Slash Net

This was my first Better Speaker Series speech for earning my Toastmasters Advanced Communicator Silver award. It is also featured at the SPOTLIGHT network.  I originally delivered this speech on the 12th of March 2007.

As a little background, the Better Speaker Series is a special set of manuals designed for advanced Toastmasters to teach skills such as body language, organizing your speech, and more. They are generally scripted out for the speaker and most people simply read them aloud. Since I'm much too good for that, I decided to write my own take on the issue of dealing with fear and speaking.

This was originally a speech delivered as a Better Speaker Series presentation. As usual with these presentations, I largely ignored the scripted material, especially as I had attended an educational session at the District 56 Toastmasters conference all about crafting stories. Also submitted to the Spotlight Network.

If you’ve ever struggled to find material for a speech, this article is for you! Here you'll find tips on finding material for speeches and stories.

Some time ago, I heard a humorous speech for a contest entitled "What's Up With Up?" In it, he iterated a thousand uses of the word "up” (actual count may be slightly off). Most of these uses involved various prepositions (as my 6th grade grammar teacher taught us, prepositions are "anywhere a cat can go") attached to the word. It was really good material, and served to illustrate how complex and rich our language is. For someone who grew up lugging around the original Speak & Read and Speak & Spell, this was great.

 

This was originally a draft of a speech meant to continue the article series started by "Talking Down, At, To, With". It has been revised and expanded. In it, you'll learn a few skills for connecting better to just about any audience.

This was originally done for project #1 of the Humorous Speeches advanced manual.