Nick R Thomas - A Public Speaker's Blog

Thursday, July 15

From a topic to a talk: expanding part of a presentation

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Thu 15 Jul 2010 05:29 PM BST

Southbourne Literary Society, Bournemouth

I have blogged before about speaking to Southbourne Literary Society, a group I will always have a great affection for because they booked me for my first-ever paid speaking engagement back in January 1996.

Early last year I received a phone call from their Honorary Secretary, Mr Tom Hall, wanting to book me for a seventh visit. They had already heard all of my talks that are suitable for such a group so I suggested an idea I had in mind for a new presentation but Mr Hall surprised me by wanting me to speak about Dorothy Parker. Now, I had no doubt that a presentation about her could fill an hour but I had already delivered my talk about the Algonquin Round Table for Southbourne Literary Society in early 2006 and a fair proportion of it had been about Dorothy Parker so wouldn't I just be repeating material that this audience had heard already?

Mr Hall felt that it would and he booked me. Thinking about it afterwards, I remembered that this society occasionally books 'repeats' of entire talks they have had some years earlier and this seems to work very well - some members would have missed the first one, new members may have joined since and the talk has probably evolved over time anyway. I remembered hearing Professor Sean Street deliver a repeat his talk on the Dimmock Poets for Southbourne Literary Society and this had been very well received. And all I was being asked to was expand on one part of a previous lecture.

Public Speaking Tip #357: It may be possible to repeat a presentation for certain organisations, especially if a long period of time has passed, there has been some turnover of audience membership and the content has evolved.

As I researched the additional content for the Dorothy Parker talk I could see what a difference this extra background knowledge was going to make to future bookings for the 'parent' presentation about the Algonquin Set and, despite my initial reluctance, I was now glad of the opportunity to share further this material with the Literary Society.

On the night, there were around 35 members present and the talk went really well. I was able to include many of Dorothy Parker's quotations which had not been featured in my original Algonquin Round Table lecture nearly four years earlier. I showed the audience the Folio Society's beautifully-produced edition of Dorothy Parker's works and some audience members came up afterwards to look at this. And I received a super, warm vote of thanks from the speaker and author (and former Deputy Headmaster of my old grammar school) Mr David Hilliam. Overall, I have to say that it one of the most successful of my seven engagements for Southbourne Literary Society.

Afterwards, I spoke to Mr Hall. 'I could tell you weren't keen on the idea!' he chuckled. He was right - and he was also right about how well it could work!

Public Speaking Tip #358: Is there some topic in any of your presentations which could be developed into a full talk in its own right? This could lead to repeat bookings and additional markets for you as a speaker and the additional research may also enhance the original presentation it comes from.

The second speaker at that meeting was Mr Hall himself, looking back over the Society's history as it approached its 65th year - and he has been a member since its inception! This was itself an updated version of a talk that I had heard Mr Hall deliver in 2005, the Society's 60th year, but the content had evolved since then.

Listening to his account confirmed my belief that, in some ways, the 1950s saw the heyday of public speaking in Britain. The Southbourne Literary Society's attendance of 30 - 40 hasn't really altered since I started speaking to them but back then, in the years before television ownership really took off with the Coronation, the Society could expect a three-figure audience of people turning out to hear an evening lecture about a literary topic. Further afield, broadcast talks were a regular part of radio scheduling and whereas today's celebrity speakers will perform for at dinners for thousands of pounds, some household names of the 1950s would happily speak for no payment at all. There may be more people required to give presentations as a requirement for their work nowadays but in terms of audiences having the interest and attention span to regard listening to talks as a leisure activity, I think the golden age was probably sixty years ago. Fortunately, even with so many home entertainment options available today, there are still thousands of clubs, societies, theatres, arts centres, functions and festivals with (admittedly often mature) audiences who will gladly listen to a speaker - even one without visual aids - for an hour or sometimes much longer.

POSTSCRIPT: I have since delivered my Algonquin Round Table talk to a different audience and discovered, as I had suspected, that the additional information I have been able to add to the part dealing with Dorothy Parker has greatly enhanced the presentation as a whole so many thanks to Mr Hall.. Unfortunately I have recently heard that he has not been well lately so my best wishes go to him and his wife Ros.

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Wednesday, July 14

'Second choice' presentations needn't mean second best!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Wed 14 Jul 2010 05:37 PM BST

It's become a cliche for bloggers to apologise to their readers for not updating for a while (and as a public speaker and writer I try to avoid over-reliance on cliches) so I have no intention of giving you a long list of excuses but... As I posted some 355 free Public Speaking Tips here between August 2007 and March this year perhaps you will forgive me if I use one well-known expression to account for my absence: 'time off for good behaviour!'

I have a huge backlog of past speaking engagements and observations about public speaking to write about so I'd better get started...

Eversley WI and Trowbridge WI

Regular readers will know that I have a large number of different presentations. There's My Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer and my other talk with personal anecdotes, The Power of Humour in Everyday Life and its corporate version, The Power of Humour in Business. Then there are my 'how-to' presentations and workshops: Public Speaking: My Triumph of Technique Over Terror! and Write Funny! which is aimed at writers' circles and film-making clubs. Then there are my literary/historical talks in the 'third person': The Life, Literature and Laughter of Patrick "Call My Bluff" Campbell, The One, the Only...Groucho!, Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Wits, I Must Write That Down! (A Commonplace Book) and The Great Comedy Quiz.

I prefer giving talks about my own experiences. This isn't just about ego; I have been delivering these since my very first booking in January 1996 so they are really well-honed (although obviously they are always evolving) and I think that many speakers favour speaking in the first person (I have certainly noticed this with my public speaking students). Don't get me wrong, I enjoy speaking about the other topics but, as a writer, I relish the challenge of making my own observations and experiences amusing and informative for audiences. Plus, my booklet Nick R's in a Twist! relates to these talks so I expect to sell more copies than I would with my other presentations. The other topics were introduced for repeat bookings for organisations that had already heard my anecdotal talks and also to attract interest from specialist markets such as historical societies.

But sometimes I am asked to deliver one of these literary/historical talks on a first visit to a group that I would normally expect to book My Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer or The Power of Humour in Everyday Life. This may happen, for example, after a recommendation from someone who has not heard my 'own' talks but has enjoyed hearing about, say, Patrick Campbell.

I try to see this as an opportunity. I have been delivering these other talks for many years now, I know they go very well and, if I deliver them with enthusiasm, there is an excellent chance being booked for one of my more personal presentations on my next visit. And sometimes the merchandising can still be surprisingly good. It's flattering to be have been recommended too, and there could well also be further recommendations and testimonials. And I still get paid!

Public Speaking Tip #356: If you offer a number of different presentations, it is possible that an organisation may want to book one which would not be your own first choice. Don't let this dampen your enthusiasm; as long as it will still be appropriate/informative/entertaining for them, it could lead to repeat bookings, recommendations and other benefits.

This happened with two consecutive bookings last autumn for Women's Institutes that I had never spoken to before. Both chose my talk about the great Irish humorist Patrick Campbell. The first was at Eversley in Hampshire. This one went very well - once I got there!

This engagement was the result of a recommendation after I had spoken to Yateley and District U3A. and, as with that booking, there was a problem with rail transport. I got as far as Basingstoke on schedule that evening but then a passenger was taken ill on the train and there was a long delay while the paramedics tended to them. No-one's fault, of course, but I did begin to wonder if I would ever again have a journey to Fleet station that would run smoothly! Luckily a very patient WI member named Carmen was still waiting there for me and she drove me to the village hall in time for the end of the business part of the meeting. The 45 ladies there enjoyed my talk and I must thank one of their husbands, Trevor, for running me back to Fleet afterwards.

The other booking was an afternoon talk for Trowbridge WI in Wiltshire for an audience of around 35 in the town's Cricket Club (the list of different types of venues where I am booked to speak just keeps growing!) I got a very good response and a very good tea afterwards. My thanks for the transport from the station and back.

Testimonial: "On behalf of the ladies of Trowbridge WI may we thank you for the excellent talk on Patrick Campbell and the programme Call My Bluff. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon". (Letter from Correspondence Secretary, Trowbridge Women's Institute).

Although there were no problems with the punctuality of the trains that day, I must mention something that happened on the Bournemouth to Southampton leg of the outward journey. A young couple were sitting in the seats in front of me. On morning journeys to speaking engagements I am usually researching news stories for the topical gags I write for radio. I turned over a page of a newspaper and the woman turned and shot a filthy look back at me through the gap between the seats. Apparently this excessive noise was disturbing her! Another (very quiet) rustle had her insisting to her partner that they should get up and move back several seats away from me! Can you imagine her trying to cope with all the noises we public speakers have to contend with (buzzing lights, traffic outside the venue, sounds from neighbouring rooms, latecomers, coughs, mobiles, whistling hearing aids, even, occasionally, the odd snore?)

There was a third sound from my seat shortly afterwards: that of me chuckling to myself as a foreign student who obviously had no inhibitions about speaking in public positioned himself next to where they had relocated to and started bellowing into his mobile phone!

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Tuesday, March 23

A great dinner spoiled by a rotten vote of thanks

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Tue 23 Mar 2010 08:58 PM GMT

A club that shall remain anonymous!

Regular readers may have noticed that it is rare for me not to name an organisation that I have recently spoken to. When it does happen, it is usually because there was some problem at the meeting and I do not wish to embarrass that club or society.

A few months ago, I delivered my talk Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer following a dinner at a particular club in the South East. I spoke to a male audience numbering around 20 for the requested length of time.

Then came the 'vote of thanks'.

Two years ago, in a popular post, I blogged about what a vote of thanks should and most definitely should not consist of. I mentioned examples of both. You can read that post here.

I am afraid the vote of thanks on this occasion fell into the latter category. The member delivering it began by telling a long, old, shaggy dog story joke against speakers (badly). I knew it was old because I had first heard it on an 'Evening with...' cassette featuring a much-loved, retired British sportsman in the mid-90s (and I very much doubt if it was new even then). But he had told it about speakers in general and didn't direct it at one person whereas this club member rewrote it to be specifically about me. Then there was an inane comment about me not looking like a comedy writer. (So what do they look like then? The number that I have met over the past 20 years must run into three figures but I still couldn't tell you!) The negativity continued and I had to endure it.

Now I am used to occasionally receiving tongue-in-cheek comments after I have spoken. For example, sometimes I get a bit of ribbing because I am not always the world's quickest at returning calls to finalise arrangements for talks. Fair enough. And then there are the votes of thanks which are unfortunately-worded and contain inadvertent double meanings or backhanded compliments. I love those as much as the audience does and they often go into future talks as self-deprecating anecdotes. But this was different; the whole thing just seemed aggressive with very little in the way of the thanks which are surely the main reason for this type of short speech! (Even the fearsome speakers at Friars Club Roasts often have some appreciative comments after all the clever comic insults but this chap was no Don Rickles or Jeffrey Ross).

Now, even if I had bombed, it would still have been bad-mannered but one gentleman at my table said afterwards that my talk was the best they had had in a long time. A decent percentage of the audience bought copies of Nick R's in a Twist! and their Treasurer enclosed a note with the cheque saying that my presentation had been 'excellent'.

So what had I done to deserve this? True, I had been a few minutes late due to some appalling rail disruption but the lost time was soon made up. As I have mentioned, my talk lasted for the length of time they had requested. I had finished on a humorous story about an occasion when I spoke to members of a particular profession which a couple of the club members also belonged to but this had been discussed with the committee member who had given me a lift in and we had agreed that I should tell it; besides, in my stories, a great deal of the humour is directed at myself.

The person who had booked me wasn't present that evening so perhaps the speaker delivering the vote of thanks had not been made aware that I had helped this club out by standing in at short notice. And maybe he had also not been told that I had helped them out still further by allowing some haggling over an already modest fee because they are such a small organisation.

Then again, perhaps it made no difference and he just felt that he had to follow a comedy writer's speech by trying to be an entertainer himself. But non self-effacing humour is often best delivered with a twinkle in the eye.

I would love to have been able to tell you the name of the venue where the three-course dinner was easily one of the best that I have ever had at any speaking engagement since I started in 1996. And it is a pity that I cannot name the committee member who, because of the rail problems, gave me a lift from the nearest major station to the venue and back again afterwards - a round trip of nearly 30 miles. I was truly grateful to him. But this is a blog about public speaking and that graceless vote of thanks made the biggest impression on me that evening and I felt it needed to be written about here so, out of respect for the other members of the club, I will not say who they are or where they meet.

The rail journey home was depressing. The excellent meal, the amusing conversation, the good work the club does, the compliments on my talk, even the selflessness of the member who drove me all that way all seemed to be overshadowed by the rather humiliating experience of standing there while one member directed a lot of negative, attacking 'humour' at me, all under the guise of a vote of thanks and presumably for the 'entertainment' of an audience who apparently had enjoyed my own speech!

I am in no hurry to go back there.

Public Speaking Tip #355: Votes of thanks may only be very short speeches but they can make a lasting impression. At a function, the vote of thanks may be one of the last speeches the audience - and guest speaker - gets to hear before leaving. Any humour you include should be good-natured and tempered with some sincere thanks at the end.

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