Page 31 - aprl 2017 Voices

Through the Lens

How to Dramatically Improve Your Club’s Speeches

by Tim Lewis, ACS, ALB

Congratulations! You’ve decided to start there, and any of
videotaping your club’s speeches. You see the them will work for
benefits, how watching yourself give a speech hosting videos and sharing them with your club.
can reveal unexpected strengths and growth My favorite is Google Photos, which offers free
areas, and now you want to give that gift to your unlimited storage space for photos and videos.
members as well. The question is: what is the best Once the videos are uploaded I put together a
way to go about doing this, and what are some weekly email with the links to the videos and
common problems and pitfalls? send it to the members of the
The first consideration I would club. Usually speakers can watch
put out there is the importance of their video later on the same day
using a camera with a wide angle they speak, which can lead to
lens. A wide angle lens captures
more of the room, if your speaker quick improvements from the
or presenter starts to get into their video feedback.
speech and move around the room We at Yawn Patrol have
more, you won’t wind up with a seen immediate and profound
video of an empty lectern, and the benefits from recording all of
person recording the video won’t our member’s speeches. At the
spend the entire speech trying moment we have almost 4 years
to adjust the camera to keep the of speeches and evaluations
speaker in view. My club uses a online for our members. Our
GoPro 3 on a tripod. It’s unobtru- members have shared videos of
sive, rugged, and has an excellent their speeches with family and friends, and some
wide angle of video capture. The camera can have used their videos for professional promo-
“see” just about anything in front of it, as long tional materials on their personal websites and
as the speaker doesn’t suddenly run to the back social media.
of the room, they’ll be on video. In short, making videos of your weekly
The second consideration is sound quality. speeches can be a great tool for the growth of
No matter how great the speech is, the video your members and also for the growth of your
won’t be worth much it doesn’t capture what the club. The technology needed is cheap, easy to
speaker is saying. GoPro cameras come with a use and delivers a tremendous amount of value.
waterproof case that also happen to make clear Even if all you have is an old smartphone and
audio recording pretty much impossible. We got someone to hold it, you can give recording your
around that problem by buying a small external
microphone that plugs into the GoPro and gives members speeches a shot. If you have any ques-
excellent sound of everything in the room. It’s tions, please don’t hesitate to ask me at tim@
perfect for hearing both the speech and the TimLewisPhotography.com Good luck!
audience’s reactions. Tim Lewis joined Toastmasters in 2012, and is
The third consideration is how to get these a member of Yawn Patrol where he is servng as VP
great videos to your members. There are a lot of Public Relations. He is the owner of Tim Lewis
of different online file storage solutions out Photography in Eugene, Oregon.

VOLUME 3 ISSUE 10 APRIL, 2017 31