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.