Last meeting I was a presenter, and this took a good part of my attention. I completely forgot to take scribbles of what was said. Here is what I remember after a good week has passed.
I arrived 30 minutes early and expected to be first – but our SAA Dima had the room almost ready to go, only one more table was missing. Wow! Well, then I concentrated on the computer and projector setup that I needed, and then turned my attention to the microphone. Sadly I found both wireless mics in their boxes still switched on – and hence with their batteries completely flat. :( My laptop bag holds several spare AAA batteries, but not a single one of the AA type (slightly larger) that was required. Too bad! :(
Guests and members arrived, and we started about 5 minutes past 8 after everyone had settled down. President Xavi welcomed the guests Diana, Christian, Tatjana, Elisabeth and (another) Xavi. We also heard that our club has already made it to the highest level of the world wide Distinguished Club Program (PDF link) -- with 9 goals reached over the last 12 months we are “President Distinguished” now. Well done and congratulations to everyone who contributed. Naming some individual awards for the first 6 goals, I think these were thanks to the CCs Marie and Veronika, ACS Edith, ACB Rose, CL Dave and my ALB (Kai). Everyone should be proud: the whole committee for the behind the scene works (goals 7 to 10) and every club member for their contribution in filling roles, giving feedback and bringing new guests. This was a team effort and is a team achievement. Give yourself a pat on the back ;)
Back to the normal meeting, TME Dima’s theme and word of the day was “Origin(s)”. He had carefully researched some background of every participant's home place, which he used for very effective transitions. Well done! Brenda was our Madam Table Topics Master and presented the situation where your bank account was credited with 10 million € due to a mistake. Angela, Marie and Rose gave their mini speeches on this topic, and it was a mix between giving back, giving to charity, run and hide etc. Very nice! Prepared speaker 1 Adela explained to us how playing games with friends and family can reveal their character. José Mª, speaker 2, presented a story called “The Goodfallas, the Nephew and 1400 bucks” which reminded me of a theatre play. Both speeches were under the assignment 5 “Your Body Speaks” of the first educational Toastmaster manual. Melinda presented her speech “Minimize your ecological footprint”, and her manual objective was to persuade with power (number 9). I was the last speaker in a 10-12 minute project from the advanced manual “Technical Presentations, titled “Appropriate uses of cloud computing”. During my presentation I was using a wireless mouse, and afterwards I took its batteries and put them in the wireless microphone unit, so that at least the evaluators could practice with the headset and loudspeakers on.
Like in any other meeting, there was a lot to learn from the team of speech evaluators. Xavi commented on Adela good use of hands movement and face expressions, and reminded that moving through the room is best done when it serves a purpose. He also suggested that small toys (such as cards or poker chips) would need to be shown explicitly to the audience, otherwise they might not see what you have in your hands or on the table. Edith evaluating Jose Mª was highlighting the great progress he had since his icebreaker, and reminded him that we try to keep the language clean even when reproducing a situation of complete surprise or utter disappointment. Carol Ann was giving credit for Melinda’s speech and her content, along with the suggestion to look for more power in the delivery. Marie then highlighted what she liked in my speech, along with the suggestion to make the presentation of technical topics more “human”. The evaluation part of the meeting was concluded with our Ah-Counter Tulia, Timekeeper Josefin (first role ever, congratulations) and General Evaluator Dave. We finished just before 22:00 and had to rush out.
During drinks and finger food afterwards I heard that next meeting (30th) could possibly start a little earlier so that we would have time to get dinner together at 21:30. At this moment I don’t know any more details than that – please keep an eye on your inboxes ;)
All current and incoming club officers – see you on Thursday 25th June in EAE for the officer training. Everyone else … 30th June. Yours, Kai (2008/2009 VP PR)
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
2nd June 2009
I felt good to be back, after missing 2 Prestigious nights. S@A Dima preparing the room nicely, including the loudspeakers and the projector. President Xavier introduced the 2 guests Claus and Irene - but Irene had already filled her membership form and will receive a set of Toastmaster manuals soon, so we simply welcomed her to our speaking community. Hurray! Xavi also pointed out what a great trip the District 59 Conference in Düsseldorf was. The level of the competitions (international speech & evaluation) was VERY high, and he is trying to get the recordings of the winners. The District (which is all continental Europe toastmaster clubs) also accepted Barcelona as the host for the Fall 2010 conference - which will be a lot of fun, and a HUGE benefit for everyone living here, being able to attend without travel and accommodation costs -- but it will also require some great teamwork to get everything prepared. The conference team Edith, Veronika, Christian etc. are waiting for you to participate, please. Last point from Xavi was about his visit to the Madrid club Standing Ovations, a relatively young club. He encourages everyone to check the toastmaster search form and visit other clubs whenever traveling to other cities.
Our Toastmaster of the Evening was Jose Maria, who introduced the word of the day "Even-Tempered". Our evaluation team was Edith as GE, Ernest as Timekeeper and Josefin as Ah-Counter. Tabletopics did not appear in our agenda, since we had previously scheduled 4 speeches, among them a 10 minute and a 20 minute project. Unfortunately Melinda could not be there, so we settled with 3 prepared speeches. First one was by David and called "Stopped at the border" - a very imaginative story of how at the end of a flight being stopped at customs can bring out the horror and guilt of your life. Second was Veronika with "The Rat Race ... Exit Right" which focused on work-life balance, corporate fatigue, and gave some great advice on how to better juggle the balls around. Third speaker Rose gave the 20 minute project on "How Toastmasters CHANGES Your Life", a very motivational speech directed at everyone who thought that attending toastmaster evenings is all it takes ;)
Before going into the coaching part of the meeting, Xavi stepped in and improvised a Tabletopics session, since we clearly had time for it. He called Tulia and myself (Kai) up for a speed dating session, and then tasked the next participants to draft an elevator pitch - a short sales talk about a specific company or product. If I remember correctly, JoAnn was promoting a pink mint soap and new member Irene told us why lollipops need to be red and heart shaped. Very nice.
What would our evening be without some great advice from our evaluators? Brenda praised for David for picking such a great topic to work on his CC speech # 6 on Vocal Variety, since he clearly fulfilled the requirements. She then suggest to "project" different characters even stronger, with a completely disguised voice, different pronunciation, body language and using props such as a hat. Another advice I remember was on using a little more pauses, pitch and tone variety in addition to the great variety on loudness that David already demonstrated in his speech.
Xavi was evaluating Veronika, and pointed out that pausing too long can also impact the flow a speech, and also that a speech title that an audience might associate with one specific topic (money) can easily send them off into the wrong direction. Apart from these advices, there was a lot to praise in Veronikas delivery, her use of props, her projected enthusiasm etc. Well done.
Florian evaluated Rose and highlighted how well she used quotes, along with some advice on less text within the slides and building up to a climax when presenting a list. He concluded agreeing with Rose - "We are all great speakers!"
Ernest & Josefin gave their reports, and I believe we did not do so badly on fillers and time keeping. Maybe the evaluators need to be more careful to not run over 3 minutes 30 seconds - which at the competition would be a disqualification. Green light means it's time to conclude & summarize, and you can finish if you want. Don't wait for red ;)
Our GE & Area Gov Edith gave us some tips on how we can improve the sessions. If we move away from the normal agenda with our tabletopics, then we should really announce this change at the beginning of the meeting. The Leadership manuals could to be more present at our evenings, since filling them out is easy for everyone that takes part actively - even a TableTopic participant can tick something off, did you know? Final suggestion: we should include 1 or 2 backup speakers into the Easy-Speak agenda directly - and I took an action item to investigate and implement this. Edith also pointed out that tonight was the first time for Jose Maria being the Toastmaster of the Evening, and that he did a good job. Congratulations.
Concluding the meeting, Xavi congratulated our two star girls of the evening for reaching a Toastmaster Award: Veronika being a Competent Communicator (10 speeches) and a Rose being an Advanced Communicator Bronze (20 speeches). Many of us went to the usual bar for the most important part of the night: mingling, chating & drinks; sadly I could not join. See you all in 2 weeks for more fun!
Our Toastmaster of the Evening was Jose Maria, who introduced the word of the day "Even-Tempered". Our evaluation team was Edith as GE, Ernest as Timekeeper and Josefin as Ah-Counter. Tabletopics did not appear in our agenda, since we had previously scheduled 4 speeches, among them a 10 minute and a 20 minute project. Unfortunately Melinda could not be there, so we settled with 3 prepared speeches. First one was by David and called "Stopped at the border" - a very imaginative story of how at the end of a flight being stopped at customs can bring out the horror and guilt of your life. Second was Veronika with "The Rat Race ... Exit Right" which focused on work-life balance, corporate fatigue, and gave some great advice on how to better juggle the balls around. Third speaker Rose gave the 20 minute project on "How Toastmasters CHANGES Your Life", a very motivational speech directed at everyone who thought that attending toastmaster evenings is all it takes ;)
Before going into the coaching part of the meeting, Xavi stepped in and improvised a Tabletopics session, since we clearly had time for it. He called Tulia and myself (Kai) up for a speed dating session, and then tasked the next participants to draft an elevator pitch - a short sales talk about a specific company or product. If I remember correctly, JoAnn was promoting a pink mint soap and new member Irene told us why lollipops need to be red and heart shaped. Very nice.
What would our evening be without some great advice from our evaluators? Brenda praised for David for picking such a great topic to work on his CC speech # 6 on Vocal Variety, since he clearly fulfilled the requirements. She then suggest to "project" different characters even stronger, with a completely disguised voice, different pronunciation, body language and using props such as a hat. Another advice I remember was on using a little more pauses, pitch and tone variety in addition to the great variety on loudness that David already demonstrated in his speech.
Xavi was evaluating Veronika, and pointed out that pausing too long can also impact the flow a speech, and also that a speech title that an audience might associate with one specific topic (money) can easily send them off into the wrong direction. Apart from these advices, there was a lot to praise in Veronikas delivery, her use of props, her projected enthusiasm etc. Well done.
Florian evaluated Rose and highlighted how well she used quotes, along with some advice on less text within the slides and building up to a climax when presenting a list. He concluded agreeing with Rose - "We are all great speakers!"
Ernest & Josefin gave their reports, and I believe we did not do so badly on fillers and time keeping. Maybe the evaluators need to be more careful to not run over 3 minutes 30 seconds - which at the competition would be a disqualification. Green light means it's time to conclude & summarize, and you can finish if you want. Don't wait for red ;)
Our GE & Area Gov Edith gave us some tips on how we can improve the sessions. If we move away from the normal agenda with our tabletopics, then we should really announce this change at the beginning of the meeting. The Leadership manuals could to be more present at our evenings, since filling them out is easy for everyone that takes part actively - even a TableTopic participant can tick something off, did you know? Final suggestion: we should include 1 or 2 backup speakers into the Easy-Speak agenda directly - and I took an action item to investigate and implement this. Edith also pointed out that tonight was the first time for Jose Maria being the Toastmaster of the Evening, and that he did a good job. Congratulations.
Concluding the meeting, Xavi congratulated our two star girls of the evening for reaching a Toastmaster Award: Veronika being a Competent Communicator (10 speeches) and a Rose being an Advanced Communicator Bronze (20 speeches). Many of us went to the usual bar for the most important part of the night: mingling, chating & drinks; sadly I could not join. See you all in 2 weeks for more fun!
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