"Frank Knox" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Claire Petersky" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
>
news:7MEQb.140922$I06.1302033@attbi_s01...
> > It's probably too late, but I'm doing a presentation tomorrow on
bicycling
> > with kids at a community center as a part of a larger health fair.
> >
> > Any suggested websites? Anyone already have a presentation all ready to
go
> > they want to email me?
> How did your presentation go?
Thank you for asking.
Days before the presentation, they asked me if I needed anything set up for the presentation. Since
I didn't have slides or powerpoint or suchlike, I told them I didn't need anything. When I arrived,
I found that they had taken me literally. I had a room. Exactly that. Well, it had a carpet, too.
Walls and a carpet and windows. No chairs. No table. Nothing. A room.
Because the room wasn't all that inviting, no one came in it. So, here it was, 11:00, time for my
talk, and I had exactly no one in this completely empty room. Feh.
I got a card table from somewhere, with a wobbly leg, but still functional, and set up all my
wonderful materials that I had brought (including complementary water bottles left over from bike-to-
work day 2002), and set it up with an unused piano bench and put the items specifically for kids
("The Adventures of Spoke-Man! Six Pages to Color!") on that, because it was lower down and at their
eye level. All of these I set up in the doorway of the room assigned to me.
The only upside of my location was I was very close to the entrance of the facility, such that, as
soon as you'd enter, the first thing you'd see was me. So, people came by to my little table I had
set up, whether they were looking for someone to talk on the topic specified, or perhaps were just
drifting by. I've manned* a booth at conventions as a part of my professional life, so I have a clue
at how to attract people over to a booth and engage them in conversation.
As it turned out, I ended up using nearly every part of the presentation I had prepared, only in
answering people's questions on a one-on-one basis, as opposed to speaking to a larger group. So
putting together a speech wasn't a total waste -- I had organized and fluid answers to questions
like, "Should we get a baby seat or a trailer?" or "What's the best way to teach my kid to ride?" I
hung out at the room a half an hour longer than if I had given a talk -- basically until it was time
for the room to be taken over by someone else for their use.
So, it didn't turn out that bad. I talked to lots of people about the thing I had come prepared to
talk about. I got rid of all the 2002 Bicycle-to-Work Day water bottles I had otherwise sitting in
the garage. If the goal of the Fair was to have someone present materials on the topic, I did that.
There will now be some small kids who will this spring be riding with their dads (mostly) who might
have been riding with them anyway, but maybe not.
Next time our bike club comes to this facility to give a presentation, though, we'll remember to ask
for chairs.
--
Warm Regards,
Claire Petersky
Please replace earthlink for mouse-potato and .net for .com
*the word "manned" is not related to the English word man meaning male human
(Middle English, from Old English man, mon human being, male human; akin to
Old High German man human being, Sanskrit manu), but from the Latin word,
woman does not "woman" a booth, but rather, mans it.
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
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"To forgive is to set the prisoner free and then discover the prisoner
was you."
