Well, another great meeting last night with some excellent speakers. I love seeing people grow at Toastmasters and deliver messages that mean something to them. Kirby’s “Butterfly Effect” speech and Gerald’s “The photograph” speech were both sublime.
Both of them were delivered using “THE LECTERN!” (evil music - dah, dah daaaaah!)
There seems to be a huge suggestion that the lectern is bad, the lectern is a crutch and the lectern makes you an inferior speaker.
And yet nothing could be further from the truth.
Used wisely, the lectern enhances your speech as clearly evidenced by both of last night’s speakers.
It allows you to:-
- glance down at your notes, thus allowing you to deliver your speech
- keep your feet planted, thus allowing you to appear at ease and avoid nervous twitches
- allows you to relax – I can concentrate on my delivery rather than play the memory game
- gives you time to look at your audience, thus creating a better connection
- helps you concentrate on delivering the speech with good vocal variety
- allows your arms to be free to integrate gestures into the speech
The list goes on and on.
The only time when you need to ditch the lectern is when you are competing in Toastmasters comps. And as these only come around once a year, this is the special occasion when you can adopt the no lectern mode of operation.
In my opinion, I would love to see more speakers embrace this much maligned piece of equipment and use it to deliver powerful speeches that really touch people’s hearts and minds.
I left last night marvelling at the quality of the speakers. I didn’t even notice the lectern as the messages shone through.
Right – I’ll get down from my soap box now.
Have a great day!!!
Tony H