Milton Green Women's Institute

I mentioned New Milton Community Centre in my last post and I was back there on 7 April when I spoke to Milton Green WI about Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Wits, a talk which was followed by a good question and answer session about comedy and humour generally. This was the first time I had spoken to them since July 2001 and they told me that in recent times, one of the other afternoon WIs in the town had folded so I was pleased to see that this Institute still met.

Afterwards, I was talking to one of their members who turned out to be involved with the National Executive and we had a very useful discussion about possible opportunities for teaching on training courses for WI members. What is interesting about this is that there were only 17 at the meeting and yet they included someone with this connection. I have written before about how rewarding small audiences can be and this was another example.

I once read that early on in their careers, the British comedy double act Hale and Pace were performing at the Edinburgh Fringe. One night they discovered that only 4 people had come to their show (not that unusual for the Fringe, as anyone who has been there will know). They were very tempted to cancel and give these punters their money back but decided that the show must go on. Of those 4 audience members, it turned that 3 were producers, including Alan Nixon who went on to produce their highly successful TV series!

Public Speaking Tip #191: Don't be put off by small audiences - you never know who might be amongst them!

In the days following this talk, I set about preparing for what would be my biggest and most far-flung engagement for quite some time...