And the results have come in faster after each audition! The 9th one brought in a call making a Council Meeting booking just a couple of weeks afterwards. The 10th led to an immediate verbal inquiry about a Group meeting which was finalised very shortly after that. After the 11th, I was handed a slip of paper with the date they wanted me for already written on it, while the 12th one resulted in a short-notice booking for a Group meeting two weeks before the actual audition, based on my credentials from other Federations!

These auditions have varied enormously. I was asked to deliver an extract from one of my 45-minute WI talks and these have ranged from 10 minutes to 30. Audience sizes have been anything from 150  to just half a dozen Committee members. The venues have sometimes been halls in remote villages, other times the WI County Headquarters in town centres. And the times have been mornings, afternoons or evenings; every County Federation has their own preferred way of running Speaker Selection Days.

But the audience is always giving feedback about the same aspects of the presentation:

Was the speaker audible?
If so, were they interesting?
And did they hold your attention throughout?
Would you book them for your WI?

There is also the little matter of affordability. At one audition, I had the slightly daunting task of following a brilliantly funny speaker about antiques who had 20 years' experience. Unfortunately, his fees were so high that he could only really be considered for the biggest County events. (Perhaps that's why he was doing it).Your fees (plus travel expenses) have to be realistic for the budgets of the individual WIs or Groups you are targeting. These are then printed in the Yearbooks if you are accepted and are fixed until the next one is published, when you can adjust them, add new talks, etc. There is usually a fee to be included in the Yearbook, generally from £5-£15 pa. For an additional sum, you can buy a copy (useful for seeing what the competition speaks about, how much they charge, etc!)

Public Speaking Tip #159: At Women's Institute Speaker Selection Days, you need to give a carefully-timed extract of an audible, consistently interesting and entertaining talk.

If you have more than one talk, choose just one and concentrate on putting across an excellent shortened version of that - do not try to mix bits of several presentations to advertise your whole range. The audience will be informed about any other titles you offer.

In 1997, I passed 6 WI speakers' auditions. I had already been successful in 3 others before this but I still learned many extremely valuable lessons from watching (or hearing about) some of the other speakers and these should be of interest, whether you wish to speak to WIs or not.

At one audition here in the South, I was given a lift by a member who was still fuming about a speaker she had heard that morning. His  presentation was supposed to be about Hollywood in its golden era but had consisted more of salacious stories about the film stars. And he punctuated these with comments like 'But we know differently, don't we, girls?' to the 150 women present!

Public Speaking Tip #160: Do not insult an audience with lowest common denominator material and patronising comments.

An evening audition in front of an audience of about 30 in the HQ of a Federation in the Home Counties produced some fascinating insights, despite all of us only being given 10 minutes of 'stage time'.

There was a couple who gave a talk about shire horses. Now obviously they couldn't bring one of these magnificent beasts up the stairs in WI House so they did the next best thing by dressing in horse traders' gear and speaking in front of a backdrop of horseshoes, etc.

But what struck me most was the effectiveness of their 'double act' presentation. Two speakers, one male, one female, different voices, different styles, different aspects of a topic.

(In later years, when I was teaching my Stage 2 Public Speaking evening classes, I asked my students to prepare and deliver two-handed presentations. Once they agreed on topics, I was amazed at how quickly they were able to put these together and how fluent their delivery was).

Public Speaking Tip #161: A two-handed presentation has numerous advantages for both the speakers and the audience.

For the speakers:

It takes some of the pressure off (provided you are not worrying too much about what the other speaker will be like!);

There is less material for each speaker to learn and work on;

Different areas of a topic can be delegated.

The speakers can work around differing abilities, for example one might be more adept with Powerpoint whereas the other could be better at delivering humour.

The speakers can adopt different 'characters' - ideal for humour.


For the audience:

They hear different voices;

They hear different speaking styles;

They look at different speakers;

The topic is broken up for them.


Just one word of warning: take care that the presentation doesn't sound too scripted!

And the two of you will have to split the fee - but then you're only doing half the work!

There was a chap who spoke in a very relaxed way about wine-making (and I do mean relaxed - not inebriated!) He was in his shirt sleeves and jeans and I was struck by just how appropriate this was for the sometimes messy activity he was describing. I'm sure that if he was asked to speak at a lunch or dinner, he would dress more formally but what he was wearing seemed perfectly OK for this talk, especially as he seemed so at ease.

(The following year, I spoke at my first-ever literary festival, the sadly now defunct Grayshott and Hindhead event. On a sweltering September day, I turned up in a jacket, tie, etc, only to find the other writers wandering around in shirt sleeves. Nowadays, I wear a suit or black tie when I am speaking at formal occasions but for other bookings not involving a meal, I usually dress like a writer giving a talk ie smart casual).

Public Speaking Tip #162: Dress appropriately for your subject and the setting. A formal occasion demands formal wear from everyone but for other talks, whilst a suit might be appropriate if you are speaking about, say, a financial subject, something more casual might look right for a practical subject (especially if it involves messy demonstrations!)

There was a lady who spoke about a very worthy subject: child carers. She described the work of a charity which supported children who look after disabled parents. At one stage she mentioned the jaw-dropping fact that the youngest child carer on their books was only 5 years old - and then immediately went on to speak about some other aspect of the charity. Now, even with only 10 minutes allocated, wasn't a stunning fact like that, a 5 year-old child caring for disabled parents, crying out for a little more detail (which could have been given without disclosing any confidential information)? Wouldn't it have made the whole presentation more effective?