Standing Ovation

On the 13th of December I visited on of the open English Speaking toastmasters club in Madrid - Standing Ovation

Club was founded five of six years ago and initially was business oriented. Now it’s open for everyone. Meeting was supposed to start at 20.00, I thought I would be late. But luckily it started at 20.30

Meeting took place in a nice coworking cafe La Piscine. I was warmly welcomed by the president of club. He provided me with the agenda and explained that I need to pay 6€ for 2 drinks in the bar - this a fee of holding meetings in the cafe.

From the agenda I saw some unusual things: the role of grammarian and ah-counter was conducted by one person and most interesting - Table Topic Sessions was the first session. Grammarian was really creative and as a word of the day proposed the name of the President - to remind everyone how much he did for the club.

To have TTS in the beginning was really unusual but cool. It was a great warm-up for speakers and the audience. Table Topics Master conducted the funniest and at the same time the most embarrassing table topic session that I have ever took part in. All the questions were somehow related to the pooping during Christmas time. Though everyone was literally red, answers were very funny and everyone laughed out loud. 😳😆

I also took part but, probably, as I was a guest I received regular question about Christmas movies...

During the prepared speeches session there were two ice-breakering speeches and one from Pathways. Ice breakers were quite good and conducted well prepared speeches. I liked a lot the tradition to stand up after each ice breaker and clap - cheering him her up!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

The last speech amazed me a lot. The speaker did unbelievable job showing the audience how you can uplift your spirit through physical exercises. Most importantly - it wasn’t just a PE with instructions. It was really uplifting and motivating speech during which she demonstrated various asanas from yoga. 😮

Evaluation session went smoothly without anything outstanding. I also noticed that there wasn’t any voting for the best speakers or evaluators. From my point of view it made meeting even more relaxed and cozy. Also each person had an evaluation form to write comments to all speakers.

After the meeting members and guests stayed at the cafe to enjoy drinks and conversation. 🥂

Overal the meeting was great, but I was told that usually there is no free space it all - so crowded it’s. Hope that it’s not my last time in Madrid, may be one day I will come back 😌