The Place: The Moonlight Room at the Battle House Hotel in Mobile, AL. This room is wide but not deep. As a result, the projector and screen are typically set up to the left of you as the speaker and to the right of the audience. Therefore, the audience on your far right could have difficulty seeing the screen. We typically have about 120 members at each meeting.
Technology: We typically have a tech person on call to handle the set up of the screen and LCD projector. You will have an automatic slide changer with you at the podium. Please let Peggy in our Rotary office (432-2362) know one week in advance what your needs will be.
The Screen: The average age of our club is about 60. Please do not expect anyone to be able to read small captions or font sizes on the screen. We suggest a minimum of font size 32 and prefer 40.
Technique & Style: Please do not read your speech or your slides. The former will always be boring and the latter should not be necessary if the font size is large enough.
The Microphone: This is set up as though you will be looking at the audience when delivering your speech. If you look down to read your speech on a regular basis then you (and we) will hear small bombs go off periodically as the blast of air from your mouth ricochets off the mike. This is very annoying to the audience. If this happens please stop reading your speech or push the mike farther away from you. We will let you know if we cannot hear you.
Length of Speech: Your speech should not be longer than 20 minutes. We will adjourn at 1:00 PM because we have physicians who have scheduled surgeries or need to see patients and attorneys who must make court appearances timely because judges have told them to be there at that time. And, the rest of us have to make a living too. We hope you understand. So, please plan accordingly. We would like you to finish by 12:55 PM in order to leave 5 minutes for Q&A. If you have not finished by 1:00 PM our president has been directed to rise from his chair and stand beside you. That should be your formal cue to stop.
Know Your Audience: As you know, Rule Number 1 of effective speaking is to know your audience. We have prepared a short summary of our club to give you a better idea of who we are and what we do. Please read it.