Public speaking events

1412: 

   

As this subject of Animal Rights gets more traction, people will want to know more about it, and ask if someone will give a talk about it all.  Unlike face to face with friends, with a totally unknown audience one can use a different approach; when public speaking, we have a whole block of time to speak (and perhaps entertain).  The idea of a public address is to inform and have visual aids to help get information across.  We don't have to send them to sleep, so our talks need to be edgy, the idea being that we set ourselves up to be knocked down, so we encourage questions that put us on the spot.  If we are addressing a group, we are speaking to a subject on invitation, airing a whole raft of ideas on the subject we’ve been asked to speak about.

         

When public speaking we are attempting to reach two types, those who want to hear and those who don’t, or at least don't necessarily agree with us.  We owe the first group the best we can offer, but our main challenge is the second group.  They want to catch us out, so we have to know what we’re saying in order to spark their imagination and ultimately swing them around.

         

I'd suggest that we try to paint a picture of a bright future ahead, where animals aren’t being exploited.  Show how to enjoy a plant-based diet and where to find all the other cruelty-free alternatives that are on sale.  The idea here is to inform, be interesting, to up-lift, but not confront.  It is to promote our arguments optimistically.  And to have facts and references at hand, so that we can talk with some authority about health issues, ethics, farming, the environmental angle, world hunger and vivisection.  Also at hand, we should be able to give directions to useful web sites, Youtube footage, leaflets and books.  And to do all this, we mustn't let ourselves be exposed to accusations of being emotional, uninformed or unprofessional, or indeed uninteresting.  A talk on this subject should be worth the time given up to attend it.

         

This is a heavy subject, so a talk shouldn’t last more than 20-30 minutes, so there’s plenty of time for questions and comments from the floor.  Keep a timer at hand so you don’t run over time.