Dale Blagrove, DTM
http://www.bcnpridetoastmasters.com/

John Zimmer shared on his blog "Manner of Speaking" the following Checklist for Public Speakers. Original post here.



Dear Prestigious and Toastmasters friends, (a "little long" mail....)

 

I would like to share with you few points from the Lisbon District Conference 2011.

 

First of all, it was a successful event!

Almost 300 people attended.

And, as in Toastmasters we learn by doing, and observing, the Conference organisation run smoothly, no big issues.

I'm sure the next one will be even better.

 

About the event:

 

One of the Lisbon organisers, Luis Caetano, opened the session dressed as a "Conqueror", and gave an amazing speech based on the slogan of the conference "Spirit of Great Discoveries"!

 

We all had the pleasure to meet Pat Jonhson, Toastmaster International President.

She gave a number of speeches and workshops, which were very "educational and inspiring".

And, we also had the opportunity to learn more about the TMI organisation.

 

We had the pleasure to attend the workshop of Darren Lacroix, 2001 International Speech Contest winner.

Darren shared many valued information on where and how we can improve our "deliveries". 

And some who volunteered to give a short speech for a "study case" had the opportunity to receive feedback "on spot".

It was a great experience, and, we all agreed with Darren on, to master our communication skills we need a lot of stage time, stage time, stage time!

 

I had the great opportunity to be the target speaker for the Evaluation Contest, and to be able to speak in front of almost 300 people (my first big stage time!) and also be blessed with 10 high profile evaluations as feedback!

Plus, all the other participants who came to me afterwards to share their very honest, warm, and supportive comments on my delivery.

Priceless!!!

 

And, the greatest moment of all, the Speech Contest!

What could I say???? Amazing! 

A quite difficult task for the judges!

 

Then, comes the "not such a good fun" part of the event (the bones of the fish, as I say), but also important.

The elections of the upcoming Area Governors, Division Governors, and District Officers.

(By the way, to the ones who are not aware yet, our dearest Angela Dunbar will be our next Area Governor for Area H1 - Congrats Angela)

 

*** I take the chance, have a short break, to share something with you: Someone in our club asked me "is that really important to vote on those elections?"

Well, let's put it this way.

We all love Prestigious Speakers, and we believe it is the best club in BCN, right!? (other clubs might disagree, but it is also "ok"!)

So, in order to be great and achieve greatness, we need to know where we want to go, and how to get there (as it is said, know the rules first, then break them!).

Therefore, we need to make sure our leaders are aligned with our values and goals.

Saying that, we are the ones to choose our leaders!**** Got it?

 

To finalise, we had experienced Tuna Music (yes, funny name, an old and traditional type of Portuguese music) in our lunch break during the conference.

And, FADO MUSIC during the Gala dinner.

And.... as all toasmasters events, educational, entertaining, networking, and FUN!

 

Prestigious Speakers was present, represented by Angela, Gunther, Xavier and myself.

Barcelona Toastmasters was also present represented by Kai, Marina and Patricia.

Pride Toastmasters was also present, represented by Angela on behalf of Dale who was a candidate for Division Governor.

 

If I may, I recommend all of you to consider attending those conferences.

The learning opportunity is priceless!

 

The next one is on November 25th in Basel, Switzerland!

 

Thanks for your time, and see you in our meeting next week.

 

Cheers,

 

--
"Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity. W. Bennis "

 

- President: Jeff Singer

- VPE: Dima Uralov

- VPM: Claudia Cano (6 months) Ricardo Tellez (6 months)

- VPPR: Natalia Kim

- Treasurer: Anne Delgado

- Secretary: Peter Mckenzie

- SAA: Daniel Juling & Alvaro Saumell

- IT specialist: Ignasi Buch

 

See the picture (by courtesy of Angela) of the new Committee; from left to right, Jeff Singer, Dima Uralov, Peter Mckenzie, Claudia Cano, Natalia Kim, Anne Delgado, Alvaro Saumell, Daniel Juling, and the last Tulia Lopez, the current president, introducing the new committee.



Hello,

This was the title, “Moments of truth”, of the educational session given by Dima at the meeting of the 19th April 2011. The title is inspiring, seems to drive ourselves in a travel through our own identity and purpose of life. But it was quite more practical, about the Club Quality Standards Evaluation under the criteria given by Toastmasters International. Great job by Dima, organizing people in groups, going each of the groups through a different topic, making group conclusions, and finally Dima putting together the full job: most things are running quite satisfactory, some other could improve!

Claudia, the Toastmaster of the day, drove the meeting in a perfect and smooth way despite the many changes in the agenda she had to take care. The word of the day, “outlier”, (difficult to find in a dictionary!), defined those people who are able to open new ways and opportunities and can improvise and take the best of themselves to push situations ahead.

We had 8 guests, 7 of them long term guests, (people that have attended several meetings and are interested in becoming members), and one new guest. The one word to describe what they felt at the meeting: “surprised”, “outlining”, rich”, “challenging”, “awesome”, and ”organized”. For the new guest, it was “great entertainment”.

Josefine made her speech from the Competent Communication Manual #5 – “Your Body Speaks”, with the title “The language of the body”, about the dialogue between the body and the mind of the runners when preparing challenges (Josefin prepared and run a half marathon!)

Ricardo made his speech from the Competent Communication Manual #6 – “Vocal Variety”, with the title “TONES”, showing in a very practical way how the knowledge and practice about how to say, module and pronounce sentences can give them either one sense, or the contrary.

Changing the usual order of the agenda, Veronika, the Table Topic master, invited Marie, Alvaro, Ivan and Edith to build together, one after each other, a history about the Easter eggs.

Tulia, within the Club business section, informed about the elections to take place for the roles of officers for the next period July 2011 / June 2012. As a signal of the good health of the club (identified with the “Moments of true” section and with the guests’ list), Ricardo, head of the election committee, explained that there are more candidates than roles, and this is fantastic!

Till the next,

Alvaro