Kings Hill Active Retirement Association (KINARA)

Two days after speaking in Hereford, I was off on my travels again, this time back to Kent. My talk was for the Kings Hill Active Retirement Association (KINARA) which is part of the KentARA.

There are more than 80 of these Active Retirement Associations in the county and they all have names made up of their location followed by the letters ARA, for example, the first one I ever spoke to was at Bearsted near Maidstone (BEARA) in November 2001 - a great crowd! -  and I have been booked by a number of others since then. I have found that they are always extremely well-attended and, like all Kent audiences, highly responsive to humorous talks.

I travelled by rail to Victoria then changed for West Malling from where I had been asked to take a taxi out to the Kings Hill Community Centre. The event was their Annual General Meeting and I was due to speak afer the tea break following the business. I arrived in good time and quietly entered the hall for the last few minutes of the AGM before the break.

I started speaking at 3.15pm on My Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer. I had been asked to do 45 minutes and (if I say so myself), I timed this perfectly - the cassette I had been using to record the talk ended exactly as the audience started to applaud after I had finished! My hearing was still muffled and I was persecuted by a rogue lapel mic which seemed to produce screeching feedback at the slightest movement but it went well judging by the material I had to leave out if I was to accommodate all the laughter and not overrun.

Just one thing, though: although there were 118 present, I only sold 4 booklets! (Compare this with Hereford two days earlier where there were 250 attending and I sold 70). But then there was also a very low take-up of the free Twelve Tips for terrified Speakers leaflets and I think this can be put down to the AGM. The audience had sat through a very long meeting on a hot afternoon and it was now 4pm and I think many of them wanted to get away, especially as it was the school holidays and some of them would have had grandchildren staying with them. The announcements and discussions had included details of a number of forthcoming excursions and their prices and I think this perhaps made the retired audience consider their expenditure. And I'm not sure whether annual subs were paid at this meeting but, if so, this would have been another factor.

Public Speaking Tip #203: Sometimes the length or content of a business meeting can have a direct effect on your presentation, either in terms of having to cut it short or the audience leaving straight afterwards so there is very little chatting, merchandising or giving away literature. It is perhaps something to bear in mind when accepting an offer to speak at an AGM but it can, in theory, happen at any event.

But although I am very proud of Nick R's in a Twist! and I want people to read it (and, of course, the extra income is welcome too!), the talk was the reason to be there and that went well. I must thank KINARA's Speaker Co-ordinator Mary Castle who gave me a lift back to West Malling and described some of the sights of this attractive and historic small town which contrasts sharply with the modern estate in which the Kings Hill Community Halls are situated.

My ear was giving me problems yet again on the train back to Bournemouth but I was fortunate in that it was never actually runny during any of these last four talks (I think the motion of trains and coaches seemed to set it off!)