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.