Delivery Date:  Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Host Club: Tale Weavers

The story of Peter Pan only mentions of these women in Neverland: Tinker Bell, Wendy, Tiger Lily, and the mermaids. Obviously this island is very male dominated, and feminists have expressed this inequality with dissatisfaction. Have the feminists ever given credit to any men for trying to make the world a better place? How come men don’t seem to want to grow up? This video takes a light hearted look at the “real” gender issues in Neverland, with Don explaining the trouble with women in Neverland, and BJ Olsen explaining the trouble with men in Neverland.

About Project #05 – Your Body Speaks

Body language is a key part of public speaking. It includes using facial expressions, stage presence, hand gestures, and eye contact. Good use of body language conveys confidence, clarity, and emphasis. The objective of this speech is to incorporate body language to improve the effectiveness of the speech.

Specifics –

Word of Day: Misanthrope

Speech Time Limit: 5-7 Minutes (10-14 Minutes because of dual speech)

Actual Speech time: 16:08

Evaluation Notes –

There were two evaluators for this speech.  Dave Schaal evaluated my portion of the project, and Gene Van Massenhove evaluated BJ’s portion of the project.

Dave mentioned that the speech was well rehearsed and the body language really emphasized the speech.  The “stage” was well used, as BJ and I worked well together with our delivery.  He felt that some of the background gestures I used were a little distracting.  To improve the speech, he felt I could have used a little more clarity in what exactly I wanted the audience to take away from the speech.

Gene found that it was very easy to focus on the speakers and follow the topic.  He was impressed that BJ did the background research on Peter Pan in order to provide such a gentle rebuttal.  Gene offered two alternatives for doing this speech.  The first was that she could have used information outside of the realm of Peter Pan to make her points.  The other was that she could have argued the point from Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily or Wendy, using “I” instead of “they”.

Note: all comments have been paraphrased.

Personal Comments –

Like Dave mentioned in his evaluation, it does get hard to give a good evaluation to speakers that are well polished.  However, as I’ve viewed this video over and over, I can point out an error here and an “uh” there.  I cringed when I heard bad grammar in my own voice, “What kind of words of encouragement is that?”  I really meant to say, “What encouraging words are those?”  As we often say in Toastmasters:  “There is always room for improvement.”  However, I will definately say that the more you can rehearse your speech, the better it will come out.

This speech was a lot of fun to work on, but was very time consuming.  Many thanks to BJ Olsen who spent hours planning and rewriting this speech with me.  It was my intention for this speech to be light hearted, non-offensive, and frivolous.  I think the goal was accomplished, and I give a lot of the credit to BJ Olsen!  Thank you, BJ!

Do you have any comments, suggestions, or improvements about the speech? Please leave a comment and tell me what you think: