Prestigious' Xmas party: some graphical evidence

Courtesy of Angela.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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District conference pictures

All "official" photos can be seen here.

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Xmass party Tue 21st

Sign up before Saturday here: http://district59.eu/viewagenda.php?t=11393

Fellow Toastmasters,

Before you max out on Christmas shopping and other "less important"
parties I'm taking this opportunity to remind you that Prestigious
Speakers is once again organising a celebratory dinner after our
forthcoming meeting next Tuesday 21st December.

Our friends at La Cave Bistrot in Sarria have put their wonderful
bodega at our disposition to finish off the calendar year with a bang!
Pica-pica; carne a la piedra; and a French cheese selection all washed
down by delicious wine from their cellar for just €30 paid on arrival
www.lacave.es Reina Elisenda FCG, Sarriá, 21:45H

BE THERE OR BE ENVIOUS!

ALL Barcelona club members (HP, BCN TM and EADA) are invited and you
DON'T have to come to our meeting at Casa Orlandai beforehand if you
don't want to (we'll miss you but we'll have fun anyway!!).

Please consult Easyspeak if you haven't done so already. If you do
and your name isn't there please reply to this e-mail so that we can
confirm numbers. The more the merrier!

Merry Christmas!!!
Philhttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

Entertaining, exhilarating, educational - Carol's comments on Dec 7th meeting

"Entertaining", "exhilarating", "educational", were just a few of
the adjectives our 9 guests used to describe their experience as we
wrapped up our bi-monthly Toastmasters meeting only 6 minutes overtime
—in spite of technical difficulties’ slowing down our start up! Rose
Chong’s general evaluation of the quality of the meeting was also
generally very positive, although she exhorted us to improve our
table-topics speeches. We were reminded of the trainings she gave us
previously (which were excellent, by the way) about improvising
quickly a 3-point impromptu speech using any one of several
easy-to-use templates: e.g., first-second-third — good-not so
good-bad — good-better-best —past-present-future — with the points
sandwiched between an opening that’s as rousing as possible and a
conclusion that reminds us of where the journey began and summarizes
where we were taken.
Our 4 speakers' performances can best be seen in the light of their
evaluators’ effective, off-the-cuff appraisals:
In 3 minutes, Jeff Singer, with his skill of naturally poised
encouragement, executed an effective evaluation of Christian Cokson's
9th speech. Christian did "Persuade with Power" to vote in the
European parliament elections, using logic and emotion, effective
pauses and deep conviction.
"Phil's ability to treat the delicate subject of homophobia with both
dignity and humor was excellent", noted his evaluator, Tulia Lopes,
"while revealing half-way through his speech the link between being
bald and being gay". It was an excellent speech in every way,
touching and funny and inspiring all at once.
Florian Mueck, executing an impeccable 3-minute evaluation structure
of Dimitri Uralov's 6th speech, emphasized the beauty and the
effectiveness of telling a good story well, and just how well Dimitri
had told his story about one hell of a Roman holiday: ...¡la hostia
que ocurríó en Ostia! Congratulations, Dimitri, on taking this big
step forward in speech performance!
Arthur Waters performed his first evaluation by tackling Henrick
Sprengel 's "Working for Love." Henrick presented his project
enthusiastically, giving us a great deal of information, and can
improve by making his transitions clearer and simplifying his visual
aids. Fine-tuning our speaking abilities really begins with our
second speech, and we can all look forward to Henrick's rapid growth
as a Toastmaster.
A special shout-out goes to our Table-Topics host, Angela Dunbar,
whose purse became a bag of tricks that could give anyone the
Christmas Blues (the Toastmaster’s theme of the evening). There was
a book of Catalan Christmas Carols to be sung, a weird looking Santa
as a present for the boss, and a Father Christmas mask that was worse
than anything that’s ever shown up on Halloween! Not only Govind,
Irene Escolar, and Jose Cruset rose to the challenge, but even one of
our guests, Jordi, stepped up to round out our table of topics.
Tuesday, December 7th truly was one more "entertaining",
"exhilarating", and " educational" Toastmasters evening.

Carolhttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

The Christmas season in back again



 

One would think that holding a TM meeting (7^th December 2010) in the middle of the December “puente” would be a fiasco in terms of attendance.  However, our last Tuesday meeting was fully packed, not only with club members but also with guests (we had around 10)…aren’t we an attractive alternative to the Xmas shopping madness?

And Christmas was indeed an important part of the evening. Carol Ann, opened the meeting with  Holy Cole’s “Christmas Blues”,  followed by tips on how to avoid this seasonal depressive mood, the blues. She chose “blue” as the word of the day and it was widely used by speakers as Günter, Ah-counter, recorded .

Angela  went on stage as table topic master and challenged everyone with Christmas related objects : a Catalan Christmas carols book, a dried  pumpkin painted as a Santa Claus, a scary Santa Claus mask and a giant sleigh bell.  We all had a good laugh and got ready for what to say when we don’t get the right gift!

Speakers brought an assorted array of topics to the evening. Christian appealed to our sense of duty by underlining the importance of voting at the European elections. Philip gave us a lesson in rhetoric by transforming what initially seemed a humorous speech about “bolds” on a moving  one on the gay movement. Dima showed us his humorous side by sharing his “smash and grab” car crime experience in the Italian town of Ostia and Henrik made his second speech about the company he recently created with his brother and a friend.

Jeff, Tulia, Florian and Arthur presented  their evaluations  giving useful recommendationsto  for everyone (not only speakers!): paying attention to the structure, the use of humour, introducing  quotes  and the risk of PowerPoint as “message hinder” . Rose rounded up the evaluation part with  a Good/Bad/Evil analysis. An evil remark for next week: time, time, time, we need to be more efficient!

Time to say good bye, with Tulia’s closing words inspired by speakers speeches “Please vote because your vote counts no matter if you are hairy or bold, even when being in holidays in la Ostia because above all you can take the Xmas blues away if everything you do is the work of love ”. See you on the 21^st!

Irene http://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

Surpassing the own barriers



"Communication is always going beyond limits, surpassing the own barriers”... opened Marie, the “Toastmaster of the Day” at the meeting of the Tuesday 30^th November 2010.

From time to time a November Tuesday in Barcelona, is a “November Tuesday”: it was a grey, cold, wet, muggy… Not usual in Barcelona, but gives more the look of a cosmopolitan city and “place of order”, with the regional center right party winning Catalan Parliament elections two days before, and the Barça beating 5-0 its natural enemy the day before. Number 5 is a magic number in different scenarios: the right number to seat at a table, the time for a good speech, the minimum level to pass an exam, and the goals that from time to time the Barça gets!

Marie prepared such a nice agenda with color, pictures, animation, info about Table Topics, speech projects; the agenda with all details of the meeting can be found at the TM easySpeak site, and little can be added.

Looking at people progress is stimulating. As Edith, the District Toastmaster of the year, said, what makes happier to the experienced TM is to see how the new ones flow from the Ice Breaker through the CC manual, improving the stay, the performance and the message. This, the evolution, can be perceived only through the permanent and constant participation in the meetings; is like a film, a movie, where characters are improving at any scene. Slightly different for guest, who get a more static image, a picture of an instant. They like it, they have good feelings, and they get the intuition that will be able to deeply appreciate it when they are able to put together several pictures. It’s the members’ task to turn the guest into a fan. Adjectives for the “PS flattery words bank”: impressive, brilliant, inspiring, enriching, excellent, educational, fun, amazing, humorous… 

Next meeting is scheduled Tuesday 7^th December, a magic and working day within two bank holidays that makes a magic week within a magic month. For Spanish people, it means “Puente”, all closed. For international TM people we will see what it means, what part of the spirit wins, the northern professional and grey working December day or the sunny southern free winter day. People get used easily to good habits...

Till the next

Alvarohttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

SMILING BEHIND THE DOOR



 Being assistant of the SAA at a TM District conference in an experience. SAA assistants are the basic level of the bureaucracy, the foot soldiers. The mission is to follow instructions, to execute a duty. The mission is not questioning anything but performing orders. Chairs here, pens there, people in, people out, banners up, banners down… Hanging banners is a task that requires skill, because the material to hand was a tape with two sides adhesive. You have to separate the first protection film from the adhesive part. And it’s not easy! Nothing to do with Peter's plastic bags at the supermarket, much worse! I feel that the one who designed the plastic supermarket bags was the same who designed the two sides adhesive tape: do it in the most difficult way!

 It was the District meeting in Barcelona on the Friday 19 November and Saturday 20th November 2010, with the Table Topic contest and the Humorous speech contest, and an experience from all points of view. People and people from all over “continental” Europe gathering together to share their love for communication, leadership and good company! An experience seeing how a perfect organization can make it run, with a very “professional” team. Professional means that nobody is paid for the task, and it is understood that volunteers are competent in their own field, and therefore can take care of any duty; and of course, the SAA’s team as the core force.

The task of one of the SAA’s team (myself) is to keep the door closed while the humorous speeches are taken place, and only permitting people go in and out of the room among speeches. It means three things:

1, to fight with those that arrive late after going to the toilette between speeches and are not aware that toilette time is longer than the  in between contest speeches time

2, to share outside the room the time with those contestants that prefer to be outside and to see how contestants work the own pre-performance stress: breathing exercises, some relax, gym, facial expression, talking to all, big silence …

3, hearing people laughing inside the contest room with the speeches. The ones outside the room cannot laugh, because cannot understand what it is said, but can smile, they assume what happens inside is funny. And the outside contestants just suffering, because it always seems that people laugh much more with others’ jokes!

 “Smiling” was the word of the day!

 Till the next…

 Alvaro http://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

Heads up!!! XMASS Party coming soon!!!

Hello everyone,

Let's keep partying!
Please note down December 16th, Thursday!
This is the date for Prestigious Xmass Party!
More info to come.... keep watching!
Cheers,

Tuliahttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

The proverb - Report of the PS meeting on November 16

Fellow toastmasters, honoured guests,

Silence is gold. Remember that next time you are looking for a word. It is OK to pause and think. If you do it confidently, you will make a powerful impression as a person who weighs your words. Another powerful tool in a speech, to express a complex thought in few words is to use a proverb. "Proverbs" was the theme of the evening introduced by Melinda, the toastmaster of the evening. She set the tone using Arab proverbs.

Table topics master Phil followed up on the proverbial theme. We learned that Peter is not the man to build your wardrobe, that in Toastmasters, Dale has not found a single bad apple to spoil the whole bunch. And finally, Edith showed that her spirit is willing but her flesh is weak, as instead of slowing down, she couldn´t resist organizing the District Conference.

In vino veritas. Gunter held the first prepared speech. He started off with an empty bottle of wine to illustrate the need for clear communication. A great example of using story telling combined with theory to make a point.

We had the pleasure of listening to two heart-warming ice-breakers from two Mireias. Mieria Vives talked about the love that connects her life. To satisfy our curiosity, the final statement that she had planned was "I haven´t come here by coincidence, but because all I do is based on love" (excuse me if I don´t have it word by word). The Mireia Cuesta described herself through what she has learned from her friends. We welcome both ladies to have taken their first step toward excellent communication skills through Prestigious Speakers. And we are all here to improve. Rome wasn´t built on a day - and not Peter McKenzie either.

Peter was the final highlight of the evening, with his contest winning Speech "Murphy´s Queue". We hope the feedback from today will help on Saturday´s BIG competition. Good luck Peter!

And remember: A leopard cannot change his spots, be glad we are not leopards!
your reporter from the field
Josefin

ps! I offer a drink to the first person that identifies a proverb in the above text that was NOT mentioned during the meetinghttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

Death after life!



Meetings around the date of “All Saints’ date”, like the one of the 2^nd November 2010, make us think of our own life and the “great beyond”.

The Casa Orlandai meeting room has two entrances: one in the front and one in the back. As soon as the meeting starts, Phil, our SAA, looks the front door, and late attendants get in through the back door. It means it’s difficult to know how many people are in the room after the meeting ahs started, because always there is a flow in and out of late arrivals and early departures… All this to say that we were around 36 attending, included 9 visitors. As “the” neuron was focused in taking notes, I could not get the names of all of them, this is what happens with the multitask system without enough RAM capacity. One of the relevant visitors was a DTM from NY, and other was  Dima’s mother; it reinforces the feeling of a big family!

Tulia, our President,  is an actual multi task woman, and perfectly developed the task as President together with being the Toastmaster of the day. The title of the session was “Dead after life”, and we clearly saw that life is a process that takes to death, and that it happens all around the world. Thousands of million people have reached the same conclusion along centuries!, so probably it could be right Fortunately  the word of the day was “Life”, a word that creates better feelings than death.

Tulia announced the Division Contest in Lisbon, where Peter is going to represent PS, and invited people to attend.  Good luck to Peter!

And not to forget, the District contest in Barcelona, Saturday November 20th 2010, starting 11:00 am @!!

Maries Gomes (Table Topic master) put the group into a neighbors’ community meeting. This kind of communities offers all kind of human conflicts, and Peter, Josefine, Ignasi and Caroline reported to the other community owners about their relationship with noise, early music, dogs and bikes

Florian broke the ice of the speeches  (Public Relations - 4 - Speaking Under Fire (“New Horizons - New Hope” ) with a particular perception about what would happen on a hypothetical new political scenario.

We went to a trade fair with Natalia (Competent Communication Manual - 4 - How to Say It “Media Alert to Press, Radio & TV” ) and saw all what we have to do before, during and after the fair if  we want to be professional, effective an d efficient.

It was a pleasure and honor to listen to the new Competent Communicator  Melinda (congratulations!!) ( Competent Communication Manual - 10 - Inspire Your Audience “Make it Meaningful”) We all thought about our positions in professional environment, may be as bosses or as employees, about how to motivate people: giving autonomy (self direction), mastery, and purpose, all addressed to a profit: it is the magic formula to productivity.

And Daniel broke the ice (Competent Communication Manual - 1 - The Ice Breaker (“NOW” ) with an emotive race through his childhood, having a vision of the future and getting forward step by step, till finding himself “NOW”  as TM member.

“Evaluators” Ricardo, Edith, Angela and Goving, and   “Timekeeper” Jose Mª  and Irene  (“Ah counter”)  gave accurate and positive reports.

Brenda, as General Evaluator, took the stage and went through all details, giving positive inputs and suggestions, and she summarized very well what she finds fantastic at TM meetings: people speak; people learn from others; people entertain. What else can be asked for?

Tulia closed the meeting with an inspiring Montaigne quotation, and with the ONE guests’ word: “creative” ,“funny”, “motivating”, “stimulating”, “interesting”, “inviting”, “positive”, “exciting”.

 Phil made us of the gavel to close, and to ask for ALL to be OUT rushing.

Till next post,

Alvaro

 

http://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

Leadership lessons from the "dancing guy"

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Free Fitness on the Beach for Toastmasters on November 20 {{event,conference}}

Fellow toastmasters,

The district conference is coming up on November 19-21, together with
some additional FUN!
For some of the extra activities offered to the participants, we are
looking to fill the spots.

Therefore, we are inviting all Prestigious members and your friends to
a wake-up Fitness Session on the beach FREE by courtesy of FITT
Personal Training!! (Hosted by Tulia's Brazilian friend).
To join, all you have to do is to send me an email, and set your alarm
clocks for Saturday 20 November.

BEACH BOOTCAMP
Start off the Saturday with a bang and join this 45-min session on the
beach behind the conference hotel at 7.00am. This is an army-style
workout (adapted to general fitness) with some jogging, squats, bench
step-ups, jumping jacks, and reverse park-bench crunches. Here’s a
cardiovascular and strength-training workout for more muscle
definition, to increase stamina and burn fat…all in a beautiful and
fun setting. A unique opportunity on a First Come-First Served basis!

Contact me quickly: it's first come first serve!

cheers,
Josefinhttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

Members mailing list

Dear Members,

Please submit you email addresses to this form http://tinyurl.com/ps-mailinglist so that I can add you to the NEW mailing list for internal communications.
Only 6 people had done it so far.

Thanks a lot,

VPPRhttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

We have a winner!

Hello fellows Prestigious,

I'm so proud to announce that, YES, WE HAVE A WINNER!!
Our fellow Peter Mackenzie won the Division Contest for Humorous Speech!
And... if I'm not mistaken, (because I could talk too much with him
because he was at the airport) it looks like he also win for TT... but
let's wait for him to come back to confirm this!
Well guys, here we go!
Prestigious conquering new worlds!!!
Well done Peter, on behalf of all of us!!!

A big cheers to you!!!!
Tuliahttp://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

If you don't rush, you can lose all!

Welcome all to the chronicle of the meeting of the 19th October 2010 This is an almost non nato report. Our SAA Phil is so effective, that while some people were still ordering chairs and pushing the others out of the room, he tore all papers that seemed to be forgotten around the room. My notes were one of those shredded of papers, and became into small pieces. Later on, after some discovery and long resetting, pieces came into the puzzle, and I could reshape the meeting into my mind. The message: when the SAA says run, it means run, not walk!! Around 27 people included 6 guests, 3 of them from BCN TM club, and two new guests. One very welcomed guest was Kai, old Prestigious Speaker TM member and officer, now BCN TM member and TM Area Governor. Kai honored the meeting by taking the role of General Evaluator. Tulia, our President, welcomed all and gave a detailed and formal explanation about the TM contests season (Humourous Speech and Table Topics) The Club Contest: Tuesday October 5th @ Casa Orlandai The Area Contest: Saturday October 16th 2010, starting 11:00 am @ Mallorca. The Division Contest: Saturday November 6th 2010, starting 11:00 am @ Lisbon An finally, the District contest, Saturday November 20th 2010, starting 11:00 am @ BCN !! Nizami, Toastmaster of the day, offered a nice and comfortable image of the non-native English speakers, confronted to the native speakers. We concluded that the ones who have to update their language abilities were the native speakers, not the non-native! Because the non-native adapted better to the changeable cultural and linguistic environment than the native! Besides that, the incorporation of thousands of millions of people to the English language opened the door to neologism, and one very powerful neologism, "googling", was the word of the day. Girish punt on the table a hot issue as Table Topic master: The mine accident in Chile. Peter, Jeff and Dima were called to improvise the positions of the President of the country, of the President of the mining association, and of the one of the leading miners. It was clear that it was always "others" fault and responsibility! Jose Cruset broke the ice with his Competent Communication Manual - 1 - The Ice Breaker ("Lessons I´ve learned so far") The history about his professional origins in Germany till finding (after a number of anecdotes) the perfect job in Barcelona was very interesting. A clear conclusion for all: do what you have to do, and follow your dream!
Ignasi took the advantage at his speech Competent Communication Manual - 3 - Get to the Point to introducing the new Prestigious Speakers website ("Habemus website"). He convinced all, even the ones that have not idea about it, that always the "new" (whatever it is) is much better than the "old", and that what was fine yesterday, today is out of place! Long life to the new website! Carol was interviewed at her speech (Communicating on Television - 2 - The Talk Show, Appear as a guest on a simulated television) by Brenda to present a magic product ("First 20 Million?"), a revolution that will not permit to know how old are people, because all (only the ones buying the product!) will appear to be always in permanent youth. And finally Genia (Competent Communication Manual - 2 - Organise Your Speech) showed us how employment recruitment ("Recruitment 2.0") is working now. All the information is always on the air, on the web, and all the info can be filtered and can to be scanned. Are we important enough as to think that someone will waste one second with our CV if we are not actively searching a job?
"Evaluators" Edith, Phil, Peter and Christian gave and accurate and positive reports "Timekeeper" Daniel gave a very precise report, and Arthur ("Ah counter") had some strong words for some people (English native speakers!) using too much Ah!!. He was so enthusiastic that the red light was switched on. It was the first time than an "Ah counter" had seen the red light. Kai took the stage, and he summarized very well what he founds fantastic at TM meetings: people speak; people learn from others; people entertain. What else can be asked for? Phil and Peter, the winners of the Club Contest, shared their experiences at the Area contest: small audiences, the different setting, not knowing people … all was a challenge. Peter will follow the track, because he won the Table Topic Area Contest and was second at the Humorous Speech Area Contest. Tulia closed the meeting, aiming members to attend the Division contest in Lisbon. Before it, she invited the guest (the "new") to say in one word, "one word", what they thought about the meeting: "interesting" and, "exciting" were the words. Alvaro http://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

BCN Magazine article

Download now or preview on posterous

Toastmasters Nov10.pdf (110 KB)

Edith Finkbeiner DTM, interviewed at Barcelona Connect Magazine.

"For those who aren’t yet familiar with Toast-
masters International, this is a non-profit or-
ganisation that motivates people to practice
and hone communication and leadership
skills in an enjoyable way. We speak with
Edith Finkbeiner Mulligan, founder of the lo-
cal English speaking club Prestigious Speak-
ers, and charter member of Barcelona’
first club, the bi-lingual English/Span-
ish Barcelona Toastmasters Club."

Find attached the whole interview.

Cheers,

http://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com