After Eight (and not the mint)

News Round up a bit like John Craverns legendary children’s TV news programme but without the now so awful jumpers.

It seems unbelievable that the last week has flown by so quickly, as you will recall I was planning to present my first speech from the communicating on television manual at the Berkhamsted speakers club last Tuesday, however for the first time everI had to cry off due to being slightly under the weather which was very disappointing. If you were hoping to see a transcript of my speech you will have to log in next Wednesday.

Thankfully, I was fit and well by Monday and able to attend the advance Toast Masters speakers club Cornerstone Communicators, where I delivered my speech “After eight (and not the mint)”.

I thought that I would kill two speech opportunities with one stone (speech), using Monday night as a practice run for the Berkhamsted Speakers after dinner competition on the following night.

With seven entries for the competition I was not expecting to win which is just as well as I did not, but to be fair that are some remarkable speakers at Berkhamsted toast masters and the trial run from the previous night proved to be extremely useful.

It was nice to receive an email suggesting that I should have been placed but the truth is there can only be one winner and I am just learning a new skill which just needs a bit of fine tuning.

So what is ahead, possibly a minor speaking roll at the Cornerstone Charter meal on Friday evening if the club president arrives late, and then we start of where we started with next Tuesday.

I am sure there are some more possible speaking opportunities at 4N Business Breakfast Networking which I should be exploring but I need to ensure that I have a good theme and I am sure you will agree speaking about Tax can put many people back to sleep, however there is a thread and with a bit of thought it will definitely come to me before I know it.

For those of you who missed my speech here is the transcript I look forward to hearing your comments.

After Eight (and not the mint)

This is the scenario you have attended a lovely meal with colleagues and friends and then the host for the evening stands up to introduce the name of the after dinner speaker.....That person is you.

When you were asked several weeks back to say a few words it sounded such a good idea, but a couple of days before hand the realisation set in and you started to appreciate the difficulty of your task...and you’re not even doing this for money
An after dinner speech is in some ways very different to that of a normal presentation the guests will have had one hopes a fine meal and several glasses of wine, and now they want to sit back and be entertained.

Your first hurdle of the evening is a simple one how are you going to entertain them. You could tell them about the time you put salad cream on your pudding at school by accident. That joke you tell so well, if you could only remember the punch line. And don’t forget to then tell them a heart breaking story about a man from somewhere who overcame a personal tragedy and through hope and determination became a much stronger person.

You see it wasn`t that difficult was it?

Did I mention the fear, the dry mouth the sweaty hands the shaking that desperate need to visit the little room.

But what is FEAR every time we get ourselves into a situation where we need to “Fight or Flight” a pair of small endocrine glands just above the kidneys secrete a powerful hormone that pumps it way through our blood stream raising our heart rate and causing a face to go red.... that hormone is Adrenaline.

You see it wasn`t that difficult was it?

Did I mention the heckler?

Although you are unlikely to encounter such a situation its always a good idea to be prepared for the drunk at the back of the room who is bitter and twisted because he was not asked to be in your shoes right now, and because he knew that he could not have delivered such an entertaining speech.

However, he has started heckling what are you going to do, ignore him smile pause and continue, but you feel the need to say something, “Thank you” this should keep you on the moral high ground and prevents a slanging match incurring.

He continues you need to say something the audience are fed up with him, don`t try to be a comedian it is unlikely to work, you could however try something like “I really should ask my dad to stop coming to hear me speak” and smile. Always SMILE, hopefully this will get you some laughter and empathy from your audience.

I recently read this exchange of words between Bessie Braddock and Winston Churchill

“Winston, you are drunk, and what’s more, you are disgustingly drunk.”

Churchill: “Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. And tomorrow morning at least I shall be sober.”

You see it wasn`t that difficult was it? WAS IT?