Category Archives: Thought Of The Day

Any wordmonger in the room?

On Wednesday 16^th we gathered at Anthony’s Place to see three of our members, Mabel, Ana and Alberto, demonstrate how the objectives of their respective speeches could be achieved.

The meeting began with the introduction of our guests. Jaime, a member of Excelencia Toastmasters club. Carla and Sam, both of them English teachers. Blanca, whose mother had recommended her to visit a Toastmaster meeting. And a girl, friend of our fellow member Masha, from Moldova.

Raquel, our Toastmaster of the Day, told us about the Toastmasters International new app. Before the meeting, she had contacted all the participants to ask them for the app they found most useful. That is how we learnt that the most useful app for Quyen, who was filling the role of grammarian, is Waze. She introduced wordmonger as the word of the day. I have to say, few of the participants found a challenge to use it correctly. Additionally, we learnt that Iván, our timekeeper of the day, most useful app is Fintonic.

Before the speeches started, Eric used the thought of the day section to tell us about the most dangerous word in the world: no. And how brain reacts to negative idea. Great start.

Mabel, whose favorite app is Runkeeper, delivered the speech “Superheroes”. After a moment of silence, she confessed she had superpowers. She used her movements, gestures and facial expressions to convince us that we could also be Superheroes. We just need to master the “Champion Position”. Those that were not able to make it, missed a great opportunity to be a more powerful individual.

Ana, who calls herself a Whatsapp addict, become a Competent Communicator after successfully completing project #10 of the manual. Her speech “Follow your hunches” was an inspiring tour of her life and why is important to act on our intuitions. Ana cleverly used well recognized songs to lead the audience through a self-discovery journey.

Alberto, who picked e-Park as his most useful app, completed the first project of the Storytelling manual by delivering the speech “The Pied Piper”. He started asking us to close our eyes and imagine that we were in bed. That peaceful moment was quickly left behind when he introduced one of the main characters in the story, rats. The plot was an intelligent reinterpretation of The Pied Piper of Hamelin with a tougher end.

Strangely enough, only one app was chosen by more than one person. Teresa and Luis, who were both evaluators, chose the app that informs about public transportation in Madrid. Both of them together with Carlos, Ana and Jim gave constructive feedback to all the meeting participants aiming to improve their skills. Ana, our VP of PR, confessed Raquel she doesn’t let Twitter rest.

Maria, as the table topic master, ask some “victims” to deliver an elevator speech to a capital investor while waiting in line at a coffee shop. The pre-set business ideas run from a matchmaking service for dogs to auction-based restaurants. I have to say all the participants, Jack, Navinya, Santi, Juliet and Rose, achieved their mission

I almost forgot to mention that Jim, our club founder, mentioned that Alberto’s speech reminded him of the book “A nation of sheep” by William J Lederer. I’m sure it is a worthwhile reading.

Written by Javier.

Making your voice heard

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.

Together As One

Our second consecutive meeting in Retiro Park saw Toastmaster Excelencia and Toastmaster Madrid combine as a joint group.

Mauro, the Toastmaster of the day who spoke Spanish, English and Italian added a trilingual touch to the meeting. First in welcoming guests, and then throughout the leading roles of the meeting, he alternated between the 3 languages. After the guests had introduced themselves, Ana and Adolfo explained their respective roles as the timekeeper and grammarian.

For Thought of the Day, Carlos treated us to a soothing music as he talked about music. Next was Ana who spoke about the book “Finding Your Element”.

The first speaker was David who talked about his life experience, breaking up with his girlfriend and going to Camino de Santiago on a trip that lasted 25 days. David used hand gestures, and maintained eye contact through his speech. His added humour left the audience begging for more.

Second to deliver his speech was Yago who was smooth, and appeared calm and collected as he talked about the “meaning of words”. Taking full advantage of the stage he moved around and spoke in a convincing voice. Pedro, his evaluator, commended him on his in-depth explanation.

At this time of recession, Maria thought it was a good idea to base her speech on job applications. In her speech, she suggested tips to succeed in a job interview. Maria used visual aids and lots of humour to present her information, needless to say that it was enjoyable.

The last prepared speaker, Josephine centred her speech on grooming. She shared the stage with a colleague who role-played various grooming routines as Josephine talked. This made her speech entertaining and eye-catching. From a public speaking point of view, her speech was humorous, loud and clear and engaging thanks to the role-playing.

Alex led the table topics with intriguing questions like personal relationships with partners. Pilar and Nacho were among the unsuspecting members of the audience to participate in the impromptu speeches but responded equally well to the questions they faced.

Written by Christian

Ethical Meeting

A good number of fellow Toastmasters and guests gathered together for our first meeting of the new Toastmasters year, which became the perfect refuge to escape from the heat. The news were even before the meeting started, with our new Sargent at Arms, Ana, kicking the meeting off and giving the lead to our Founder and Distinguished Toastmasters, Jim Dodson, who acted as Toastmaster of the Day, serving as a good example of how to exercise that role in an optimal way.

The speakers and evaluators roster provided a good combination of novelty and experience. Julian gave an artistic Thought of the Day, Maravillas talked about her professional twist and Christian shared with us his key learning experience in their Icebreakers, while Marina’s speech about Ethics made us reflect. Alex, Masha and Alex formed a dream team to evaluate the speeches in a way that everybody learnt something, like the “Virtual Image” concept that Aline shared with us or the importance of keeping the structure and the sentences simple in a speech.

The Table Topics session was driven by Pilar who, based on her work experience, and Marina’s speech, challenged the speakers with questions about Ethics in our daily life, which was positively valued by the audience, as the evaluator Ana pointed out. The auxiliary roles were performed really good by Rosa (timekeeper) and Jonas as Grammarian, who chose the word of the day “Pull Off” and paid extra attention to the usage of the English Grammar, apart from the control of the filler words.

Written by Nacho.

Thanks For the Feedback

A Toastmasters meeting is not complete without a Toastmaster of the Day, and this week was the turn of Alex to take the lead role. He braved the audience into addressing the crowd of the 33 people who showed up. Teresa, the General Evaluator, thought Alex showed leadership when he raised his voiced to get the audience attention and established control, just at the beginning of the meeting. Alex spoke with clarity and confidence as he gave an introduction to the 12 guests that were present.

Next on the agenda was the Thought Of The Day, which was conducted by Alberto, who informed us of a book entitled “Thanks for the Feedback” which served to encourage us to received feedback gracefully and not despise them. Which happen to be what Toastmasters is all about.

Just before the speeches, Raquel had some good news to deliver: Toastmasters International has sent a certificate, congratulating Toastmasters Madrid in our 15th anniversary. Great job, Toastmasters Madrid!

There are contradicting views about the Ice Breaker speech being either easy or difficult: there is no doubt that David made it look easy as he took to the stage and enlightened us with a story about his life. After a brief introduction about himself and his job role as an engineer, he spoke about his time travelling in Germany as an Erasmus student. David appeared confident with his nerves well kept under control as he delivered his Ice Breaker speech without notes, and even moving around frequently and using gestures to maintain user attention as noticed by his evaluator Jane.
Alberto on the other hand, performed his ninth project, Persuade With Power, titled “Flying under the Radar”, with emphasis on speaking to persuade. Alberto told an anecdote about his charitable works and challenged us to find ways from time to time to fly under the radar by pretending to be an aeroplane. Maria, his evaluator, congratulated him on using visual aids, and also using anecdotes to develop a strong connection with the audience. Maria then suggested him to incorporate a more emotional touch in his next speech.
In the second part of the meeting, the Table Topics Master, Mabel, randomly picked members to give an impromptu speech about a job that will exist in 2045. Alex seemed to love his future job as a “Nano GPS Rresearcher” to aid people keep track of their partners and socks. Marias motivation for becoming a “Memory Orientation Surgeon” in 2045 was to meet the demand for increased life expectancy and improve life of the elderly.
All in all it was a successful meeting, the Grammarian Ana, was pleased that her selected “Word of the day” Opprobrium was used numerous times. The Timekeeper, Juliet, was also delighted that she did not have cut short any speeches. All participants performed brilliantly. And most importantly constructive feedback were given from which participants would fine-tune their Public Speaking skills.