Public speaking

If we are speaking about animal rights in public, we need to establish how the audience is - hostile or warm. We need to be ready to adjust our tone accordingly. They might be friendly at first and then go cold on us if we start to become boring or start haranguing. Or they’ll be hostile at first until we can show we are friendly and with something useful to say, and not there to lecture them.
If we want to win an audience over and hold their interest we need to encourage them think seriously about what we are saying, and to do that we should show we’ve put in a few hours on the job of preparing the talk, perhaps using video, examples, stories, and having a variety of approaches to the message we’re trying to get across. In other words giving the audience a ‘quality product’. Our aim should be not to bore the audience, especially because this is a subject which is difficult and confronting. Our information and ideas should move along at a lick. Importantly, there need to be examples of how we personally have experienced the transition to veganism and animal rights. We lose no face by admitting personal difficulties we might have had. They’re probably not half as bad as those being envisaged by members of the audience.
The content of the talk might consist of information about animal exploitation and information about the implications on practising vegans. This lifestyle is central to those who want to become an advocate for exploited animals.
If we want to hold an audience’s interest, even though the subject is difficult, they need to know how long we are going to talk. By keeping the talk to 20-30 minutes and reminding listeners that questions and comments are going to be asked for, and by keeping a timer ticking to remind ourselves how much time we have left, the talk is never allowed to become an open ended ramble.