Back At It For Audience New

For the first time in a long time, I gave a speech today in my Toastmasters club. I can't say how it went just yet, as I'm writing this in advance. Let's call this one of those "The Secret" things, and I'll say for now that it went very well. It's yet another of those ones where I finally got on the ball about it a day in advance when it finally began to feel real. It would feel rather strange if I were ever to give a speech that could really be said to have been prepared.

This speech comes from the beginner's manual, which I am going through for the second time. It reminds me how much I have yet to learn even in the area of the fundamentals. This particular speech concerns the use of visual aids, which I have always eschewed for fear of their ability to fail at the worst of times and to distract from the main thrust of a speech even at the best of times. I have high hopes that I will handle my visual aids well this time.

My speech concerns my ever-growing collection of VHS tapes, which I thought would provide plenty of natural opportunities to employ some visual aids. There are some reasonable pictures that I hope will not be held prisoner by my computer or by the projector it needs. There are also some tapes in the flesh that I hope people are content with looking at after the meeting instead of during the speech when it's my intention that they will be mainly looking at me.

After this speech I hope to get some momentum going again. It's long been my desire to finally get going on the leadership track of learning offered by Toastmasters, but I also would love to present myself as a speaker to the many club members who have seen me speak seldom if ever. For them, I have been to their eyes only an evaluator, a table topics speaker of a functionary. They have heard of me speaking at contests, but let this be their exposure to me as a speaker before their eyes. I do hope, given that, that I really did as well as I brashly claimed there earlier.