The Toastmaster of the day role requires various skills such as organisation, leadership and quick thinking skills. Marina, who played this role exhibited all of these skills. Ola performed her first role as the grammarian and she appeared natural, Ana also did a professional job as the timekeeper of the evening.
Just before the speakers, David gave an interesting thought as to why men and women wear buttons on different sides their clothes.
In the first speech of the evening, Juliet did not fail to impress. She was confident and natural as ever. The gist of her speech was around inner beauty. Juliet spoke with ease and took charge of the stage as she spoke about looking beyond appearance. After using some anecdotes to add a personal touch, she ended her speech by ordering the audience to hug each other. On a cold evening like it was, a hug was very much needed indeed!
Second to the stage was Maria with a very thoroughly researched speech about the different parts of the brain and their functionalities. Her use of visual aid help the audience to not only understand but also visualise the part of the brain being talked about. If there is one take home lesson from Maria’s speech, it was her advice on meditation and also focusing on activities with full attention. Alberto her evaluator was pleased with the speech and suggested pauses during her next speech for the audience’s brain to better absorb the information.
Mabel chose to centre her fourth speech on focusing on yourself with the title; “Treat others the way you want to be treated”. She did something clever, instead of the old saying; “Treats others how you would like to be treated” Mabel preached about “Treat yourself how you would like to be treated”. She used effective body language and anecdotes to present her point.
On the next part of the meeting, Table Topic Master Jane, was keen enough to bring some books along for Manulo, John, Ana, Christian and Jonas to give an impromptu speech about why they should not be lent the books. It was amusing to witness the quick thinking skills of the participants. Table topics are always the amusement point of every Toastmaster’s meeting and this was no different.
Written By Christian
After a brief introduction to the guests by Alberto, who was the Toastmaster of the Day, the show was good to start. Marina led the way with his brief talk on Self-Confidence and Self-Investment.
For her Icebreaker, Mirat filled us in as to why she had a mixed set of jobs on her CV. Her speech ended on a high note as she quoted the words of Buddha “the path is the goal”. Her evaluator Jose commented her use of humour in the speech.
And, not only we discovered Anselmo’s favourite toy as a kid, but he also shared with us his favourite book; because, the meeting agenda contained a first short talk known as “Book of the day”. Anselmo related how “Our Ancestors” by Italo Calvino made a long-lasting impression on him, since the first time he read the book: “I thought what Don Quixote must have thought”. Prepared speeches are always the core part of every Toastmasters meeting, and on February, 4th we recorded them for the first time.
Music, music was in the title of Pilar’s speech “What music means to us”, but mainly in the content: she explained her feelings towards this artistic expression, scientific facts related to music, she played the guitar and she sang, even including the Word of the Day: Fringe. Our Grammarian José was shocked.
