Follow up ‘How to bring your presentation to life’ workshop
At our last meeting, we invited Helen von Dadelszen from Toastmasters Nyon to teach us – and make us practice – about voice variation, body language, and stage presence. After walking confidently using the Three Circles of Presence; training our voice playing with the 4Ps (pitch, pace, power, pause); and applying vocal variety with children books, we asked her a few follow up questions.
Helen, thank your for this great workshop! If our members should take a single thing with them from tonight’s workshop, what would that be?
Don’t be afraid to explore and experiment. Channel the child within you and have fun when you present. Putting more performance into your performance will really take it to the next level.
And If you had more time, what else would you have talked about?
I’d have everyone practice, experiment and do more exercises. Confidence comes with practice and we get better the more we perform.
What is the next step for our members, so that they continue to improve their performance skills?
We need to constantly challenge ourselves and try different things. Therefore, I’d challenge the Bern Toastmasters to really leap out of their zone of comfort and play with the performance aspects of their next presentations.
By the way, congratulation for your amazing performance at the district evaluation contest (2nd place). What do you think made the difference? How did you prepare for such an event?
Thank you! It was a rewarding and fun experience. You can’t really prepare for an evaluation contest. I sometimes have issues with timing when giving feedback in a TM context, so that’s something that I was focused on. In the end, you can only pick 1 or 2 recommendations to make, even though you have more to say. The judges are looking for originality and specific, concrete suggestions, so that’s what I focused on giving.
You mentioned that when presenting in front of their class, your children are not allowed to deliver boring presentations. What is your approach to teach younger people to enjoy being in front of the class?
Get up there and do it. If we don’t learn early on just to give it a go, then we can feel blocked as adults. Presentation skills are life skills and if we can get comfortable at speaking in front of people, we will be better prepared for the world of work.
Helen von Dadelszen is a member of Toastmasters Nyon and the founder of Present Potential. She provides practical and tailored coaching for specific presentations, interview preparation, management skills and presentation skills.