Bournemouth East Conservative Luncheon

On 9 May, I was a guest speaker at a lunch at the Ocean View Hotel for the Bournemouth East Conservatives who were in a jubilant mood following the previous week's local elections which had seen a new local Conservative councillor elected, massive gains nationally and, of course, Boris Johnson's victory in the London mayoral race.

I have mentioned before that I do not support any party but I have often spoken at functions for Conservative Associations who like to book occasional non-political speakers. The other main parties in the UK don't appear to hold this type of event (or if they do, I have never been asked to speak at one!)

There were 66 present and the room was very warm on this muggy day. I decided to dispense with the microphone and delivered approximately 25 minutes of anecdotal material under the title The Comedy of Life. Although I was booked as a non-political speaker, being a writer of topical satire I always have material suitable for an engagement like this so I slipped in the odd line and also included some stories from my days writing for BBC radio satire shows, for example, in relation to some of the constraints on topical comedy programmes being broadcast during general election campaigns. Together with my other material, this seemed to go well.

The vote of thanks was given by their Chairman, Councillor Malcolm Davies, who got laughs with his self-effacing humour about his slightly long-winded style! Then the Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood gave a short speech, part of which was a sort of second vote of thanks for my own.

I hadn't known that he would be there so it was a real bonus to observe a Member of Parliament speak at such close quarters (two seats away) and very flattering that he made kind comments about my talk.

He is an excellent speaker and he told a very funny anecdote (once again self-deprecating) about a case of mistaken identity on a TV programme involving himelf and a famous former government minister.

Later, I reflected on the fact that in little over three weeks I had been at functions where I had heard speeches by a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, a Conservative MP, a Labour Mayor and a Conservative Councillor, each with their own distinctive style and none taking themselves too seriously.

Public Speaking Tip #215: If you become a regular public speaker at a wide variety of functions, you will have the opportunity to hear, learn from and sometimes even meet  some influential and interesting public figures.

Postcript: Here is an extract from a letter written later that afternoon by their Deputy Chairman Carolyn Dennis:

"Thank you so much for coming to address the lunch today. We thoroughly enjoyed it and it made a change to have something non-political. We will be recommending you to other people".