Category Archives: Events

Together As One

Our second consecutive meeting in Retiro Park saw Toastmaster Excelencia and Toastmaster Madrid combine as a joint group.

Mauro, the Toastmaster of the day who spoke Spanish, English and Italian added a trilingual touch to the meeting. First in welcoming guests, and then throughout the leading roles of the meeting, he alternated between the 3 languages. After the guests had introduced themselves, Ana and Adolfo explained their respective roles as the timekeeper and grammarian.

For Thought of the Day, Carlos treated us to a soothing music as he talked about music. Next was Ana who spoke about the book “Finding Your Element”.

The first speaker was David who talked about his life experience, breaking up with his girlfriend and going to Camino de Santiago on a trip that lasted 25 days. David used hand gestures, and maintained eye contact through his speech. His added humour left the audience begging for more.

Second to deliver his speech was Yago who was smooth, and appeared calm and collected as he talked about the “meaning of words”. Taking full advantage of the stage he moved around and spoke in a convincing voice. Pedro, his evaluator, commended him on his in-depth explanation.

At this time of recession, Maria thought it was a good idea to base her speech on job applications. In her speech, she suggested tips to succeed in a job interview. Maria used visual aids and lots of humour to present her information, needless to say that it was enjoyable.

The last prepared speaker, Josephine centred her speech on grooming. She shared the stage with a colleague who role-played various grooming routines as Josephine talked. This made her speech entertaining and eye-catching. From a public speaking point of view, her speech was humorous, loud and clear and engaging thanks to the role-playing.

Alex led the table topics with intriguing questions like personal relationships with partners. Pilar and Nacho were among the unsuspecting members of the audience to participate in the impromptu speeches but responded equally well to the questions they faced.

Written by Christian

Take To The Stage

Although the word of the day was “scorching”, it is fair to say that our last meeting was not the hottest evening of the Madrid summer, as we gathered open-air in Retiro Park.

After a brief introduction to the guests by Alberto, who was the Toastmaster of the Day, the show was good to start. Marina led the way with his brief talk on Self-Confidence and Self-Investment.

In the first speech of the day, we saw Alex chant and scream (he is not crazy) as he told a legendary story from his native country Brazil. Benito, his evaluator, thought it served well in grabbing audience attention and interest.

Eva gave us a “touching story” about inheritance which had the audience intrigued and connected to her family. Jane, who was evaluating her, liked the structure of the speech.

For her Icebreaker, Mirat filled us in as to why she had a mixed set of jobs on her CV. Her speech ended on a high note as she quoted the words of Buddha “the path is the goal”. Her evaluator Jose commented her use of humour in the speech.

Time for the fun part arrived when the Table Topics Master, Luciana, magically turned Jim, Raquel, Manolo, Sonia, Raul, Anthony, Christian and Julian into salespeople and were tasked with selling various related items like holiday accommodations, modes of transport or relaxing holiday destinations.

Pilar and Ana played their roles as Grammarian and Timekeeper with enthusiasm. It was only right at the end of the meeting, that the General Evaluator Nacho pointed out the lack of usage of the podium for delivering any of the evening’s speeches and activities. Only if he had reminded us much earlier to Take to the stage…

Spring Contests in Toastmasters Madrid

In less than one month, on 4th March, our club will celebrate a special meeting, the Spring Contest (although we are a bit ahead of time this year and the club contest will be celebrated still in Winter). Contests are a great opportunity to put in practice all your public speaking skills, in a special set up. We are still in the safe laboratory where you can explore your limits, but the adrenaline of competing plays a role that everyone should try, and we can assure you that if you try it once, you will repeat.

Contests are a way to explore your boundaries, and cross them, especially if you win and compete at Area Level (Madrid), Division Level (Spain) or District level (South Europe). It is also a great way to get stage time, which is a fantastic strategy to grow as a speaker, as we all know in Toastmasters. As everything in Toastmasters, contests are plenty of fun and emotions, both for the contestants and for the audience, that get moved by the speakers.

Spring Contest comprises two different contests: International Speech Contest, and Evaluation Contests. The first one consists of 7-minute speeches with all the ingredients to engage the audience into it. A target speaker delivers a speech that the Evaluation contest participants will then evaluate in a 3-4 minutes evaluation.

If you are thinking about taking part in this great event, contact our VP Education a.s.a.p. to secure your seat in the contests. If you still have doubts or need some inspiration, take a look to the following resources: