Nick R Thomas - A Public Speaker's Blog

Wednesday, November 14

Now some visual aids

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Wed 14 Nov 2007 08:10 PM GMT

More Public Speaking Tips in the Photos section of this blog

Click on each of the Photos on this site and you will find a short article which includes, like all my blog posts, a useful Public Speaking Tip.

Leave Comment | Permanent Link | Cosmos

To be a good visiting speaker you need to visit good speakers!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Wed 14 Nov 2007 01:13 PM GMT

Boscombe and Southbourne Probus

My third booking last week was a talk for Boscombe and Southbourne Probus on Thursday. I have a great fondness for this club because my first talk there ten years ago led to a couple of amusing incidents which have been extremely popular in talks ever since, as well as being published in 'Nick R's in a Twist!' In fact, it was also at that engagement that someone first suggested that I should publish a collection of my stories.

This was my fourth visit and I was pleased to see that a successful recruiting campaign was paying off for them so there were 45 present for my talk about Groucho Marx. It went very well and there was a good question and answer session afterwards - always a bonus!

Among the members was Mr Tom Hall, Honorary Secretary of the Southbourne Literary Society where I will be delivering another brand new talk, 'I Must Write That Down: A Commonplace Book', on 21 November. It's always a double bill there, a literary speaker usually followed by a slide show, and I was pleased to learn that my talk will be followed by a presentation from Eric Watson, not only because his subject 'The History of the Bournemouth Fire Brigade' will be of great interest to me, but also because he has an excellent reputation but I have never actually heard him speak (like me, most of his engagements are for meetings of clubs and societies which are not open to non-members).

I mentioned in an earlier post about the benefits of repeated listening to recordings by well-known speakers. It is also, of course, hugely informative to actually attend talks and lectures; we can all watch interviewees on TV chat shows or hear extracts from speeches on the news but nothing beats being there in person for an entire live, unedited presentation.

As a child, I can't claim that the guests at school speech days paricularly inspired me but when I was eleven, my family took me to a conservation rally at a Purbeck beauty spot where the broadcaster Kenneth Allsopp held an audience spellbound in an open-air setting on a hot summer afternoon. There is a picture of the event in the book Tyneham by Rodney Legg (Dorset Publishing Company, 2002).

When I became a speaker, I sought out (and still do!) events featuring great speakers. There was an evening of polished anecdotes from broadcaster David Jacobs at Winchester's Tower Arts Centre, a superb show from that great raconteur Victor Spinetti at the Nuffield in Southampton and I got to hear the great Blaster Bates at Yeovil's Octagon Theatre. He was in his mid-70s but still performed for over two hours (I missed the last train and had to pay for a taxi back to Bournemouth but it was worth it - Blaster was special!)

Then there is the legendary Roy Hudd, whose Radio 2 programme I wrote for over a 12-year period. In 2005, he brought his one-man show to the Pier Theatre here in Bournemouth (in the Photos section of this site, you can see a picture of him with my partner Val and myself later that evening).

I have heard some great talks by well-known authors, such as Simon Brett and Kevin Goldstein-Jackson at Poole Writers' Circle. At a literary lunch in Kent, I shared a bill with Antonia Barber, writer of the very popular children's book 'The Mousehole Cat'.

Bookshops often stage events featuring famous writers. Sadly, my local branch of Borders seldom seems to hold these now, but over the years, I have heard impressive speakers like Michael Winner, who spoke for an hour without notes while a member of staff held a microphone in front of his face because they didn't have a stand! The financial guru Alvin Hall answered questions from a huge crowd and veteran comedy actor Graham Stark spoke about the book he'd written about his friend Peter Sellers (or he did until, unbelievably, his talk was cut short by staff keen to put on a film quiz; apparently they thought people would rather answer questions about movies than listen to someone who'd appeared in many of the most successful!) I noted how entrepreneur Howard Hodgson still turned up to speak there in September 2000, despite the difficulties and tiny audience caused by that month's petrol blockades. Another talk I enjoyed at Borders was by self-help author Tim Laurence.

I made sure I was present when travel writer and broadcaster Rory MacLean entertained the Friends of Wimborne Library with very funny readings from his latest book and I have heard some excellent speakers at Society of Authors lunches, such as Dorchester Library's wonderfully humorous manager, and the caretaker of Thomas Hardy's home Max Gate, who, as part of a guided tour, delivered a terrific reading of the poem 'When I Set Out for Lyonesse' as we stood in Hardy's garden.

Southbourne Literary Society itself is open for anyone to attend and I have often been along to meetings where I was not the booked speaker, often taking along students from my public speaking classes. I went to author and Professor of Radio at Bournemouth University Sean Street's talk about the Dimmock poets and that same evening, Mr Hall himself spoke fascinatingly about his memories from 60 years (yes, 60!) involvement with the Society.

And just last year, I spent an enjoyable Friday evening at a church in Branksome where three speakers, all retired from long careers in television or the theatre locally, reminisced about their work. None seemed to be particularly experienced at delivering anecdotes in this type of setting but they all managed to entertain a surprisingly large audience while helping to raise funds for the church.

The point is that listening to all these speakers over the years, whether they were well-known or not, was fascinating and made an impression; however experienced I become, I continue to watch out for opportunities to hear others' presentations.

Public Speaking Tip #70: Take every opportunity to listen to - and learn from - other speakers.

Leave Comment | Permanent Link | Cosmos

follow NickRThomas at http://twitter.com