It’s been a few weeks since I presented at the Stepping for Success conference and I have bene asked to comment how I feel about it now.
I can say honestly that I enjoyed the day and the event. Listening back [and I find it difficult to listen to my own voice] I think I spoke well, not to fast, understandable and clear. I had about 30 people in the room, and it was fun to get everybody up to to do on-the-spot polkaing and ranting.
I think the content level was about right, for those who had a general interest and those who had a more interest in traditional, the EFDSS or Northumberland. I shared the hour with Robert Moir, and some may have come to listen to his presentation.
I spoke first in the first breakout session after the Keynote speaker. Much has been written about talking in the graveyard slot (after lunch) and being the last speak of the day. I could’t find very much about being first. Here are a couple of bullet points that occur to me:
- Does the first speaker set the tone and standard for the remainder of the conference
- When I spoke, people appeared to be very alert and appeared to write lots of notes
- The technical aspects of the conference had not been fully tested
I quoted two people who were sitting in the audience: Derek Schofield and Mike Wilson-Jones. I had’t warned them in advance, butI wonder, what does it feel like being quoted? Neither challenge me afterwards, so they must be happy with my comments. What does it feel like being quoted in a presentation?
I have been to a series of presentations since and I have been critical of the presenters approach since. They all add various styles of presenting: one spoke across the display screen (spoke to the slide), another had no notes and just visual slides and another had notes which he referred to infrequently and power point. I ned to refer to my notes less and lower the word count. Less is more.
Although I had some technical issues at my presentation (Robert did not have any slides), I do believe that having slides did add to the continuity of my presentation. Having text based slides is fine, but I think that visuals (photographs, scans of books) are much more useful.
We were well introduced by Kerry Fletcher.
***Coming on 6th April! Sean Goddard’s Consequences of bringing North-West Morris to the South East of England. The Chanctonbury Ring effect. A free Download of paper presented at the Histories of the Morris conference held at the EFDSS in June, 2017. Look out for the web address in a couple of weeks.***