STRAIGHT
TALKING Steve Wood, seasoned IWA speaker and Deputy Chairman of North Staffs & South Cheshire Branch, explains how he went from introvert to in demand on the waterways public speaking circuit
Photos: Leigh Willows
How did you get involved with IWA talks? I wear multiple hats, not just for IWA, but also the Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust. I came into public speaking through the latter, taking over from two guys who did a joint talk about the restoration. That was in 2012. It was a very scripted talk and I learned quite quickly that I couldn’t do such a formal delivery. I’m terrible at sticking to what’s written down in front of me. I needed to be able to interact with the audience so ended up completely rewriting the thing. It took four or five goes and feedback from various audience members about what did or didn’t work, but I got to a point where I was pretty comfortable with it. That, in itself, was quite an achievement as I’m not the sort of personality who wants to stand up in front of a room full of people.
But you ended up accepting more and more invitations to talk... Yes. I’m very aware there are not enough speakers in the world for everyone’s social occasions, so you do quite quickly become in demand, and not always on one specific subject. Because our branch area has two restoration projects, for example, I ended up writing a talk about the Burslem Branch Canal as well. On one occasion I was asked by Warwickshire Branch to talk about what we do in our area, and that evolved into a presentation about the canals of Staffordshire and Cheshire generally. All these sorts of things have grown organically, as people ask for different spins on a subject. I gladly agree, as there’s usually scope to re-use the talk at one of our own branch socials afterwards. I’ve ended up with three or four different talks but all based around activities in the Staffordshire area.
How long do these talks typically last? There is no ‘typical’. My Caldon & Uttoxeter canals talk is in two 45-minute sections but, because I’m not tied to a script and quite comfortable now to edit as I go along, I can easily jump through three or four slides to keep within a narrower time frame, or if the audience pose questions in the middle. I always ask what the group wants out of the talk first. Do they want to be entertained? Are they a more serious group who want to learn something? Is there a chance of us getting volunteers out of it? And then I tailor the presentation accordingly.
How many, roughly, do you do per year? On average, six a year, although in 2018 I did as many as 11. They tend to be autumn and spring events – I do very few in summer.
Have there been any memorable talks – for good or bad reasons? I was once asked to do a post-AGM talk, which was held in a church. It was a relatively modern building, with a projection screen above the nave and the projector itself in the ceiling. I set everything up before the AGM, waited for the meeting to finish, and then took up position, by which time it was about 8.15pm. But just as I began to speak, the sun started coming through one of the side windows right across the screen. There were no blackout blinds
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| IWA Waterways
040 IWA speaker steve wood SH.indd 40
Spring 2020 23/01/2020 12:32
