16th June 2009

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)