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"

http://blog.prestigiousspeakers.com

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