Talking with Confidence

The Insurance and Actuarial Society of Glasgow is happy to annouce that their next event will focus on ‘Talking with Confidence’

This one day course will be aim to introduce additional techniques and ideas to enhance your vocal confidence and presentation skills.

The course will look at:

• Identifying the various elements that prevent us from giving effective presentations; de-mystifying ‘Performance Stress’ and exploring coping strategies.

• How we sound, how other people hear us, and how we can actively choose the quality of our voices in order to engage our audience.

• The power of words - how we connect and disconnect- from what we say and mean, and how we can re-shape the content of our presentations for maximum impact.

The day begins with an opportunity for everyone to give a short presentation: the choice of material is yours, whether it is a conference speech, best man’s riposte, sales pitch, funding bid, or story.

We ask that you keep your presentation to three minutes.

During this time, the trainer will be writing diagnostics, identifying your particular strengths and possible areas for improvement.

These comments will be fed back to you on a one-to one basis during the afternoon session.

The rest of the morning will then be devoted to practical exercises focussed on controlling performance stress, exploring different presentational styles (and exploding some of those myths!), and introducing different ways to use your voice effectively.

After lunch, the group will engage with various word-games designed to get you thinking outside of the box on ways to re-shape the content of your speeches. You will then be given time to re-write your presentation, practice the exercises introduced earlier and receive personal feedback from the morning’s diagnostics.

The final hour is then dedicated to re-presenting your newly formatted speeches, allowing you the opportunity to try out some of the ideas explored through the day. As the day is practical, you will need to come wearing comfortable clothes and shoes and bring a bottle of water.

The course will be ran by Hilary Jones. Hilary has been a lecturer for the Centre for Voice in Performance at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for nearly twenty years. Prior to that, she taught at a number of major drama school in the UK including The Royal Welsh College, The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, Mountview and The Guildford School of Acting.