger: Gerard Chamorro