May 16th 2007

A cozy little village close to Tarragona; the typical small village in the middle of nowhere surrounded by hordes of olive trees and almonds. Village people gossiping about boyfriends who left girlfriends, postponed weddings, village news in general. We are talking about Xavier's village. Yesterday he told us about it, performing one of his humorous speech projects. And yes, he made us laugh a lot. But this was not the only highlight of a session witnessed by German, Dutch and Belgium guests. In his 10th speech, and thus gaining his Competent Toastmaster award, Peter took us on a journey; a journey on a train running through our lives. He must have had thought a lot about all the metaphors he used to inspire us. They were great! He faced a wall of silence. But not that sort of uncomfortable silence. No, it was more a silence of expectation. In her unique way evaluator Sioux threw lots of laurels on Peter, not missing out though some constructive criticism; something Peter always requests. Frank performed another speech. Finally he was "here". He made up a story around his curriculum of presentation skills and courses, climaxing in his Toastmaster experience... "here". To round up the speech block me, myself and I were giving a training session on visionary leadership. Melinda did a great job in making the session flow in her role as Toastmaster of the day. Other credits go to our evaluators Liam, the funny Irish, and Edith, our ever active Area Governor. To include Melinda's Word of the day, the meeting was yet another confluence of presentation styles, diverse content, seriousness and laughter, ... and Table Topics of course. Maria had had the idea to let people talk about anything they wanted to; only that the successor had to follow up on the story painted by the predecessor. Funny. fm