Guild Talk

So I gave a guild talk last night. It’s a bigger guild about 250 people. They have around 60 people that go to the meetings regularly. So little ole me showing up to a bigger guild meeting to give a speech.

They asked me to give a talk on the color wheel. Basic color theory. Which was a little intimidating. That’s the whole reason I designed my spectrum quilt. It was received well and I sold all of the kits that I had brought with me. So I will be cutting more. YAY!

But getting back to the talk. For 1 thing public speaking is difficult, right? I mean the fear of freezing up and just saying “humanahumana—humana” the whole time is a real fear. Wondering if what you have prepared is interesting to a group of people…..and talking about a subject like color and the color wheel to a room of experienced quilters is REALLY difficult because what can I share that nobody hasn’t heard before….? not much. But I wanted to share a little about my design process, and challenging ourselves to use what we have and scraps. Also using colors we aren’t particularly attracted to using.

So I decided to prepare my speech last month and practice on my small guild of like 15 people…and iron out any of my issues and ask them for pointers and ways to improve. That worked out great.

So I decided to practice a few hours before my speech yesterday so that I could refresh myself….be ultra prepared. I had a power point presentation, I had all of my quilts lined up. Kits cut, patterns printed and bagged up. flyers printed and stapled. I had a charged laptop….got everything ready.

I get to the meeting, get everything set up…..and they can’t get the projector to work. I was supposed to talk for 45-60 minutes. I had timed myself the 3 times I had rehearsed this speech. I saved time for questions ect. Do you realize how long a 45-60 minute speech is? ITS A LONG TIME!!!

So they introduced me and one of the gals started working on getting the projector to work……so I had to fill time by talking until they could get it going. So I inch through the quilts….I tell my personal story and I answer questions. I don’t even really know everything that I said. I was crazy-sweaty-nervous and finally…..they got it up and running and I was able to finish out the prepared speech. whew!!

So what did I learn? No matter how much you prepare…..you get a wrench thrown in. I think from now on if I use a projector–> I need to have a back up speech prepared. They asked me if I could go on without it…..it was going to be a sad speech ….because I didn’t have samples for everything I wanted to share. The slides had my cues of what I was going to share…I didn’t even have any hand written notes.

But you know what happened? Well of the people that approached me after….they all said they liked my presentation and they thought my story and ad-libbing was more interesting. :) Apparently, I am interesting. LOL! I know that I talk fast especially when I get nervous and I have a nervous laugh….ect. So I don’t know if that had been recorded…..I think I would not want to watch it. haha! But my favorite compliment was that I was “genuine”.

Honestly, I don’t know how to be anything else. I just have to be honest and true to myself and I hope and pray that I am accepted as I am.

I wonder if I will ever get used to public speaking. But I am putting myself out there and I am learning so much about so many things. This is another experience. I am so thankful they had me….and challenged me. :)

I hope you all conquer your challenges for today!

Charisma