Battle Speakers club adopts a "learn-by-doing" approach. We meet at 7:30pm, every first and third Thursdays each Month, at the offices of Global Reinsurance Consultants Ltd, Market Square, Battle, TN33 0XB to learn and practice public speaking techniques.

The need to communicate clearly and effectively has never been more important, whether we are bidding for a new contract, delivering a short presentation at a breakfast meeting, applying for a new job – or trying to keep our current one.  Battle Speakers Club provides its members with an opportunity to develop communication skills in a friendly and supportive environment. 

Here is one tip from the club:

We often have little choice in terms of what we will speak about, when we will speak and to whom we will speak.  Having an understanding of our audience is, however, probably the most important thing that we need to establish before doing anything else.  We have all heard speakers say, “But my audience didn’t understand me”.  The question we must ask, however, is whose fault is that?  Is it the fault of the audience, or is it the fault of the speaker?  It is the presenter’s job to convey his message effectively to the audience, and that means understanding their needs and requirements and delivering the speech which meets that.  After all, the speech that we might give at a stag party, for instance, would be very different from the one that we would give at the wedding itself.   Similarly, the speech that we deliver to senior executives at our companies would probably be rather different from the one we deliver to the team on the shop floor.  We must establish who our audience is as a pre-requisite for everything else that we do.  We can then start to ensure that the speech meets their needs.  What is their existing level of knowledge about the subject we are going to talk on?  Will they understand the jargon we use?  What makes them laugh?  What might offend them?  What will engage them?  The audience is the most important people in the room.  Without them, the speaker is an irrelevance.  Be guided by the audience’s needs and hopefully you will never have to say, “My audience didn’t understand me”.

Every meeting follows a well tried and tested program with key roles agreed beforehand - see The Club Meeting page for a description of the meeting and the various roles. The meeting wraps up at 9.45pm when there is an opportunity for those who wish to adjourn to The King's Head.