"Short Notice" Talks or Demo's

by Think About It 7 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Think About It

  Did you ever have to give a "short notice" talk or demonstration? Didn't it put alot of pressure on you to come up with something, because someone else cancelled out or you could have been informed sooner?

  I was all the time put in this situation. Come to the Sunday meeting and find out the Speaker isn't coming, so you prepare something while they have the WT study first. Get a call very late Sat night that a cong. in the circuit needs a Speaker in the morning and they were given your name. Once had to give the Memorial talk being notified that morning. Even short notice Service meeting parts or demo's could be stressful. What were your experiences?

  Think About It
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  blondie

  While no one asked me to give a public talk, I gave a sub talk for the sisters every other week, many times just as I walked in the door. I wonder whose giving them now. The last jw I saw mentioned that they missed my giving those talks and its been almost 10 years.
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  Bonnie_Clyde

  Several years ago, Clyde and I walked into the KH, he looked at the board and realized he had the instruction talk (first talk on the program). He quickly looked over the material, walked up to the platform and gave the talk. Nobody would have ever guessed it was impromptu. Clyde was amazing that way.
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  rockmehardplace

  i was on the school practically every other week due to last minute sub. i always enjoyed it. never filled in for last minute public talks though. we had a bucket of brothers who jumped at those.
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  Scully

  I used to do them a lot too.

  It got interesting when I started to decline the short-notice / impromptu requests. Suddenly Sister Scully was rumored to have a rebellious attitude. I guess they didn't like it too much that I was refusing to bail them out / be their doormat.
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  asilentone

  Just one time! Long time ago, The school overseer called my Dad before the meeting to see if I am willing to do it, I said yes, I was living with my parents at that time. I did a good job. oh well.
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  WTWizard

  I have given maybe one or two #2 talks like this. It usually is no big deal. And, once I was working on use of notes, and forgot my notes at home--which was no big deal. Usually it is not an issue because it usually takes a grand total of 10 minutes to properly prepare one of those talks, out of which 8 are spent deciding how to develop it into something that wouldn't be thrown back in my face or put everyone to sleep in one minute.
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  tenyearsafter

  Because I was considered a good speaker, I was asked several times a month to do talks for "no-shows" or last minute cancellations. I thought I was really contributing at the time, but now I look back and realize how shallow those talks ended up being!