My old London buddy Christian Heilmann (who I caught up with in Sydney last year) has a great blog post up about public speaking for women. Christian was one of three speakers at this event designed to encourage more women to get out there and do more public speaking. He’s put up details about the event, including some slide decks and audio recordings. I’m more confident with public speaking than most, and I attribute a lot of that to being on the Speech team in high school. I also get regular practice at Guild meetings (where I have to lead 30+ people for two hours); Guild presentations (I’m taking my “Welcome to the Knitternet” talk on the road to Kiama next weekend); and teaching the occasional knitting class. One of my goals for the Guild this year is to get more members comfortable with speaking and presenting. It’s good for them personally, plus it also furthers my goal of preparing an army of knitters to take over the Guild. (MWAHAHAHA!) So if you’re a woman and you’re nervous about standing up in front of a group of your peers, hit up Christian’s site and watch his presentation. You’re gonna need it, sooner or later.
Category: Talks
Posts about public speaking, or based on talks I’ve given
-
Roald Dahl Presentation
I just realised that I completely forgot to tell you how it went! Two weeks ago I headed off to Willoughby Public School, where my nephew Kurt is a third grader. They’ve been studying Roald Dahl lately, and Kurt had showed his class my website. His teacher got excited and invited me to come give a talk. So I whipped up a little presentation and brought along some of the rare items from my Dahl collection. The kids were great, listening attentively and asking really good questions. (Third graders do fidget a lot though!) They were really excited that I got to visit Gipsy House and meet Liccy Dahl. I gave them a collective present of some Dahl-themed board games I was given by the manufacturer, and I lent their teachers a few books and movies. A very sweet little boy had evidently been nominated as the official “thanker,” and he presented me with a card and a W.P.S. pen and coffee mug. Sweet! At the end of the hour, one little girl asked if she could email me a story she’d written about Roald Dahl. “Sure,” I said. “Your teacher can give you my email address.” That set off a chorus of “Me too! Me too!” The teacher looked at me questioningly. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” “It’s fine,” I assured her. The next day I had more than 20 emails in my Inbox. (Whoops.) Overall it was a lot of fun, and I’m really grateful that they invited me. I may have to do it again next year!