Our toastmaster of the day, John, started the session explaining the organisation objectives. His aim was to clarify expectations and inform our guests. Amongst them, we have a former member of a Canadian toastmaster club, an ex-member of Ericsson club, the president of Standing Ovation club, three visitors from Germany, a group of engineers from Airbus and of course some locals. All of them interested on knowing what Toastmaster is all about. Around 30 people filled Anthony’s place.

Eric, as Grammarian, proposed two expression as word of the day: “at the helm” and “only a matter of time”. Julian, the guy with the Italian name and the Australian passport as he was introduced, used both of them one minute later while explaining his Timekeeper role. That was quick!

Victor, who has just joined the club, delivered a Thought of the day speech around the usage of painting and architecture through civilizations. He used plenty of visual aids to demonstrated how art is a priceless mirror of the society at a given time.

Maria, apart from being the General evaluator, delivered a Thought of the day speech around Toastmaster motto “where leaders are made”. Is there anybody out there who still doubts that all great leaders are great communicators?

The two main speakers of the day were Ana and Pilar. Ana’s “Do It Yourself” speech inspired us to consider DIY as a source of self-satisfaction. The speech included tips to help us get started: use pinterest to discover projects and visit the DIY fair celebrated twice a year in Madrid. Pilar’s “Home is where the heart is” was a call to spend time discovering your local area. She explained us how her plans to relocate to Bristol have caused her to spend her summer holidays visiting Alicante’s wonders: Santa Pola lighthouse, Tabarca island, …

Jim and Raul were the speeches evaluators. Both of them gave precise improvement points using constructive feedback, which is Toastmasters trademark.

Finally, Christian, Juliet, Jack, Ana, Jim, Jane and John were the “victims” of Alberto, the table topic master. He made them participate in a “Secret Santa” event as part of a company party. What would be your acceptance speech after receiving a “How to be nice and make friends” manual?

I should also mention that we had a special group of guests. A family having an early dinner help everybody demonstrate how important is to project the voice to the whole room in order to be heard. Their participation on this regard was priceless.

Written by Javier.