| By :
Dirik Hameed
After dinner speakers must certainly be entertaining and interesting. People who are attending an event have had a long day and have just finished a good meal. They feel rather sleepy and they find it difficult to switch their minds back on and concentrate on a speech. The best policy is normally to pick out a joke that has some relevance to the rest of the speech, and then to continue in an interesting and amusing vein. There must be a logical thread that links jokes and other humorous comments to the main subject of an after dinner speaker. The opening two minutes are vital for gaining the attention of the listeners. The speaker must quickly make his mark or the audience may be lost for the whole evening. The opening paragraphs are the most important section of the speech. If the person making a speech carries the listeners with him during the opening lines, a harmonic relationship can be developed between speaker and audience. Where there is no rapport between them, the speaker may find that he must raise his voice to be heard over a background of rustling, murmuring and coughing, Anyone delivering a speech should do some homework about the listeners before accepting the invitation to speak. He should be well aware of the subject of the conference and the interests of his listeners and should use this knowledge to construct a relevant talk. The task of finding a suitable joke involves more than leafing through a book on humorous stories and selecting the first one that comes to hand. The humor must be in tune with the atmosphere of the evening and should indicate to an audience that the speaker has gone to great lengths to find something useful to say. The person delivering the speech should study the nature of the conference that has just taken place and the background of all the participants. It may be necessary to modify some of his entertaining comments or jokes that look good on paper but will not work on this particular occasion. If there is a rather frosty reception for the opening shots in the speech this is not a reason to be annoyed or become anxious. A cool head in the face of a hostile audience can enable the speaker to adapt the script to the mood of the evening and produce a favorable outcome. Flexibility is needed and that means departing from the script if necessary. To stay in touch with the feelings of the listeners it may be necessary to have a few alternative comments and humorous remarks. If the evening is really going badly and all attempts at humor are failing all after dinner speakers must change tack. Other planned jokes may need to be omitted and the speech must be adapted to the mood of the evening. The after dinner speaker may decide to engage with the audience on a more serious level if this is the only way to gain attention. This should happen only rarely and normally an opening joke and some humorous comments throughout the speech should contribute to a relaxed atmosphere in the room.
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