It floated in the air. In the first meeting after the Division Conference, there was a general atmosphere of excitement. Easy to tell, as human beings we still felt that adrenaline rush, consequence of enjoying with the best speakers in Spain. We all wanted to put into practice the great skills we admired in them. Can you imagine a better scenario?
Due to the number of attendants, we were obliged to use the big room. Happily, there were many members, and we were glad to welcome almost 10 guests, some of them curious after reading the “El Pais” article on the conference.
It was, in words of the General Evaluator, Carlos, an “unusually fantastic meeting”. It was conducted by José Alonso, the Toastmaster of the Day, who warned the guests with his usual ironic touch: “for those of you who are clapping, you will end up fed up with clapping”. He surprised us inquiring about the dance skills of the participants, since none of us were aware of this facet of him! This topic provided much fun, for instance, we discovered that Jim won one professional cha-cha-cha contest and that María loves to dance in her room.
The agenda contained one Thought of the Day by Mabel, one project speech (number #5) of the Competent Communication Manual by Anselmo and the first project speech of the Advaced Manual “Speaking to Inform” by Eric.
Our passionate storyteller Anselmo delighted us with a personal story about a chocolate cake that he prepared for the Golden Wedding of his parents… in only 5 minutes!! His evaluator, Teresa, challenged him to give a serious speech, because it is clear that he already masters the art of storytelling.
Eric’s speech, “Words speak, do you listen” dealt with the meaning of words. His speech pointed out that it is the time for ours to understand what words truly say. It is to be noted his particular spelling of the words “PEACE: Pacific Engagement Against Conflictive Encounters” and “STRESS: Simply Temporary Retrogressing Energy that is Severe System” evaluator, Jim, showed his humor just when entering the scenario: “Your speech reminded me when I was studying vocabulary lists” and praised his speech.
The Table Topics Session was carried out by our uprising newcomer David Aguiar. He challenged the three selected speakers (Alex, Carlos and Luciana) to decide their destinations in function of two variables: the amount of money and mean of transport, and concluded the role with a personal story that showed how traveling makes it easier to make up one’s mind. María, the evaluator, was impressed with the first time of David as a Table Topic Master, and provide all the speakers with specific advice.
To close the meeting, the president came up to the stage for a Presidential Announcement, that was starting to be called, by request of the audience: “Let the president speak!”. We were relieved to check out that Jaime was alive after running the complete Marathon and he gave special recognition to María and Anselmo, who, in a record time, had delivered more than 5 speech. He concluded with a sadly news: his farewell (seems that we are going to miss to claim “The President likes to Speak” encouraging the members to apply for the President and the other Committee Roles). Elections are near and you can be a canddate!!
Written by Pilar.
Thoughts of the day made us reflect, in different ways: Alex Hristov illustrated with a chain of examples how supporting something almost always has the potential of making somebody else uncomfortable; and Damián Alcolea had a simple, but heartfelt message for us about something we can all do more often: say thank you.