It has been almost nine months now since Covid changed our lives and sent us into the first lockdown. Meetings in person were suddenly no longer possible and Epsom Speakers Club (like all Toastmasters clubs) was forced to adapt very quickly to the new reality. Thankfully one of our members, Past President John Drinkwater, who is an IT expert, was at hand to help us transfer seamlessly from face to face to online meetings.
At present, our regular club meetings are still online. Epsom Speakers Club plans to return to face to face meetings as soon as it is safe to do so. However, in the meantime, learning to deliver speeches articulately and confidently to an online audience is an incredibly useful skill to master.
It is very likely that, even after the population has been vaccinated and COVID is hopefully behind us, video presentations and meetings will be far more common than they were before the pandemic. In the last 9 months, people have seen how easy it is for meetings and speeches to take place online (as long as you remember to take yourself off mute before you speak..) Why travel to the other end of the country for an hour long meeting, when you can have a virtual meeting from your desk?
I have learned this year that speaking to an online audience requires different skills to delivering a speech in person and, as it were, a ‘different type of confidence’. Even if you are used to getting up on a stage and speaking to an audience in the same room, speaking to an online audience takes some getting used to. Epsom Speakers is an incredibly supportive, friendly club and this is the place to come to gain experience of any type of public speaking and not worry about making a few mistakes.
Why not try attending one of meetings as a guest and find out for yourself?