Presenting the speech “Write it down”

Wednesday, 3rd August: Continued with the two themes of writing the final report for a project (in German) and preparation for the Huntingdonshire Speakers speech tonight.

By lunchtime the speech “Write it down” had taken on more detail with a structure:

• Introduction
• Why write it down (door to the past, present and Future)
• Where to write it down (mentioning additional media)
• When (and when not) to write it down
• Call to action - “Write it down”

I've planned five visual aids; a 1000 year old quote from Sei Shonagon's “Pillow Book”, Dr McArthur's book “Ka Sefofane”, One of Mr Heker's technical articles, Mr Juengst's white paper and finally the Kindle with my “Your business startup: Twelve pillars of advice in brief” which has appeared published on Amazon today!

Since this talk will be given without notes, I prepared a series of visual mental cues as a skeleton to hang the talk on. The most difficult and nerve racking was learning the Sei Shonagon quote off by heart.
Not sure whether to pass around the visual aids or hold them up.

The evening was then spent at Huntingdonshire Speakers and fortunately my speech was the first. I had practiced to give it in seven minutes. In the event, I was just under a minute over. The decision to pass round the visual aids when they arose during the talk worked but might have proved distracting – next time hold them up! However, received a lot of positive feedback from all the attendees in the short written comments that are part of the Toastmasters experience. Mr Wellman evaluated my speech positively with constructive advice for the future.

Other entertaining speeches came from the two minute “Tabletopics”, based around an geographic theme, using the colours of the olympic rings to define regions to be talked about. There was a hilarious foray into the consequences of cross dressing and a passionate lament on the current economic crisis in the Eurozone by Mr Slezak.

A satisfying but exhausting end to the day.

Bought a copy of Mr Frost's autobiography, “Growing Forward” and made the mistake of beginning to read it. I continued till the end, around 3am. A fascinating youth of involvement in a strict religious group, rebellion and even breaking the law before reforming, and of love gained – and lost. All before the age of 25.