Prestigious Speakers found its champions of fun

Barcelona, SPAIN - 30/09/2009 – This year again Prestigious Speakers held its Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest on Tuesday, September 29th 2009.

Short, entertaining and free, a number of speakers tested their excellence in a contest to give the funniest five- to seven-minute speech or one- to two-minute impromptu speech.

The winners move on to the next level of competition: the Area H1 contest to be held in Mallorca, SPAIN on Saturday, October 17th 2009.

Prestigious Speakers club’s president Angela Dunbar was eager to see the performances: "You never know what the speeches will be about, it’s always a surprise, it’s exciting, and it’s challenging!"

And indeed the audience was stunned by the quality of the speeches and the funny situations described by the performers using vivid words and making good use of props to add up to the hilarious stories.

Of course, one could think that it’s very easy and that anyone could come up and do the same.
But these are professional speakers, a lot of time goes into preparation, practicing and perfecting. Our members are not just telling jokes; they are creating with the art of humour.

Humorous speech
Winner: Rose C.
Contestants: Xavier A.

Table Topics (improvisation)
Winner: Jason T.
Contestants: Josefin B., Jeff Singer, Dimitri Uralov

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Prestigious Speakers Barcelona, an all-English speaking club and BCN Toastmasters, its brother bi-lingual Spanish/English club are local chapter of Toastmasters International.

"Toastmasters International" is a non-profit organization which gives its members the opportunity to develop and improve their communication and leadership abilities through local club meetings, training seminars and speech contests.

Toastmasters International includes more than 220,000 men and women in more than 11,300 clubs spread across 90+ countries.

Experienced professionals and beginning speakers alike can benefit from our practical, face-to-face learning program. Whether you're speaking to the board of directors, your customers, your co-workers or your kids, Toastmasters can help you do it better.

At Toastmasters, members learn by speaking to groups and working with others in a supportive environment.
Each meeting gives everyone an opportunity to practice.
For more information, visit our website: www.prestigiousspeakers.com

Prestigious Speakers contest to find funniest speech

Barcelona, SPAIN - Listening to a bunch of speeches hardly sounds like fun, unless it's at our Humorous Speech and Table Topics Contest going on Tuesday September 29th 2009 at Prestigious Speakers.

Short, entertaining and free, a number of speakers test their excellence in a contest to give the funniest five- to seven-minute speech. The winner moves on to the next level of competition.

"This fall we have an amazing selection of speakers with the gift of humour." says Angela Dunbar, the club’s president. "You never know what the speeches will be about, it’s always a surprise, it’s exciting, and it’s challenging!"

But don't expect a stand-up comedy routine, she says. The speeches are different from a comedian's act in a couple of ways. First, they're structured with a beginning, middle and end - or introduction, body and conclusion. Second, the humour all relates back to a single topic.

"These are professional speakers, a lot of time goes into preparation, practicing and perfecting. Our members are not just telling jokes; they are creating with the art of humour." Dunbar says.

The contest is free and open to the public:
What: Humorous and Impromptu Speech Contest (Contestants face off with funny words.)
When: 19h45 Tuesday September 29th 2009
Where: Casa Orlandai (2nd floor) C/Jaume Piquet, 23 - 08017 Barcelona. FGC: Sarria
Cost: Free

Information: pr@prestigiousspeakers.com

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The Toastmasters speech contest has three purposes:

1. To provide an opportunity for proficient speakers and those Toastmasters who are interested in competitive speaking to gain experience.

2. To provide an interesting educational program for Toastmasters and the general public. This program can create a community awareness of the opportunities in the Toastmasters program.

3. To provide an opportunity to those Toastmasters who are not participating in the contest to learn by observing proficient speakers.

1st September 2009

And so the holidays rolled on and on until 1 September came, and along came our opening post-summer meeting. A hint of holiday inertia was in the air as pointed by our president, Angela, while opening the meeting. Our regular hang-out place - Casa Orlandai - was under construction and so we had to meet in the bar downstairs. And the atmosphere was quite something ,with cars magically honking at the right time and kids too making their presence felt outside. But it has be said most of the speakers (especially in prepared speeches) were well up-to the task, so cars and kids try harder the next time!!

Our agenda for the evening included 3 prepared speeches in addition to the regular dose of Table topics and evaluation. We had Dima as the host of the evening also called "Toastmaster of the Day". Dima is so diligent in his preparation as the host, he googled the background of everyone whom he had to present . His word of the day was intention and with just about the right intention he went about with his role. I (Govind) was the table topics master, and the broad theme that I set about in table topics was the situation when we encounter animals in various walks of life. So Rose had to deal with a Chim-pan-zee who mistakenly sat in her airline seat. Irene had to play golf in a golf-course occupied by cows. The guests were also not spared and Cris had the pleasant privilege of meeting a clean pig in her house. Finally, David had to deal with a donkey at his office desk which does indeed sound mundane.

Then we moved over to prepared speeches. Jason Thompson spoke about procrastination.He used an example - an interesting example indeed - of how he went about procrastinating while preparing his speech. But surely he did not procrastinate any longer to deliver a good speech. Next came the ever enthusiastic Tulia Lopes and she spoke about being proactive. The pro-activeness shown by her in our club especially in recent time is a solid proof that she was not just all words. In between the talk she started sounding a bit philosophical and one could have been mistaken to be sitting in a nice post-lunch book review of War and Peace.

Finally, came our past president - Xavier Anguera. Xavi started off by asking the audience whether we had a dream. Just as we were preparing to bear the bloody bore lecture on Freudian theories, luckily the ever merciful Xavi spared us all. He would later tell us about a smart charity scheme (http://www.kiva.org) which enables people from almost all walks of life to donate while at the same time providing monetary help to the needy. At times Xavi did indeed sound like Mother Teresa, and from the looks of it she is going to face an uphill task. So buckle up (in the heavens) Mother Teresa , the game is on.

And then came the evaluations. Brenda evaluated Jason and stretched on the subtle points to be taken care of while speaking in a bar with nice ambience (as we had experienced). She also noted that all the speakers had brought printed copy of their ppt slides - something as a speaker we are expected to do. Kai evaluated Tulia and told us all about the speaking qualities of Tulia and also gave her some helpful tips. Finally, Angela evaluated Xavi and told him what we all knew - Xavi is a damn good speaker. Further, she pointed out that as the most decorated member of our club, the bar is very high and he could further improve.

Alvaro was the time keeper and from what i heard all of us did okay. Irene was the Ah-counter keeper, and boy she tracked all the ah's uttered by everyone. It just made me wonder if she also kept track of the ah's and hmm's spoken by anyone who happened to be within a mile radius. Christian was the general evaluator and he was all praise for Dima and the show in general.

That wraps up my report as well. The next meeting is on September 15, see you all then.