October 9th, 2006

Dear Fellow Toastmasters,

First Congratulations to Florian for taking 1st place in the Area Humorous Speech Contest with his hilarious "Baby Attack" performance with a breast pump demonstration included! Our dual club member, Marie Gomes, representing Barcelona Toastmasters came in 2nd place, who actually had me in tears from laughter, sharing her experience with her Spanish colleagues in the workplace.

Peter Simons pulled a 2nd place right out of his pocket for the Table Topics Contest, lucky for him he had a string in his pocket that was converted into weather forecasting detector.

Jane Cronin, President of Mil Palmeras Toastmaster Club and only participant and attendee from Alicante took first place in Table Topics - and well deserved. Her response was so vivid and convincing, many of us believed it to be a true personal experience.

We were the most represented club at the contest in contestants and attendees, so thank you to all of those who were there and special thanks to those of you who helped out; Melinda, Brenda, Angela, Eduardo and Sioux.

Those of you who didn't attend missed a great morning. We also had two very useful and captivating educational trainings by Edith and Kim. Edith's speaking on "English across borders" really warmed us up for the humorous speeches as we saw how easily it is to be misunderstood (and how comical it is) when you don't consider your listeners level of the English language. Kim's "Voice" training session opened our ears (and hearts) to incredible sounds and tones where she demonstrated how to put them into practical use.

Best of luck to the 1st and 2nd place winners that will go onto to Madrid on October 21st to compete in the Division Speech Contest. Remember you can also attend even if you are not participating. Please let me know if you are interested and I can send you the information.

See you all at our next meeting on the 17th!

Cheers,
Belinda