Harman's Cross Village Club AGM

In January last year, I was the guest speaker at the Harman's Cross Village Club AGM in Dorset. They sent me a lovely letter afterwards and booked me to speak again at this year's event, this time with my Patrick Campbell talk.

The original idea was to have my presentation then their AGM but I arrived in Swanage later than I had planned due to a missed connection (cheers, Wilts & Dorset buses) so we did it the other way around (fortunately I was able to phone through and let them know that I would be delayed).

On the way to the village from Swanage Interchange, Eric Coburn, who kindly gave me a lift in and out, was talking about public speaking and he mentioned how he had sometimes found that when he was called upon to speak at very short notice, for example, if he was at a golf club dinner and was asked to say a few words afterwards, he found this preferable to speaking after a great deal of preparation.

This got me thinking about LAMDA Public Speaking exams - my own and those I later put my students through. These tests involved prepared speeches and an impromptu presentation a few minutes long which had to be put together from scratch in a maximum of 15 minutes including choosing the topic from a list, devising content with an introduction, body and conclusion to fit the allotted time, making the notes and mental rehearsal!

It sounds daunting but what actually happened was that there was very little difference where the examiners' scoring was concerned. I only ever seemed to drop the odd point compared with my prepared speeches and the same applied to my students (in fact one or two even got a slightly higher mark for the impromptu!)

So why should this be? Well, having such a short preparation period certainly focuses the mind! Material will probably also be kept to a minimum for fear of overrunning and because there isn't enough time to come up with an excess so the speaker just deals with the most important points. There is also less opportunity to go back and keep chopping and changing - you go with your original instincts which can sometimes be better.

For me, using a Mind Map is by far the best way to prepare a speech at extremely short notice. I blogged about this in more detail here.

Public Speaking Tip #283: An impromptu speech does not have to mean a bad one! Just use whatever limited preparation time you are given to focus on a few important points instead of panicking.

There were a similar number at the Harman's Cross Club as last year (around 45) and the Campbell talk got its usual laughs and compliments afterwards.

Back in Swanage, I went on my customary walk up to Peveril Point before the journey back to Bournemouth,