In the meantime, what’s an unemployed comic to do? Go back to College or University, I suppose. So, I did just that! Toastmasters puts on a, ‘SpeechCraft’, every year for the pharmacy students at U of S. No one can graduate from the program without first passing our ‘Public Speaking’ course; that alone guarantees a certain level of enthusiasm!
I’d helped at U of S each of the past two years, so, this year, when asked to help at Kelsey College, with a similar program for ‘Veterinarian Techs’, I said, “Sure!” “But”, I stipulated, “if you want me to do a presentation, I want lots of advance notice.” So, about a month in advance, I was told that they’d like me to do a ten minute presentation on, “How to give a proper introduction.”
Of course, four days before the university course commenced, I got a call. They were short people. Could I come and help out? Of course I could, but asked that, if they wanted anything elaborate from me, I be given a little notice as to what that might be. They agreed. I, having heard nothing, showed up. It was a great bunch of students, both prepared and enthusiastic. We took a break after the first hour, and it was then that they asked me to do a ten minute presentation on the, ‘Effective Use of Space and Body Language’. Great! That gave me, in between my bouts of evaluating 3rd year students, an hour and a half to prepare.
I began, behind the lectern, by parodying a nervous speaker, for about 45 seconds. Then I ‘went off’ like a hand grenade, shouting and running around the stage. I even flung a couple chairs across stage, something I’d never done in a presentation, but, it never hurts to flesh out your repertoire! My point was that, when placed in front of an audience, we naturally tend to, ‘mute’, all our physical actions/reactions, and concentrate on the ‘words’ in our presentation. That’s fine, except for the fact that ‘words’ only convey 10% of the communication process. The other 90% is composed of your appearance, vocal variety, body language and the way you utilize the space you are given for a speaking area. Rather than muting these elements, you must amplify them, and, the larger your audience, the greater the level of amplification required. They seemed to enjoy it, but, I think the point where I switched from ‘muted’ to ‘amplified’ gave them a real coronary boost! Nobody nodded off!
My ‘gig’ at Kelsey Campus gave me a real coronary boost! I’d prepared my material for the last two weeks. I’d presented it to an audience a few days before, gauged their reaction, then went back and re-engineered it. I was happy with the result; lots of valid information and, to me just as important, lot’s of laughs! (It's the, 'Little bit of Sugar' that, 'Helps the Medicine go Down'!) I did refrain from hurling any chairs; in retrospect, that may have been my poor judgement!
I arrived at the assigned room 15 minutes early, organized my stuff and nipped into the washroom to take the pressure off. Inside I met a charming, though somewhat nervous, English chap, who informed me that he was doing a presentation on how to correctly introduce a speaker! Now, I know that, 2 is twice as nice as 1, but, to my mind, it represented a redundancy issue! I found the ToastMaster in charge; perhaps, ‘ToastMuttonHead’ would be a more appropriate appellation! It is just that type of blatant ineptitude in organization and communication that really scorches my Toast! It was about four minutes before ‘ShowTime’, and the ‘TMH’ was unaware of his double booking, but, smiled and said, “Well, let’s figure it out!” We found the other chap, and I said, “You go ahead.” The TMH thanked me, and then, found within himself, the gall to ask me to do the evaluation of the presentation? I was in hardly the mood for a kind enthusiastic appraisement, but, it wasn’t the other guy’s fault, so I said OK. I did alright; it’s a damn’d poor speaker that can’t, enthusiastically, fake an oration! It was a slice, but, I won’t be having my slice ‘scorched’ again
The rest of the day went well; I had to evaluate 6 students. That’s not hard by itself, and I really enjoyed their presentations. The difficulty is in treating all fairly and equally. You must criticise in a manner that encourages, rather than discourages. And you can’t heap praise too high on the deserving, because that contrasts too greatly with those not so much so. My last evaluation was the most fun. The young lady spent five minutes telling us how her greatest joy in life was reading books; all other diversions paled in comparison! And her favourite book of all time? ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ I had been managing to get a few laughs from the class during the afternoon; but, always try to exit on a high note.
“Megan,” I began, “I can’t tell you how much it means to me, to finally find, in a lady of your generation, someone who enjoys, as much as I do myself, a little time spent between the covers...”
I had expected a laugh here, but was amazed how it would not stop, but went on for three waves, each time starting to diminish, then, building again! I waited for a lull, then continued,
“...of a good book! And, it does my heart good to hear that you, like myself, have the highest regard for that most famous of all Mexican best sellers, ‘Tequila Mockingbird!’
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