The Rotary Club of Locks Heath

On 29 April I spoke about My Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer to a mixed audience of around 45 at the Rotary Club of Locks Heath who met at the Holiday Inn atTitchfield in Hampshire.

There was a little bit of comedy before I even got there. When I met their Speaker Secretary John Hopwood at Swanwick station I intended to greet him with 'Mr Hopwood?' but as I extended my hand, I stepped off a kerb that I hadn't realised was there so it actually came out as 'Mr Hop-whoops!' It's the sort of thing that happens to me but if he noticed, he was too polite to mention it.

It was a good dinner and they were an excellent, attentive audience. I spoke for around 50 minutes and there was a very good question and answer session afterwards. A bonus was that my ear problem was clearing up so I could actually hear myself again!

Booklet sales were very good and one member who bought one told me that he had been to the folk festival at Cropredy. I had certainly heard of this because I am a huge fan of one of the group Fairport Convention's founder members, Ashley Hutchings, who is not only a great songwriter and musician but also an impressive exponent of the spoken word. The Rotarian told me that a new, award-winning young band had been booked to play to the 22,000 crowd at the festival - and discovered when they got there that they had forgotten to bring their CDs to sell! I once forgot to take my booklets to a talk with an excellent audience of 150 and I was pretty gutted so I cannot begin to imagine how they must have felt.

So I thought it might be a good idea to give you an example of the typical checklist of items which I take along to my speaking engagements nowadays:

Paperwork relating to the booking with details of times, venue address, fee, etc. (If I am required to take a taxi to the venue, I now get the postcode in advance as I have recently found that so many cabbies seem to be lost without satnavs!)

Contact details in case of delays (and these should include those for the venue just in case the person who booked me has already left home and is not available on their mobile)

Map of venue location

Timetable details for trains, etc

Mobile phone

My props (in my case, things I hold up!)

My notes

Spare paper or card for revising notes

Pen with thick, black ink for clarity if I do alter my notes

Materials for readings

A newspaper (preferably a local one) just in case there is anything topical that I can bring into my presentation

Fob-watch (not all venues have clocks. This watch has a large, visible face when set down on the table in front of me)

Recorder to tape talk (with working batteries!) and cassette

Any recordings I might be playing as part of the presentation

Booklets to sell (with permission)

Free handouts

Leaflets with details of my talks for those who wish to recommend me for other events

Engagements diary (some organisations may want to re-book you on the spot!)

Bottled water (for venues where I know there are no refreshments facilities although this is rare)

(These next two are going to sound a bit 'girlie' but they are useful):

Small compact mirror for checking my appearance just before I speak

Concealer (I have always had skin problems and I don't want to be self-conscious. I rarely use this but when I do it's really no different from an actor wearing make-up, albeit just in one small area!)

Something to read if there is a long business meeting before I am due to speak (the speaker is not always allowed in the same room for this - in some cases the rules of an organisation forbid outsiders being present!)

And finally, an invoice book (I'll explain about this in more detail later).

Public Speaking Tip #209: Make a checklist of all the items you need for your presentation in terms of
a) getting to the venue and preparing
b) delivering the material and
c) any business afterwards.

Now, about that invoice book. There are some organisations who you expect to be slow payers. Local authorities tend to pay the following month for speakers at training days, arts festivals, etc. Government departments may take longer - up to three months. I have also read of agencies who book speakers taking months to pay them but I have to say that (touchwood!) whenever I have invoiced a speaker bureau, I have always been paid within a week or so, sometimes by return of post. Large corporations can be very slow paying although ICL-Fujitsu paid me admirably quickly for the training days where they booked me as a guest speaker, I also found the BBC to be pretty quick payers during the 12 years that I wrote for them, despite their being such a huge organisation, but I wrote scripts for many years for a breakfast show DJ on a commercial radio station owned by a major media group whose accounts department were notoriously slow; in one case, I had to wait four months for my money.

Public Speaking Tip #210: When working on a self-employed basis for larger organisations, always try to find out beforehand what their their schedules are as these can vary widely.

But in the case of the smaller clubs and societies I speak to, payment is on the day or, very occasionally, sent by post just afterwards. Women's Institutes have a form with a tear-off receipt which the speaker fills in (although I think I have only once been asked to do this in over 100 talks for them!) and they pay you there and then. Other organisations ask you to sign a receipt and do the same.

But...

A couple of years ago, I spoke to a Probus club in mid-Hampshire. The talk went very well (despite my being booked to do The Power of Humour in Everyday Life but then being introduced as a speaker about My Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer so that I had to make a rapid switch!)

Afterwards, their Treasurer said that they normally paid speakers on the day but he had forgotten the cheque book. Oh well, I thought, he'll go home and write one out and post it on to me. It was a little annoying as I had hoped to pay it into the bank before leaving the city that day (there's a bit more of a clue as to where this was!) and I couldn't really see why this fairly modest amount couldn't be paid to me in cash and then they could sort it out later but I reluctantly accepted that I would have to wait another day or so and have to make a later trip to the bank. But no, he told me that I would now have to write out an invoice and post it to his home address! I did this and you might think that, as the delay was his fault not mine, the matter would be dealt with rapidly. It actually took several more days for the cheque to arrive...sent by second class post! I think this was treating me almost with contempt and if that club ever wants to book me again, I will find out if that particular Jobsworth is still their Treasurer before committing to another booking with them.

Public Speaking Tip #211: Take an invoice book with you to speaking engagements so that delays in payment can be minimised.

But back to the Rotary club of Locks Heath - who paid me on the night with no problems! I had a super evening and very much enjoyed speaking to Mr Hopwood about his many years of performing with the St Cross Drama Group.

Personalised speechwriting commissions

There was no sitting back and relaxing after the Hereford and Kent talks as I had two speechwriting commissions to complete over the weekend. I am delighted that this website and blog are producing this kind of work and these two speeches, one for a golf captain and one for a Best Man, added a couple more to the list of countries where speeches I have written have been delivered, although the speakers themselves were from the UK. 

My approach differs from that of some other speechwriters and I make no apology for this. They compile speeches consisting of wall-to-wall one-liners which certainly get laughs but seem hollow and lacking in personalisation or meaning. There is also the likelihood that many of those present will have heard at least some of these gags before which further detracts from the feeling of a tailored speech.

I prefer to write speeches which are similar to those I deliver myself i.e. consisting of genuinely amusing anecdotes with the minimum of embellishment. These are enlivened by humorous observations and asides and some original (often topical) jokes. There may be occasions when a 'classic' old gag may fit but usually the only older items I include will be quotations - and even these will not always be the most well-known. The result has been a succession of extremely well-received speeches and glowing testimonials over the past 13 years, which (when you consider that a speechwriter is not writing for a trained, professional performer) just goes to show the power of humorous content with some substance: the speaker feels more positive about delivering it and the audience gets more from listening to it.

Public Speaking Tip #204: Personalised humour based around short but funny anecdotes will always be more meaningful and memorable than trying to crowbar in a load of one-liners that are doing the rounds - especially in an age where so many jokes are now circulating among huge numbers of people through emails, text messages etc.

Of course, in order for me to write this sort of personalised speech, I do need to have adequate background information to work with and I was pleased that the clients I was writing these speeches for had provided me with excellent details of the personalities they wished to mention, anecdotes to rewrite into their funniest form, etc.

Sadly, this isn't always the case. Two years ago, I was asked by a client living in a 'millionaire's playground' to script two 5-minute speeches, one for a function where he was being made a life member of a sporting club which he had been associated with for decades and another for his 70th birthday celebrations. The first event was four months way and the second two months after that but he said he wanted both speeches within six weeks. I told him that I would need background information, anecdotes, etc. For the sporting event, he simply sent a list of the victories he had been associated with, details which his audience would already be well aware of; to simply recount them would have sounded like bragging. For his 70th birthday party I got even less to work with: just his date of birth!

With just days to go before the deadline, I emailed him begging for some (any!) info. He replied that he had no anecdotes that were repeatable and that I should suggest some - as if I had lived his life for him! I spent hours on the net trying to find out anything about him or his club that I could use but it was hopeless. The deadline arrived (still two months before the first speech was due and four before the second) and he emailed to say that it was all too late now and impatiently demanded a refund. I made what I believe was a perfectly justifiable deduction for the huge amount of time I had spent trying to research some background because of his refusal to provide any. Fortunately, I have never had a case like this before or since.

Public Speaking Tip #205: I am assuming that many readers of this blog will write their own speeches, presentations, etc, but if you do use the services of a professional speechwriter then give them the best chance to do the best job for you by providing them with adequate information to work with. If you are going to invest money to get a bespoke script then you should also invest some time to think about relevant details for the writer to utilise. You will find that it is well worth the effort.

The Best Man's speech I was finishing was actually a Best Men's speech - a two-hander. These are not uncommon and can work very well. The trick is for both speakers to have an equal share of stories regarding the groom that are relevant to them, an equal division of laughs plus, of course, the more serious content, formalities, etc. And unlike a longer, two-handed presentation, it doesn't matter so much if this sounds scripted - a wedding is, after all, a formal occasion.

Public Speaking Tip #206: Two-handed speeches, such as for Best Men at a wedding, can be very effective if the content is shared equally. Resist the temptation to have a 'Straight Man - Comedian' double act!

I had been asked to write enough for the two speakers to be on their feet for 10 minutes but I was provided with such good background information that I was able to write enough for 15 (I always write more than I am asked for anyway; this not only gives the client better value for money but also more choice about what content to include) so I imagined that they would omit a third of it but I received an email which said:

"We went ahead with the speech...about 90% faithful to your script. It went really well".

The teamwork of good background information + a good, original, personalised script = a successful speech.