Tag Archives: visual aids

Strip Away Your Fears

The first meeting of October was ‘cool’ just like the time of season itself. Before Maria and Jesus would come up to explain their respectful roles as grammarian and time keeper, Eric the Toastmaster of the day, did something a little bit different in how guests are welcomed. Instead of the conventional “Hello and where are you from” form of introduction, he instructed guests to just say their names. Later at the end of the program, he gave the guests a chance to speak again by providing feedback on the evenings meeting.

In the main part of the nights program, Ivan lead the way with his Icebreaker in which he stripped off of his shirt to reveal his cyclist jersey. This was of course part of his plan to illustrate his passion for cycling as he delivered his autobiography speech. He talked about his brief childhood in Colombia, moving to the States and subsequently to Madrid. Marina who was evaluating him praised him for not using any notes.

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Mabel on her third speech, delivered an educational speech on Visual, Audio, and Kinaesthetic (VAK) learning styles. She practiced what she preached as she used visual aids to capture audience attention. And also pitched her voice clear and loud enough to be heard from afar. Maintaining eye contact also added a personal touch with the audience.

Juliet’s fourth speech in her fourth month as a member was entitled “The Power Of Many”. One take home lesson from her speech was her advice on coming out more when faced with tougher situation in order to receive help. Jane was her evaluator and applauded her use of anecdotes to add flavour to the speech. To keep the momentum going, Eric commented on Juliet delivering her fifth speech next month to make it five speeches in five months.

The table topics was conducted by Ana. To help her carry it out were, Lewis, Javier, Villy, Raquel and Christian who delivered impromptu speeches about their various job roles such as a hotel bed warmer, and a life guard at a nude beach. The quick thinking and improvisation skills of the participants made it an eventful session.

Written by Christian.

Together As One

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

Joint Meeting with Excelencia

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”.

DavidThe 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.

JosephineThe 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

Thanks For the Feedback

20150520_205519A 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!

20150520_205803There 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.
20150520_210420In 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.

Written by Christian

Meeting Summary – 07/01/2015

The day after the three Wise Men visited Madrid to distribute presents among all Toastmasters, we had the first meeting of the year with the participation of 18 members and 3 guests, not bad considering the date. The reward that we got for attending was good pieces of learning about public speaking.

The agenda had for us two Thoughts of the Day, delivered by Julian and John, and two project speeches of the Competent Communication Manual: an Icebreaker by Rosa and the project #7 by Alberto, who had to present his research about a topic. Finally, the Table Topics Session had four participant speakers improvising answers around the topic of unexpected Christmas Presents. Let´s summarize what we could learn out from the participations.

Julian engaged the audience right from the start speaking with a topic almost everyone relates: the new year resolutions, this time with a twist, the negative aspects of having them. This unexpected perspective caught our attention and he enriched with humour his speech.

John did a review of the acclaimed TV Series Breaking Bad, no spoiler intended, which he had recently discovered. He used it to speak about how a loser transforms himself into a powerful person. John provided a perfect example of speech flow and voice projection.

The Icebreaker from Rosa had us getting to know many facettes about her life, from family and traditions to her professional life as medicine doctor. As soon as she eased into the first lines of the speech the passion and confidence when speaking about herself were evident. She managed therefore to master this important milestone for a public speaker.

Alberto spoke about the problem of longitude measurement at sea and the invention of the maritime chronometer. He started with a powerful visual hook, imitating a spyglass with a rolled pirate flag, in order to engage the audience into the more technical aspects that would come later. With clear examples and data he managed to have the audience remembering the key facts about his speech.

The table topics session had Jaime presenting the theme of Christmas Presents, then describing specific situations so that everyone in the audience had some context and seconds to find an answer. The participants who were then picked up and called to the stage, Wanda, Maria, Alex and Lucía, managed to develop entertaining answers within the time alloted of 1 to 2 minutes.

On the evaluation side, Eva offered a good point for Alberto to enhance his good research speech by suggesting to include personal anectodes the audience could relate with. Nacho stressed the good points of Rosa´s speech in order to encourage her to keep delivering on stage.

We had good feedback on the use of grammar by Jane and Jim, as general evaluator, recommended the timer to address each participant in the session by name when reporting the times.

Written by Jaime.