Tag Archives: public speaking

Teamwork

Toastmasters is a Communication and Leadership Club, but also the best Teamwork Club, where their members deliver fascinating speeches to their targeted audience. Raquel, our Toastmaster of the Day, put speakers together last Wednesday to accomplish these magic goals, that is, members and evaluators outperform communication and leadership by teamwork.

Javier, our first speaker, delighted us talking about “things are not just black or white”, where he could explain many things of his life. However, he preferred to talk us about his personal story when he was in a leadership training in the UK. He explained us that he was encouraged to choose among “doer, thinker, talker or guardian” to define himself. So, the Ice Breaker goals were successfully achieved, as Pilar assessed in an evaluation as great as the speech! The second speaker, Masha was also amazing and it was absolutely validated by Jim, her evaluator. The “Fight or Flight” speech was a demonstration of courage towards facing public speaking. Masha delighted us with the best methods to reach a great speech in public, but she concluded that the most important key is “practice, practice and practice”. Nacho was the third speaker with an Educational Session part of his High Performance Leadership manual, and was evaluated by Luciana. He talked us about the wonderful word of this blog, that is “Teamwork”. The topic of this speech was the Division Conference, the great meeting in Spain where the best speakers enchanted the audience by their abilities and great skills. He explained us that the aim of a successful teamwork: the motivation of the great team, and the participation of each member in all details of the conference, where everybody wants to aid to reach the proposed goals. The result of the teamwork was an amazing event.

Fig2_Table Topic Master and EvaluatorThe Table Topic Master, Jose, was an excellent moment of teamwork as well. Aware of the importance of working with others, Jose increased the participation component with a topic related to the Master of Ceremonies in a Conference, where the one of the main workshop leaders failed. The impromptu speakers had to to find why another different topic would still fit in the conference. We enjoyed a lot with speeches, such as, the Art of Walking, the Lady Gaga fame or the history of Harry Potter. We enjoyed a lot, where the evaluation of the motivated participants and Table Topic Master were fine, so I would like to say congratulations to all!!

Fig3_Toastmaster_Grammarian_Timekeeper_General EvaluatorTo summarize the meeting, our Toastmaster of the day, our Grammarian, our Timekeeper and our General Evaluator, demonstrate us that the prime advantage to working as a team is the ability to combine skills and talents. That is, we benefit from a wide array of skills and talents that no single member could possess alone. Thus, our outstanding meeting was an exemplary teamwork.

Written by David Martín.

Clapping And Dancing

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.

20150429_214627The 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.

20150429_214702Eric’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.

20150429_203001To 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.

 

Meeting Summary – 18/03/2015

Somehow in contrast with the required formality and ceremony of the Club´s International Speech and Evaluations Contest held in the previous meeting, the session on March 18th was a showcase for entertaining conduction of a meeting. In addition, high quality feedback for the participants rounded an enjoyable evening. Let´s review the highlights.

With at least half the audience composed of guests, Toastmaster of the Day Eric David nailed it with a cheerful and funny flow of his introductions of the participants. Humor always works with new audiences. Also important on his side was the clear explanation of the titles and merits of the speakers (Competent Communicators, etc…) to the guests so that they could get an glimpse on what the progress in Toastmasters means.

The members in supporting roles such as Timer (Catalina) and Grammarian (Rosa) displayed humour in their explanations as well, thus easily conveying the message on what their roles were about.

The two first speakers, Anselmo and Iñaki, delivered both their project #3 speeches, with the focus on getting to the point. Different use of body lenguage from their side to tell us about professional matters and personal journeys. Maria, on her side, reached project #5, so she will get soon her recognition for the achievement (as other members recently did, read about it here). She also mastered her facial expressions and body language to tell about personal growth.

All three speakers, and the audience as well, were fortunate to listen to high quality feedback from their evaluators. In this meeting they deserve special attention. Aline and Jane provided feedback to Anselmo and Iñaki, who had same objectives for their speeches. Great value came from the direct comparison between the two evaluations. Aline touched many aspects of Anselmo´s speech, i.e. from body language to structure so the audience got a thourough reiview of the speech, also addressing specific points of the speech that had been agreed beforehand with Anselmo, showing preparation. Jane, approached it differently. She focused on less points of Iñaki´s speech but could ellaborate more on each of them, i.e. providing detailed example on how to improve the informative value of the speech.

Alex Hristov came handy as replacement for a last-minute drop, acting as experienced evaluator for Maria. He made the introduction of the objectives of body language with a great example of it himself. The audience, again especially newcomers, would then have a visual reference to measure the upcoming speech against. He provided a comprehensive evaluation of Maria´s progress from her previous speeches regarding facial expression. His candid evaluation about a somewhat confusing use of props rounded his task.

For the improvisation part, the Table Topics, the entertainment gained the stage again with John Gonzalez as Table Topic Master, creating a musical and provoking atmosphere very engaging for the audience. All selected speakers (Jesús, Julian, Pilar, Mabel and Jaime) came up with answers to his questions. Afterwards Luci gave, in her role as Table Topic Evaluator, specific praise to all speakers and to the overall conduction of this section. However, the general evaluator (myself) did not let go unnoticed that no critic had been made about the absence of the presentation of the purpose and goals of Table Topics to the many guests present there.

To close the meeting, Eric went on with his last jokes, rounding a succesful and entertaining meeting that could prove useful in converting guests into club´s members. Great job Eric.

Nice post meeting atmosphere (Here after Club´s Contest)

Nice post meeting atmosphere (Here after Club´s Contest on March 4th)

Written by Jaime

Club Speech and Evaluation Contests

wpid-20150304_205405.jpg On March 4th we held our Club speech and evaluation contests. The meeting had been efficiently prepared by Raquel, who also acted as Contest Chairwoman. A number of club members volunteered in the supporting roles. The meeting run smoothly, in the same friendly atmosphere as always.

Both contests reflected the high level of the club members. At the speech contest, we enjoyed the pitches delivered by Eric, Jane and Teresa, who was brave enough to enter also the evaluation contest, this one together with Luciana and Jaime. Each of the speakers managed to enthrall the audience, each one with a very different topic and style. Not an easy job for the judges, who declared Eric the winner of the contest, followed by Jane. The variety of the chosen topics, the differences in the presentation techniques and the feelings that all speeches aroused on us reflect the high level of our club members.

Despite the careful organisation of the meeting, the planned test speaker for the evaluation contest did not show up and Nacho volunteered to replace him. His was a truly impromptu speech, focused on informing about the Division Conference to be held the last weekend in April, where Toastmasters from all clubs in Spain will meet in Madrid to compete in these same categories at national level. There will also be workshops to develop our leadership and public speaking skills, as well as networking activities.

Teresa, Luciana and Jaime showed their command of evaluations by giving very comprehensive, structured and productive syntheses of the test speech. They highlighted both the most remarkable aspects of the speech, and those few issues that could have been improved, indicating explicitly how that could have been done. Another tall order for the judges, who declared Jaime winner, with Luciana ranking in second place.

We all had great fun and learned a lot by listening to the contestants, both in the speech and in the evaluation contests. The next step for the winners (who are now part of the club’s Hall of Fame) will be the Area Contest on 11th April, where they will compete against the other Madrid clubs’ winners for a seat in the Division Contest.

Written by Alberto.

From China With Love

Luciana was our Toastmaster of the Day. She conducted the meeting very cheerfully and efficiently. She had asked the speakers what their favorite festival was, so since we have members from all around the globe there was input from Moldavia, Brazil, the U.S. , Holland, Philippines, China (not to mention downtown Valladolid).bennyIMG_20150218_212922
Anselmo was out first speaker, who executed Project 2 (Organize Your Speech) with a very piquant speech called “Desire, Sex and Love” that had our Toastmaster of the Day rolling around in stitches. He took us through the different “breathtaking emotions that explode within us”…
The next speaker to brave the podium was Lilian with a Project 7 speech (Research Your Topic). Her speech was entitled “Something about sharing the economy” which took us through crowdfunding, AirBnB, car sharing and the importance of trust.
Raquel, Anselmo’s evaluator commended him for a very brave speech but suggested he kept his energy going throughout the speech.
Jim, Lilian’s evaluator, thought it was a good speech but that Lilian should avoid looking at the wall and ceiling for inspiration and that there weren’t enough statistics. (Somehow he got on to the subject of the President of the US….I wonder why)
Eric doing Table Topics impressed us with a blue file with lots of pockets that contained words and a question. His three “victims” (Jaime, Bobby and Julian) had the “opportunity” of answering the question using five of the words.erikIMG_20150218_210049
Carlos, evaluating Eric, congratulated him on the original idea and preparation, but he felt the exercise had been rather complicated.
Maria, our Grammarian then started wrapping up the meeting. She berated us for not using the word of the day enough which was “nuance”.
Alex A. gave us our times, berating two of our speakers for running off at the yellow light when they still had one minute to go.
wpid-img-20150218-wa0006.jpgBobby our visiting DTM from China and General Evaluator, said how much he had liked both us and the meeting. He complemented Luciana on successfully bridging the gap between the speakers and the audience. He then came to the defense of Lilian, pointing out that in his opinion she had in fact done plenty of research which was visible on the graphs she handed out. This had enabled the audience to get the point even better but he felt the content of her visual aids had been overlooked by her evaluator. Luciana was delighted with the present he handed her for our club at the end of his evaluation and Bobby left the stage wishing us all a very happy Year of the Sheep.
Jaime, our President, reminded us of our Speech and Evaluation competition on 4th March and Raquel closed the meeting.