My Toastmasters “Difficult Audience Speech” — Pathways Level 4 Project
In Toastmasters, one of the projects in the “Presentation Mastery” Pathway is the Level 4 project on “Handling a Difficult Audience”. The Toastmaster speaker is asked to prepare a 5 to 7 minute speech, and arrange with the audience in advance to have 2 or 3 people from the audience interrupt the speech in different ways, such as by arguing, interrupting, chattering, using electronic devices, or not participating in the discussions. The goal of the project is to practice effective techniques at managing such a challenging situation which is common in some kinds of real world presentations.
For my Level 4 “Handling a Difficult Audience” speech, I chose a topic which would well suit a difficult audience, that is to discuss Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies. Throughout the speech, I handle an audience member receiving a call on his cellphone, interrupting my speech with comments and questions, arguing with me that bitcoin is a scam, and one gentleman even walking across the stage with his chair and then storming out of the room.
This was a fun and exciting project, and the audience was very supportive in spite of their pre-arranged interruptions.
A video of my speech, which was recorded using a 3D VR 180 camera, is linked below. This video can be watched in a headset such as a Meta Quest 2 headset, in full 3D Stereoscopic, via the Quest’s native Youtube app.
Comments would be much appreciated!
Thanks and best wishes,
Geoff
