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.
Bobby 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 
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.
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.