levantando el telón - Raising the Curtain!

      We drove last year to a good finish in "Gangnam style" with our Apocalyptic X´mas party. What a great way to start the New Year 2013 at toastmaster meeting last thursday " levantando el telòn" raising the curtain for another exciting year of great speeches. The meeting begun with President Pilar , giving us a warm welcome to the first toastmaster meeting in 2013 instantly lifting our moods to level 10+. The toastmaster of the day Albert, quickly took over the meeting and started by introducing the word of the day "empatia" or empathy, describing the program for the day and introduced his team; the general evaluator and the appointment holders who described their duties. 

The first speech “Buenos Propósitos” was delivered by Patricia. She shared some techniques we can use to make our New Year resolution work for us. Some of the techniques she shared include the following:

a. Writing a list of our goals

b. Reviewing our goals

c. Share our goals with others to ensure, accountability, clarity, motivation.

d. Have good attitude

e. Have back up plan if something went wrong.

She also shared her knowlegde on two useful mobile apps that we can use to manage our personal finance (Toshl Finance) and to keep ourselves in shape ( Endomondo). She concluded her speech with a clear call of action; Make your resolution come true!

The second speech " Tú, conformas tu sueños" was delivered by Celine. She spoke about taking control of our dreams and captaining our own ship.She supported her idea by giving example of four world class celebrities who kept their dreams alive until they achieved them.

The first celebrity is Arnold Schwarzenegger; an Actor, an Author, a Governor and a Terminator. :-) What an impressive career.

The second celebrity is Daniel Craig (James Bond oo7). She talked about how Daniel Craig kept his childhood dreams of becoming like Roger Moore and finally worked his way up to signing a multimillion dollar contract for James Bond films

The third celebrity is Lionel Messi FC barcelona who overcame his physical challenges and has become one of the best footballers of our time winning FIFA Ballon D´Or for a fourth year running.

The last celebrity is our own Cormac Walsh. She talked about how Cormac has kept his dream  of teaching english in Spain alive and bringing it to reality. She concluded her speech by dedicating it to one of her closest friends, Caroline, wishing her good luck in her professional life and also challenging her to keep fighting because there´s nothing impossible. Nada es imposible.

The third speech " ¿Y cuando lo que te tienen que decir no es tan bueno?" was delivered by Angel. Angel talked about some effective methods to respond non defensively to criticism, identify problem and diffuse tension. Some of the methods he talked about include,

a. Self image - The perception you hold about yourself

b. Public image - Public perception about you

c. Listening

d. Reaching consensus

e. Maintaing your cool

f. Controlling your emotions

g. Para phrasing

He ended his speech with a role play between him and Robert to concretize his message.

We moved on to the second session of the meeting, the table topics session. Our table topic master of the day Ricardo, adapted the hot seat interview approach for the table topics. Cormac and Oscar volunteered to participate and they were made to answer topics on European Economy and Politics.

 Albert, concluded his role by asking his team to give their general evaluation and report of the meeting, to know what worked well and what to improve.

Our President, Pilar, then took over to give her closing remarks and wrap up the meeting.

Indeed, what a great way to start the toastmaster meeting this year! As Oprah Winfrey would say, Cheers to the New Year, and another chance to get it right again.  See you´all next week.