I delivered my second prepared speech at Farnham Speakers this week. It was a wonderful evening and Kathy Brown has written the official report which will tell you all about it!
The purpose of the #2 speech in Toastmasters is ‘Organise’. In essence: Have a strong opening and conclusion, and transition smoothly between the points in the middle.
I had two other goals based on the feedback from my first speech. Firstly, to avoid pointing at the audience (I never realised I was doing this). Secondly, to give eye contact to more of the audience (I was tending to concentrate on the first few rows only).
I enjoyed giving this speech and, like my first, did it without notes. I am glad that I have had positive feedback. Based on that, the next thing I feel I have to work on is to avoid pacing around which does not add anything to the speech. I am good with body language (this speech made it easy due to it being about physical things to a large degree) but need to accentuate it so it is not lost in the noise.
Like my first speech, I ended up cutting out a lot of material to subscribe to the ‘less is more’ principle and to allow a slower, more controlled and effective delivery of the content. However, much as I LOVE the ‘Zoe’ section it could be argued that it does not fit in with the overall theme of the speech…
What do you think?