Last week saw the new "season" of garden club talks for me. I had two talks, about an hour from home, one on the Tuesday and one on the Friday.
I always get really fired up before the talks and really enjoyed both of them.
At the one talk a lady came over with some Achocha's from seed I'd given her the year before at a talk I had given. I tend to give out packets of seeds rather than a business card, I find it's something people will keep a little longer and probably think of my business when they're planting them.
Quite a few clubs have had me for my three main talks now - Unusual Fruit and Veg talks 1&2 and Preserving the harvest. I also have one that's just about us and our homestead that's quite popular. But I've decided to add another one to my repertoire - this time a talk on being as self-sufficient in fruit as possible. I'll share more information about the talk soon!
I have quite a few more talks booked in the autumn and I'm looking forward to them.
It's a small weird part of how I earn my income, but one I really enjoy. I think it's made me so much better at public speaking and improved my confidence.
Anyone else do much public speaking?
I greatly dislike public speaking though I don't mind listening to those who do public speaking. I've never been able to get over stage fright.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm being honest the first one I did I didn't sleep the night before. But when I was up there I really started to enjoy it. Now I love it and really look forward to doing them, it gives me such a buzz.
DeleteI used to work at a place where the supervisors had to start every shift with a six-minute talk to all of their employees. I had about 30 working for me, so that probably counts as public speaking.
ReplyDeleteI quickly came to realize that most people were listening all that attentively. That was a comfort. "It doesn't matter what you do or say because no one listens anyway"
Another thing that I found comforting is that the first 30 seconds of the speech was scripted with a "Safety Message" and then a flying review of the previous day's "metrics".
I remember being about 23 and having to give a toolbox talk to a load of ground workers who were not interested in being told anything about safety. Luckily I'm fairly quick qitted and had been in building long enough to have some good come backs, one started to give me mouth and I shot him down, after that I managed okay, but I was never comfortable doing it to them!
DeleteDo you tell jokes or funny gardening anecdotes during your speeches? You're a brave man.
ReplyDeleteYeah, they're full of humour. I try to make them as fun as possible - I want to enjoy giving them so I try to get a few laughs throughout the whole thing. I have the one talk down pretty good now where I know I'm going to get some laughs in the right places! I fill it with lots of stories from my childhood and the children as well. While I'm setting up I have a slideshow going which people seem to really enjoy.
Delete