Hola mis companeros de Toastmasters!
Jennifer Chan, our club President (Presidente) opened the meeting and introduced our guests, Noa Bornstein and Liza Tsapenko. Both Noa and Liza gave a nice introduction in Espanol.
By the way, Noa is a talented sculptor. If you would like to see some of her work, log onto: www.sculpturesgallery.com Liza on the other hand, is a seasoned Toastmaster so it was nice to have her visit our club.
For the Spanish Conversation (Conversacion en Espanol) portion we had four groups and this time had more fluent than non-fluent speakers.
Our first speaker (primer orador) was Dale Blagrove. Dale presented his Ice Breaker, Speech #1 from the CC manual. As many of you know, the Ice Breaker is a great way to introduce yourself to the club while gauging your natural speaking ability. Since Dale is a DTM - Distinguished Toastmaster, he’s an old pro. It shows terrific initiative that he’s taking the CC Manual challenge on again in Espanol. By the way, I took a look at his manual I had no idea it was available in Spanish. Feel free to order one from the TM site if you have not done so already. The title of Dale’s speech: “Not lost in translation” I think may make a terrific motto for our Fiesta TM Club.
Dale spoke about how learning English when he was a boy created comical and at times frustrating situations for him and his family. For example, his father’s mispronunciation of English words like saying tree for the number three. The time he got into an argument with his grade school teacher about the correct spelling of the word color, spelled colour in one of his storybooks. The funniest story however was about the first time he visited Spain as a teenager with his Spanish teacher and classmates and was pulled aside by customs because he inadvertently said (si) to all of their questions, including the one about carrying illegal drugs. Nice job, Dale!
Brad Shilling, our club Treasurer, was the first evaluator (primer evaluador). Brad really enjoyed Dale’s speech and he made some terrific suggestions, like that the speech could have been strengthened by having Dale go out on a limb with some additional Spanish words. I agree. Come on Dale, October 19th is right around the corner at Fiesta, we promise you won’t get into trouble for using more than the (si) word.
Our second speaker (segunda oradora) was our very own (Presidente), Jennifer Chan. Jennifer presented speech #3 from the Humorous Speaking manual. The objective of speech # 3 - Make ‘em laugh, is to present a speech that opens and closes with humorous stories. Her speech was titled “A day at the Motor Vehicle Department.” We all looked at each other knowingly, who doesn’t have a DMV story? Jennifer told us about the day her poor husband had to go to various windows and spend countless hours trying to accomplish the seemingly simple task of updating the state on his driver’s license. The conclusion of her speech: a day at the DMV can result in making a smart person feel stupid.
Jennifer’s speech was evaluated by two evaluators, (dos evaluadores) John Schaffer, a Spanish speaker and Tushard Deshpande, a non-Spanish speaker. Why two evaluators? John and Tushar had the terrific idea of sharing the role, in order to cover both the English and Spanish portion of Jennifer’s presentation.
John who has a fairly good mastery of Spanish (Espanol) talked about what a fun topic it was. It’s nice when we speak about topics we can all relate to and Jennifer certainly did that.
Two recommendations for Jennifer and all members:
1) if you are going to read large portions of your speech in Spanish you may want to add in more English. Reading reduces eye contact with the audience and it slows down the presentation which can result in the speaker going over time.
2) Until you become more comfortable with the pronunciation of Spanish words try memorizing just a few lines or use Spanish words through out the presentation instead of in large chunks. It will be easier for speakers and non-speakers to follow along, and more importantly will allow for TM elements like: eye contact, gestures, vocal variety, etc.
Tushar made an excellent point in his evaluation. Since he was unable to understand the Spanish portion of Jennifer’s speech he evaluated her solely on body language and gestures. He compared it to watching t.v. with the volume turned down. Great analogy Tushar! We have to remember that while we are up there sometimes our bodies speak louder than we do. In other words, we need to make sure our words are consistent with our gestures. Jennifer’s body language and gestures were effective despite the reading which reduced her eye contact with us.
Our third speaker (tercera oradora) was our VP, Membership, Marcia Melendez. Marcia presented speech #1 from the Speaking to Inform manual. The objective of this speech assignment is to present information in an organized and easy to learn format.
Did you know that there are just over 20 (veinte) trees that can be planted in NYC? I got that interesting bit of information from the sheet she was kind enough to distribute to all of us. The title of Marcia’s speech was “How to plant a NYC tree.” Marcia did a terrific job of presenting this unusual and interesting topic.
Would you like to have a tree planted in your neighborhood? Talk to Marcia or call the Mayor’s Assistance Line at 212-788-7418. However, before you call have your patience in check since we all had a good laugh when Marcia compared the NYC Parks department with the new Gestapo in town. Apparently, they can be a bit prickly to deal with.
A special thanks (Gracias) to Kenneth Oehlkers for stepping in at the last moment to evaluate Marcia’s speech. I think he spoke for all of us when he noted how fascinating a subject it was. Not many of us have given enough thought to how a tree appears along New York City streets. Kenneth did a great job of picking up on the strengths of Marcia’s presentation. Namely, the forms she brought in and the organized way in which she presented the various steps required.
Since we were running a bit short on time, our Table Topics session was held round robin style. We all created a story by adding in any element from the three speeches presented. We began with “September is the month for... (Septiembre es el mes de...) fill in the blank. It was great fun and everyone in the room had a chance to say whatever came to mind.
Our General Evaluator was John Schaffer, thanks John for doing double duty at the meeting!
A quick note on evaluations, please remember that in addition to stating the strengths of every speech, evaluators need to point out the areas for improvement. A club is only as good as it's evaluations. If we don't point out where we need to improve how can we grow? Continue being kind and supportive, that's a wonderful attribute for us to share with one another, but make sure to point out areas for speakers to work on so they can improve.
For club business, we all need to log onto: www.sandyeast.com This is the easiest and fastest way to sign up for meeting roles and participation. Also, Brad has sent out an email about membership dues so make sure you get yours in before September 30th.
A special thanks to Liza Tsapenko for participating as Ah Counter (contador de muletillas), Camille Dyer for being our Timer and finally to Julian Hernandez, our club Secretary, for being our Grammarian and presenting the word of the day, "excellent" (excelente)! Julian also pointed out a few grammatical errors made during the meeting. He even caught me on one, thanks for that. One additional note Julian made which I was not aware of, if you are using an electronic translation gadget, at times you may not get the translation you intended, so best to check with a fluent speaker before presenting.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to seeing you all in future meetings.
Hasta luego,
Marina
VP, Education Fiesta TM Club
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