Update from the 21st of April. With our President Xavi away on business travel, and VPE Melinda arriving a little late, it would fall officially on our lovely Marie to be the "Acting President" and open the meeting. However, I sneaked in and told Dima (Sergeant at Arms) to hand over the meeting intro to myself instead. There was a good reason for that: Marie had not so recently completed her first 10 speeches with Prestigious Speakers, and I had more recently received her Badge from TMi. So I used the first few minutes of the meeting to call her up on stage, congratulate her and present her with the CC award badge. Judging by the applause, I think everyone liked it.
Our Madam Toastmaster Brenda presented "Accomplish" as the word of the day, and Angela - jumping in as General Evaluator - did a great job presenting her role and her team: Dima as Timer and Rosy as Ah-Counter.
Next up were Tulia's creative Table Topics, where she challenged Cristian, Arthur, Marie and Rose - not for a 2 minute mini speech as usual, but for a dialog on a given controversial topic. The two guys argued between having 1 woman in your life and being a playboy, and that went rather well. For the 2 girls it got much more difficult: they had to start with certain letters that Tulia would show - and the whole floor was bursting in laughter about the sentences these two came up with. Hilarious.
On the prepared speeches, the first one was Edith's project from the "Facilitating Discussion" manual, where she is the Panel Moderator. Dave, Christian and myself formed her Panel and discussed certain aspects about hosting a district conference in Barcelona.
Veronika then presenter her CC speech number 9 - Persuade with Power - under the title "Now more than ever it is time to give...". It was a great topic for this project, and used a word play... the 2 things starting with C :)
During the coaching part, we heard Marie and Carol Ann evaluate the Veronika and Edith. One important aspect I remember was that any given powerpoint visual aid should stay exactly that: an aid. Slides that are so explicit with formulated sentences, that the speaker is not required if the audience can read, will make a good performance for the presenter very difficult. A good lesson we all took home that night.
The session ended with the remaining reports - Dima on time, Rosy on filler words, Angela brilliantly on the overall session, followed by some club business from Melinda. If I remember correctly, Josefine turned from guest to member, and the whole show was followed by almost EVERYONE staying for drinks and filling the upstairs area of this nearby bar completely. I think 2 years ago we had less people for the Christmas dinner than that. You got to love this social aspect of our Prestigious Speakers Club.
Yours, Kai
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
7th April 2009
A week after our last meeting, it was raining again. On top of that, football fans were retrieving the excitation of the Champions League. Not talking about the fact that we were in the middle of "Semana Santa".
However, we were more than twenty fellow toastmasters plus 4 guests attending this new fulfilling event.
As mentioned a returning guest, the previous meeting had a high level. This one had a more relax atmosphere but a very good level too.
For his first time as a "Toastmaster of the Day", Govind led the meeting as a very experienced ToastMASTER bringing humour and providing smooth transitions between the different parts of the meeting.
His "Word of the Day" was used several times during the meeting with great amusement: "Flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication" meaning Estimating something as worthless. Try it if you dare !
Lovely jobely Govind !!!
Brenda offered us an exquisite Table Topics session.
Bringing together, for the first topic, four persons stucked in a lift on the thirteenth floor: an asthmatic (Veronika), a claustrophobic (Angela), a cool-blooded one (Xavier) and a 8 months pregnant woman (Christian) ! Can you imagine !!??
Prestigious Speakers is a multicultural club. For the second part, Carol Ann, Melinda and Rose were called to express themselves on what special activities they have planned for the Easter period whatever their beliefs are.
Impromptu speeches are always a bit difficult as one is asked to think on its feet and deliver a structured story in relation with the topic given.
However, anyone could be faced with such challenge in everyday life, at work or anywhere else. It's therefore an advantage to be able to practice it in such an emulating environment. So, don't hesitate anymore sign up for the next meeting !
The session carried on with 3 brilliant speeches from Nizami with a CC speech #1 (The Ice Breaker) titled "Exploring the waters", Tulia with a CC speech #3 (Get to the Point) titled "The Talking Stick" and last but not least Gertrude with a CC speech #3 (Get to the Point) titled "Feng Shui".
For its first appearance in front of Prestigious Speakers, Nizami did a great job. He seemed quite confident and eager to share with us its background and various experiences that brought him to us. I definitely look forward for his next speech.
The session went crescendo on and on.
Tulia informed us about her "Talking Stick" that was used by American Indians to speak out loud their thoughts and make sure they were understood but only one at a time...the one holding the very stick !
Gertrude gave us her insight of "Feng Shui" with vibrant examples of her mother coming down to visit her and almost ordering her husband to remove that big olive tree in front of their front door because it was cutting good vibrations. She did phone up went back home to ensure the tree had been removed. What a lively speech too.
Three top notch evaluators were appointed to indicate what the speakers did well and to try to track down anything they could improve.
Difficult job indeed as it's easy to just enjoy and therefore forget to identify that little something that could have given even more impact on the audience. Rose, Carol Ann and Xavier did a good job by pointing out improvements that could be made that I haven't necessary noticed but I agreed with.
Florian, as the General Evaluator of the session, had four minutes to make a sum up of the meeting:
- mentioning he liked the banner setting...hanging a bit to the left, ;o)
- going through the notes taken by his team: Ah-Counter (Angela) and Time Keeper (Christian),
- then evaluated the evaluators...
I hope I gave you a fairly good description of what occurred over our last meeting. Of course, I didn't necessary recall all the great thing we experienced. Therefore, I invite you to come over and attend to the next meeting on April 21st for which I look forward to enjoying again great performances.
Christian.
However, we were more than twenty fellow toastmasters plus 4 guests attending this new fulfilling event.
As mentioned a returning guest, the previous meeting had a high level. This one had a more relax atmosphere but a very good level too.
For his first time as a "Toastmaster of the Day", Govind led the meeting as a very experienced ToastMASTER bringing humour and providing smooth transitions between the different parts of the meeting.
His "Word of the Day" was used several times during the meeting with great amusement: "Flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication" meaning Estimating something as worthless. Try it if you dare !
Lovely jobely Govind !!!
Brenda offered us an exquisite Table Topics session.
Bringing together, for the first topic, four persons stucked in a lift on the thirteenth floor: an asthmatic (Veronika), a claustrophobic (Angela), a cool-blooded one (Xavier) and a 8 months pregnant woman (Christian) ! Can you imagine !!??
Prestigious Speakers is a multicultural club. For the second part, Carol Ann, Melinda and Rose were called to express themselves on what special activities they have planned for the Easter period whatever their beliefs are.
Impromptu speeches are always a bit difficult as one is asked to think on its feet and deliver a structured story in relation with the topic given.
However, anyone could be faced with such challenge in everyday life, at work or anywhere else. It's therefore an advantage to be able to practice it in such an emulating environment. So, don't hesitate anymore sign up for the next meeting !
The session carried on with 3 brilliant speeches from Nizami with a CC speech #1 (The Ice Breaker) titled "Exploring the waters", Tulia with a CC speech #3 (Get to the Point) titled "The Talking Stick" and last but not least Gertrude with a CC speech #3 (Get to the Point) titled "Feng Shui".
For its first appearance in front of Prestigious Speakers, Nizami did a great job. He seemed quite confident and eager to share with us its background and various experiences that brought him to us. I definitely look forward for his next speech.
The session went crescendo on and on.
Tulia informed us about her "Talking Stick" that was used by American Indians to speak out loud their thoughts and make sure they were understood but only one at a time...the one holding the very stick !
Gertrude gave us her insight of "Feng Shui" with vibrant examples of her mother coming down to visit her and almost ordering her husband to remove that big olive tree in front of their front door because it was cutting good vibrations. She did phone up went back home to ensure the tree had been removed. What a lively speech too.
Three top notch evaluators were appointed to indicate what the speakers did well and to try to track down anything they could improve.
Difficult job indeed as it's easy to just enjoy and therefore forget to identify that little something that could have given even more impact on the audience. Rose, Carol Ann and Xavier did a good job by pointing out improvements that could be made that I haven't necessary noticed but I agreed with.
Florian, as the General Evaluator of the session, had four minutes to make a sum up of the meeting:
- mentioning he liked the banner setting...hanging a bit to the left, ;o)
- going through the notes taken by his team: Ah-Counter (Angela) and Time Keeper (Christian),
- then evaluated the evaluators...
I hope I gave you a fairly good description of what occurred over our last meeting. Of course, I didn't necessary recall all the great thing we experienced. Therefore, I invite you to come over and attend to the next meeting on April 21st for which I look forward to enjoying again great performances.
Christian.
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