Giving a toastmaster speech

Intrigued, my non-flashaholic friend suggests I should give a speech on flashlights for our next toastmaster meeting.

Total speech time is 6 minutes with introduction, body and conclusion. Hardly enough to discuss difference between led and hot-wires, Lithiums vs alkalines, beam throw vs flood beauty, flashaholic dilemma.

The next speech would be on batteries. I think this should be interesting, there will be 'venting with flame' and little pipe bombs we carry in our pockets everyday (for those we are using unrequlated li-ions and imitation phones batteries).

Any one been there and done that?

I've never given a speech on flashlights, but have some experience in the speech arena....

Perhaps a more generalized speech on the importance of carrying a flashlight, and some of the advances (*cough* LEDs) that have made them more popular to own and use, would be a good way to discuss the subject.

For your intro, you can tell one of the priceless stories of flashlight EDC (there are many here on CPF). Or, if you are into theatrics, have someone down the lights as you get up to speak and then you can demo the importance of flashlight EDC in a way that really hits home.

yeah.. what low worm said.

Im currently in a public speaking class and our teacher wants us to join toastmasters, shes even offering to pay our dues.

But anyways.. some things I learned about giving speeches..

You've got to break it down into baby language for "normal" people

You can fart and when your done, 6 minutes is up.. that is.. if your talking about something you know/like.

I just gave a 23 minute speech on the training of EMS workers with a powerpoint and I tried to cut out every un nessesary detail.

Plan a good introduction, maybe about 1 minute long, typed in about 20 font, double spaced. and after that.. just write down key points or a rough outline you want to tell.

A good introduction might be a story that invokes fear or something to get the audience's attention.

On the subject of flashlights, it might be..

Your driving home from your nephfew's birthday party. It was a great party, and the little guy was extremley happy with all the presents he recived. He lives a few hours away from you, in the mountains. The road is narrow and poorly lit, your high beams put out barely enough light, your negotiating the turns carefully, but something is really errie about this dark narrow country road. Then.. POP! Blackness... (pause).. Your not sure what has happend.. your alive and breathing.. You feel around and figure that your still in the car, but you cant see anything.. maybe a tire blew out.. you un buckel your seat belt and manage to find the door handle, you open it, and roll out of the car down a hill. By now, you figure your in a forest, the stars are dim tonight, you can't see a thing. You have no idea where you are or where you can from.. A flashlight sure would help.. Today.. im going to tell you why it is important to always carry a flashlight on you..

(you can use that, or fix it, or throw it out.. i dont care )

You have your attention and now you can tell them whatever you want, at this point, youd be at around 1:30.. say about 5 minutes, then use the last 30 seconds or so for a conclusion that reminds the audience of your intro.

If your reading word for word, it wont seem natural. You should be prepared to answer any and all questions. And Eye contact is very important.. try to divide the room into about 3 sections.. and move your glance around those sections naturally.

Being that this is a subject you feel incredably interested in, your likely to go overtime.. practice, practice, practice by yourself, then practice in front of someone.. and have them give you tips

The type intro is toastmasters 101, as is a prepared close. I assume you are a seasoned speaker, so I won't address mechanics.

I think it's true that all of us flashaholics have given a talk or two about flashlights. I know I do it every time someone notices my EDC and wants to hear about it. Then there's the woman with the bewildered look standing in front of the flashlight display at the store. And don't forget the many, many times our poor spouses have heard us wax elequent about the latest toy that just arrived in the mail.

So, In closing, It think it's fair to say you've probably given several speeches about flashlights. They've just been more along the lines of "table topics". Oh. That's unprepared short talks of an impromptue nature for those who have not enjoyed TM.

Daniel

Here's some good info: CLICK!

Thanks for the tips. FYI I am rather new to making prepared speeches. Its tough to limit ourselves to 6 minutes talking about our beloved flashlights.

Hello Tankahn,

You could start your talk by turning off all the lights, then pulling out your EDC and simply explain that when the lights go out, you are prepared...

Tom

My suggestion is to think like a TV advertisement. Here's this widget and here's what it can do for YOU!

zespectre said:

My suggestion is to think like a TV advertisement. Here's this widget and here's what it can do for YOU!

Click to expand...

And don't forget to throw in a genuine faux pearl necklace in with each order!

SuperNinja said:

And don't forget to throw in a genuine faux pearl necklace in with each order!

Click to expand...

You get double the order if you promise to tell your friends! ((but you have to pay enormous shipping cost)

Six minutes is a lot longer than 20 minutes when it comes to speaking.
If you stuck with just LEDS you can make a lot of comparisons with the computer industry in terms of increase in power, reduction in cost and how the nuts were right.
The LED light industry is right about 1981. That's when IBM (Maglite) entered the market and made it OK to own a computer. Prior to that we were the nerds who wanted to buy binned Z-80s to make our CP/M machines run faster.
People who a year earlier wanted to know why we had spent $2500.00 on a toy were now dropping $12,000.00 on an IBM.
When the IBM hit us nerds wanted to know why they didn't use the 16 bit 8086 chip rather than the 8080 which came *after* the 8086. I suspect that no matter what Maglite does that type of question will be asked.

It probably wouldn't hurt to borrow some real-life stories (along the line's of Surefire's testimony pages) and use them as anecdotes. Or use only one (something particularily grippy and interesting), but start off the speech with it.

tankahn said:

Thanks for the tips. FYI I am rather new to making prepared speeches. Its tough to limit ourselves to 6 minutes talking about our beloved flashlights.

Click to expand...

Ahhh, new to the sport, are you?

I'd suggest picking a specific aspect of flashlights and focus on that one area. Assuming this is to be and informative speach (as opposed to inspirational, humerous, etc) you may want to use a little anectdote followed by a little history and then current state of the art, maybe ending with a little flash.

When done that way, your opening will consume 10 - 30 seconds, the anecdote will take a minute or two and the history need only be a minute or so. That leaves you a minute or two to wax elequent about your favorite EDC. Your close is usually short, under 20 seconds. Boom, you are done and have not dwelled on any particular aspect that might bore the audience.

One of the fascinating tidbits that you might consider including in the history is the origin of the word "Flashlight". A fun visual aid might be combining the light from a red and green LED to get yellow, and then adding blue to get white.



Daniel
(Sorry, writing this late at night and have not even tried to add up all those seconds and minutes. )

Why do I have a strange nagging feeling the audiences brains are going to temporarily shutdown, and refuse to absorb any details of the speech, due to prior (primitive) flashlight brainwashing/propaganda? :thinking:

And with the possible end result of the audience (primitives) secretly talking to each other about the flashlight geek, behind his back?

Toastmasters subjects tend to be boring. But I have a feeling it is going to be fun talking about flashlights with so many ideas we've got so far.

SuperNinja said:

Why do I have a strange nagging feeling the audiences brains are going to temporarily shutdown, and refuse to absorb any details of the speech, due to prior (primitive) flashlight brainwashing/propaganda? :thinking:

And with the possible end result of the audience (primitives) secretly talking to each other about the flashlight geek, behind his back?

Click to expand...

I commend you on giving speeches voluntarily. In college I put off a speech class for a couple of years and was not sure if I could ever get the courage to make it through the class. On my first speech I went blank and just stood there for what felt like 30 seconds (no sure it was really that long)until my professor was able get me back on track.

One of the most valuable lessons you learn in Toastmasters is that no one else knows when you forget a line or say something different from what you intended. The second most important is that people can not tell, in general, how nervous you are.

Fear of public speaking is a powerful thing. When I was in high school I wasted 25 hourse making a 5 minute filmed presentation to avoid having to give an oral presentation.

What you learn in Toastmasters can be invaluable. I've since addressed an auditorium full of potential customers. I would have died rather than do that before TM. I also taught one day of a college level class when the intsructor realized that I had expert knowledge of a specific area in which he was lacking. The professor said that earned me an A for the course even if I'd failed the rest of the subject.

Daniel

SuperNinja said:

Why do I have a strange nagging feeling the audiences brains are going to temporarily shutdown, and refuse to absorb any details of the speech, due to prior (primitive) flashlight brainwashing/propaganda? :thinking:

And with the possible end result of the audience (primitives) secretly talking to each other about the flashlight geek, behind his back?

Click to expand...

SuperNinja has a good point. People may shut down because of what they are used to. They think they already know everything about flashlights. As part of your speech maybe contrast what is generally considered a bright light, say a Mag 3D or 6v Eveready lantern, with an itty bitty SureFire. For everyday usability show them a Fenix L1P.

Good luck. I'm one of those people who'd rather have a root canal than speak in public

I've never heard of Toastmasters, but it sounds like I've got to do more research.

I do some public speaking, but never had any training. I work for a non-profit and I'm often trying to explain what we do and why it is worth supporting financialy. One thing that I have heard about speaking is to tell stories and use numbers together. Telling a story gets the audience personaly involved, especialy if it is a dramatic or emotion evoking tale. Using numbers (lux, lumens, runtimes) gives the audience a sence of scale/scope.

IE. "We helped this person this way....We have this many locations...and help this many people every year through our programs..."

I'd probably also give the audience some facts/figures about Mag vs other lights and their users. Explaining that mags are some of the most popular, yet underacheaving lights on the market, while at the same time explaining how accessable the "better" ("efficient" is a good term for business men, "brighness/reliability" for LEO etc,) alternatives are may give them a desire to persue the better options.

YMMV.

Good luck.

Here's a thought - turn out the lights, then shine a mag on the wall. Then shine a surefire on the way, pointing out the differences. Then turn on the lights and show how much smaller the SF is... That'll get a point across that people may not know as much as they had thought.