View Article  The Twelve Public Speaking Tips of Christmas
Twelve Tips for Terrified Speakers! web page

Considering the fact that the first post on this blog only appeared in mid-August, I have been delighted with the impact it is already making in terms of traffic, enquiries about work and compliments received about its usefulness to public speakers.

As a Christmas gift to readers who have never picked up a copy at one of my speaking engagements, I am posting my very popular leaflet 'Twelve Tips for Terrified Speakers!' on this site.

Rather than make this a sticky post which would be confusing when included with the other numbered Public Speaking Tips in the blog, I have decided to put it with the other web pages over on the left as a separate 'crash course!'

Thank you for reading Nick R Thomas - A Public Speaker's Blog in 2007 - I hope it has helped you.

Have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Nick.


View Article  The Royal 'I'
The Queen watches her speech alone

An ITV documentary on 25 December celebrating 50 years of televising the Queen's Christmas Day message reveals that she sometimes leaves the room at Sandringham when her pre-recorded speech is being broadcast so she can watch it away from her family and see whether it has come across in the right way.

It is certainly much easier to concentrate alone on watching a film of yourself speaking. Many famous actors hate to watch their performances, even with loved ones; some never watch them at all!

When I started teaching public speaking classes, I was asked by one of my bosses why I didn't video students' presentations and then show these films for the whole class to watch and comment on. My reply was simple: because I wanted them to come back the following week!
I know there are presentation skills training firms offering intensive courses which involve using video in this way but I always found that gentler alternatives achieved excellent results - without embarrassing students so much that they dropped out!

I told my students that they would never be asked to do anything more embarrassing than give a short talk in front of a small class who were all 'in the same boat'. I mentioned that they were welcome to tape their own talks in order to study these recordings at home later, along with anything I said, but not the presentations of others present.

Back when I was training as an adult education tutor, I was on a teaching course and a lesson was being filmed. The whole class, including some highly experienced lecturers, clammed up. Then we learned that there had been a fault with the camera so nothing had been recorded - and it was as if a cloud had lifted!

Public Speaking Tip #105: A public speaking course should be challenging enough to greatly improve your presentations but should not embarrass you to the point where you no longer wish to participate. Find out what is involved in any training before you enrol and, if you are happy to meet these challenges, throw yourself into them wholeheartedly for some astonishing results!

Over the years, I have been filmed a few times and have watched - and benefited - from seeing these recordings but I would not have felt comfortable viewing them for the first time in the presence of others.
Facing a large audience and speaking for up to an hour is just so much easier than sitting watching yourself for a few minutes with a couple of other people!

Public Speaking Tip #106: It is useful to see a film of your presentation and study and learn from it - in private.



View Article  Wellow, it's me again!
Chandler's Ford Civil Service Retirement Fellowship

On Tuesday, I completed my last speaking engagement of 2007 and it was for one of my favourite clubs - Chandler's Ford Civil Service Retirement Fellowship. I had spoken there on three previous occasions since 2004 and at my last talk on Good Friday, they booked me for their Christmas lunch at Wellow Golf Club near Romsey. I decided that my new Great Comedy Quiz would be the best choice for this event.

This club is always well attended and there were about 60 members and guests there. After enjoying my fourth turkey meal this month (and my first since the previous evening!), the quiz got under way. I had added some more questions since I tried this out for the first time a few weeks ago, bringing the total to 16, and, with the inclusion of anecdotes, it filled the allotted time perfectly.

Quiz questions have to be chosen carefully; include too many easy ones and the whole exercise becomes pointless, make them all too difficult and people get stroppy! You have to strike the right balance, especially taking into account the age of your audience.

Public Speaking Tip #102: The choice of questions in a quiz can affect the whole atmosphere of the event so you need to put time and effort into this. The results can be well worth it!

Two of the eight tables came top with good scores so I included a tie-breaker.

Public Speaking Tip #103: If you are setting a quiz, have extra questions ready in case of a tie; no-one wants to be joint winner!

I was relieved that, once again, the cough didn't interrupt the talk.

The Chairman gave me a super vote of thanks and when we chatted afterwards, he said how well it worked with me including anecdotes connected with each correct answer. I was also relieved that, once again, the cough didn't interrupt the talk.

I am very pleased with this quiz and I can now set about marketing it for special events, perhaps even annual lunches and dinners where they don't usually book a speaker.

Public Speaking Tip #104: Your list of available titles should include something different such as a quiz so that you can be booked for a wider range of engagements.

There's a bit of extra setting up to do with a quiz and I really must thank the lady who acted as Speaker Hostess for distributing papers, pens, etc, leaving me free to concentrate on my notes.

All in all, a very pleasant end to the year's bookings.


View Article  Simply Remembering
My Mother

Five years ago today, on 18 December 2002, my mother Jenny Walker died aged 61.

Like me, Mum was a writer and speaker. As a writer, she produced very funny comic verse as well as more serious poetry. She was also a great anecdotalist. As a speaker (unlike me) she needed no presentation skills training before she started getting up in front of audiences. She had a very natural, friendly manner which drew people to her, combined with a phenomenal ability to find the humour in any situation despite having had such a difficult life (a popular talk of hers was called At Least My Smile's Not Broken!) It's true that she was self-conscious about her numerous disabilities, especially as many of her talks in her final years were delivered from a wheelchair, but she loved public speaking so much that even when she was extremely ill, she would frequently discharge herself from hospital for a couple of hours to honour a booking!

As part of the eulogy I delivered at her funeral, I read some of the many glowing, unsolicited testimonials she received from her speaking engagements.

I have been thinking about a phrase that Earl Spencer used in his eulogy for his sister Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, described by Ronald Reagan's speechwriter Peggy Noonan in her book On Speaking Well as the greatest speech of the 1990s. At the time, the sections which got the most media attention were, of course, the barbed comments about how Diana 'needed no royal title' and 'we, your blood family' but when I watched that service on the television, there was another line which absolutely leapt out at me because it was so simple yet remarkably moving:

'We want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult'.

Five years since my mother's passing, this perfectly sums up how I still so often feel.

Public Speaking Tip #101: However much we may like to show off our vocabularies, sometimes it is the simplest phrases which can be the most effective.


View Article  A nice bit of splutter!

Three Legged Cross WI Christmas Meeting

I thought I was doing so well avoiding the cough that most of the country seems to have come down with in recent weeks but it caught up with me a couple of days after my last talk. I expected that I would at least be getting better as my booking to speak to Three Legged Cross Women's Institute last Wednesday approached but the cough hadn't loosened at all. I mentioned in one of the first posts in this blog about cancelling a booking through ill-health earlier in the year but I decided that in the case of this one, I would go ahead with it. The reason was that this was a special meeting: a Christmas party with guests, a meal and then the WI putting on some entertainment of their own as well. My talk, being humorous, was an important part of the schedule and had been advertised for months. I also figured that many of the members would have the bug, or would be getting over it, so I would not be alone!

Public Speaking Tip #97: If you have been booked with a special event in mind, you should do your utmost to honour it unless cancellation really is unavoidable.

My state of health made me a little sluggish, with the result that I narrowly missed the bus i needed so I then had to catch a different one to Ferndown and, from there, take a taxi out to  Three Cross. The cabbie was very charming but unfortunately lacked a) a knowledge of the geography of a village a mere 5 miles from where he is based and b) any comprehension of the English concept of a Village Hall. But we did arrive just in time for the start of the meeting. I had been reading local newspaper items about this WI's meetings for years but this was the first time I had spoken to them. There were 28 there, including guests from a number of other local Institutes.

Sure enough, I was hit by coughing fits almost as soon as my talk started and had to do a fair amount of recapping so I could continue the stories which had been so rudely interrupted - by me! This was a two-lozenge talk (I have never had that before!) but the ladies were very patient and I got through it in the end.

Towards the end, I had mentioned a talk which I had done in Weston-super-Mare nearly a decade earlier and I saw somebody at the back whispering to her neighbour. Afterwards, she came up and said 'I thought I'd seen you somewhere before!' It turned out that she had been there that day.

Public Speaking Tip #98: A successful presentation can be remembered for many years afterwards.

After a nice meal, a number of the members performed a playlet about the meaning of Christmas and another read a humorous, topical poem. There is a tradition of ladies' groups like WIs and TGs putting on performances at this time of year but, remarkably when you consider how long I have been a speaker, I had never seen one before! This one was well thought out, looked well-rehearsed and all the participants threw themselves into it.

Despite the coughs and transport problems, I was very glad I went.

Sarum Probus


Last Friday morning, I travelled up to Salisbury City Hall to speak to Sarum Probus, a booking I got from a recommendation following a talk for a church group in Salisbury back in May. As with my talk on Wednesday, the title was Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer, it was my first time speaking to a particular audience - and my cough was no better!

On the way, I stopped to buy a Daily Telegraph in case there was anything in that morning's edition that I could refer to in my presentation (the Telegraph is virtually the 'house journal' of Probus members, in fact, I can seldom remember hearing any other paper mentioned!)


Public Speaking Tip #99: Linking some part of your content to a current news item gives it more topicality, especially if you have chosen a publication or website which you know to be widely-read amongst your audience.

At least with this one, I was including a recording of a sketch so that at least saved my voice for 3 minutes but once again, it was a two-lozenge job punctuated by coughing fits. Nevertheless, I got through the hour plus questions that they had asked for at this very friendly and responsive Probus.

The Rotary Club of Crowborough

My cough still hadn't improved by yesterday morning but I managed to get through a great deal of writing in the morning and early afternoon, completing a 600-word article for the Radio Magazine as well as putting together original comedy prep material for radio presenters before setting off for an after dinner engagement in East Sussex for Crowborough Rotary Club.

The trains at Bournemouth and Woking were on time but a service being delayed by just 4 minutes at Clapham Junction meant that I missed my connection from East Croydon. Speaker Secretary David Peacock phoned me and with some much-needed alternative suggestions and after yet another change, this time at Oxted, I still managed to get in at Crowborough by 18.30. David's wife Veronica is a newspaper sub-editor and on the way, we traded stories of amusing misprints and ambiguous headlines (this kind of 'found humour' has been a popular item in talks about my work ever since I started giving them and also features in my booklet 'Nick R's in a Twist! )

Public Speaking Tip #100: If you come across an unintentionally humorous item in print, such as a funny misprint or a bizarre story reported by a paper in a strait-laced fashion, or perhaps overhear something funny, make a note of it with a view to including it in a presentation. This type of real-life humour can go down very well with audiences.


The venue once again was Barnsgate Manor, where I spoke to Kingscote WI back in September. After a very good Christmas dinner, I spoke for about 40 minutes to a mixed audience of about 50. I had forewarned them about my cough (in a humorous way, as with my previous two engagements) and I had my lozenges and water to hand, as well as playing the popular sketch recording as part of the presentation in order to rest my voice for a couple of minutes, but I managed to avoid a coughing fit this time. The talk went very well and I received a very complimentary vote of thanks and sold a decent number of booklets. A really good evening and I have now spoken to clubs in three different Rotary districts.I must thank David and Veronica Peacock for driving me back to Eridge to ensure that I caught the 21.51 from there. The journey home was a lot less fraught and I didn't have to spend two legs of it crammed into a 'standing room for sardines only' carriage!

View Article  If it ain't broke you could still improve it!
Hythe Probus

On Wednesday 5 December, I set off to speak to the Probus Club of Hythe near Southampton. I always seem to have travel problems when they book me. Last June, I arrived in Southampton very early and, as it was a lovely, sunny morning, I had planned to travel across to Hythe by ferry. Unfortunately, it was such a lovely, hot day that by 9.30am the boat had seized up in the heat and wasn't running! The Speaker Secretary drove all the way around to fetch me and still managed to get me there for the start of the meeting - much to the relief of their new President.

This time around, there was no chance of me wanting to go by ferry because the weather, as forecast, was terrible, so I was being picked up from Southampton station but my lift was delayed by 25 minutes due to traffic problems. Clive, the new Speaker Secretary, and Joe, the Treasurer, eventually arrived and turned out to be great characters.

We reached the golf club in good time and I set up ready for the Groucho Marx talk. This was another Probus 'Ladies Day' and, with guests, the audience numbered about 65.

I had now delivered this talk more than 20 times over the previous 18 months and had decided to rewrite my notes before this latest booking; not radically, just mainly altering the points at which certain quotations and anecdotes on a similar theme were included in order to improve the structure. The result was that this was easily the best version of this presentation that I have done. The room was very warm but so was the audience's reception! Everyone stayed awake and the humour got a great response.

Public Speaking Tip #96: Even if a presentation you deliver on a regular basis goes very well, the content does not have to be 'set in stone'. You can still experiment with the order of material, add or omit sections or simply reword some parts for greater effect. A beneficial alteration may even occur to you many years after you first started giving a successful presentation!

I had another good Christmas lunch (my second in three days!) and really enjoyed the company at our table. Afterwards, Clive and Joe ran me back to Southampton.


View Article  Any requests?

Waterford Probus

Last Monday, I made a return visit to Waterford Probus near Christchurch to give a talk entitled Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer Part 2 (Part 1 having been delivered back in March 1999!)

I arrived in good time and my setting up included testing the tape player which I would be using to play a recording of a comedy sketch. I familiarised myself with the volume, controls, etc.

Public Speaking Tip #92: Before you are introduced, thoroughly familiarise yourself with any equipment which you will be using as part of your presentation, especially if someone else is supplying it; they may be on hand to give you any help you might need.

When this was done, I chatted over coffee with some members of the club. One gentleman mentioned that he had always been interested in the concept of humour in business. Now, I do have a presentation called The Power of Humour in Business which I normally deliver for corporate audiences but this wasn't my subject today. However, I could see that mentioning a little about this in my talk would be a useful 'bridge' into some of the prepared material, so when I came to speak, I mentioned my discussion with this chap, talked a little about business humour and then carried on into the planned stories which flowed naturally from this. The result was that it tailored this part of my presentation to this particular group as well as adding a touch of spontaneity among some stories which I have told many times elswhere.

Public Speaking Tip #93: Talking to members of your audience before your presentation can produce ideas which may be incorporated into your material to give it more local relevance and structure - if you can include them at short notice without throwing you off your script or overrunning.  

As I have mentioned, this was a Part 2 but it was inevitable that some bits of Part 1 would have to be repeated for the presentation to make sense. There were many people there who would not have been present for my first one or would not remember details from a talk the best part of a decade earlier! But these repetitions were kept to a minimum and most of my 50 minutes was new to this particular club.

Public Speaking Tip #94: If an organisation rebooks you to further develop a topic you have spoken to them about already, you will have to repeat some of the earlier material for the sake of recapping, etc. Just keep this repetition to a minimum.

I did experience one minor problem during my talk. The club had provided a small lectern on the table which had a thin bar across the bottom to hold speakers' written materials. I was using single word 'notes' so these were contained in one sheet of A4 which, due to the thin bar and polished wood, occasionally flew off onto the table. It wasn't too distracting but I decided that if I am likely to be using a single sheet on a lectern again, I will either attach it to a clip-board or take a large clip to fix it to the lectern itself.

Public Speaking Tip #95: We cannot always foresee every minor problem which might occur at a speaking engagement; all we can do is learn from them and try to prevent them from happening again, often through the introduction of some very simple solutions.

The talk was very well received by a decent-sized audience (wives and other guests made the numbers up to around 60) and there was a good question and answer session afterwards.

One of the perks of speaking in December is that on top of being paid and selling my booklets, I am also a guest for a number of enjoyable Christmas lunches and dinners! It was a good meal at the Waterford Lodge Hotel and I discovered that the Speaker Secretary, Norman Maton, and his wife Heather, are the parents of a fellow Scout who was with me on a disastrous camping expedition at Pamphill in Dorset in 1974! Sometimes public speaking can seem like a form of Friends Reunited (hardly surprising when you consider that I speak to up to 5,000 people each year).

My thanks to Norman and Heather for going out of their way to run me into Christchurch afterwards.

View Article  The wrong way to close
Credible content

Last Sunday afternoon, I was shopping in my local supermarket (oh, it's an exciting life!). It was packed but I was pleased to note that the announcements requesting shoppers to make their way to the checkouts didn't start until 3.45pm. On one occasion last year. once again on a Sunday, this announcement came just after 3.30 - and this was in mid-summer, not the crowded run-up to Christmas. Two things struck me at the time; firstly, how relieved I was not to be a shareholder in a company whose staff were not even telling their customers to complete their final purchases but actually trying to drive them to the tills nearly half an hour before closing time! And secondly, how all of us in the store simply ignored what we knew to be a quite ridiculous announcement and just carried on with our shopping!

Public Speaking Tip #91: The message and the messenger must have some credibility if they are to make any impact.

The best example I can think of regarding somebody distracting from their own message through a lack of credibility is in the building where I live. We have very few rules here, all of them perfectly reasonable, but a number of owners and tenants persistently ignore them. The Residents' Association puts up notices from time to time but to little avail. I can't help wondering if at least one or two members of the intended audience for these communications would take them a little more seriously if they weren't signed with the badly punctuated abbreviation:

'From the Residents Ass'

Oh dear!


 
This Month
December 2007
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31
Login
User name:
Password:
Remember me 
Directories and Feeds
My BlogCatalog BlogRank" >Blog Catalog
Blog Directory" >Blog Dirs
BlogElites.com" >Blog Elites
Blog Directory" >BlogFlux
Blog Directory" >Bloggapedia
blog search directory" >Bloggernity
blog directory" >Bloggernow
Blogger Talk Blog Forum" >Blogger Talk Forum
Blogging Fusion Blog Directory" >Blogging Fusion
Blog Directory" >Blog Hub
BlogsByCategory.com" >Blogs by Category
Blog Search: The Source for Blogs" >Blog-Search
Review My Site" >Blogs for Small Business
Business" >Blog Toplist
RSS Directory" >Feed Boy
Public Speaking Training directory" >FreeIndex
View Nick R Thomas's profile on LinkedIn" >LinkedIn
On our way to 1,000,000 rss feeds - millionrss.com" >Million RSS
Blog Search, Blog Directory" >myblog2u
Free Blog Directory" >Super Blog Directory
Top Resources blogs" >Top Blog Area
Top Blog Sites" >Top Blog Site
Who links to me?" >WhoLinksToMe