SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/30215
nario will likely occur when a particular or- ganization has a special interest in a topic of your expertise, such as a professional conference. The second scenario will likely occur when those civic organizations with monthly or even weekly meetings require a speaker, and the organization contacts you to fill a slot on the program. Next consider the audience. The more you know about them the better you can prepare. Belaboring points your audience already knows has the same deadly result as taking a knowledge base for granted and talking over your audience’s heads. Find out what the members of your audi- ence do for a living. Are these professional people, blue-collar workers, retirees, stu- dents? You will find it helpful to also know the age and sex of your audience. If you’re speaking to an audience of Baby Boomers, a pop culture mention of Woodstock or Mrs. Robinson might help you make a point. An audience of current college students would greet those same references with a head scratch, a yawn or both. Consider what areas of agreement you will have with your audi- ence. On what points will they disagree? In every case, try to build your topic around you and your audience’s common interests. Do remember, a live speech works very well if you want to deliver an emo- tional message. If you must deliver lots facts, stats and data to your audience, pre- pare a handout. GATHER Yes, you want to deliver an emotional message, but you will need a fact base to set that up. The fact base often comes from your education and experience. That’s probably why you got invited to speak in the first place. Personal experiences and an- ecdotes will be invaluable when you begin to organize your presentation. Just don’t be afraid to expand that fact base beyond your experiential base. Use the Internet or the library (you do remember what a library is, don’t you) and see if any new information has become available. Use your contact network you’ve acquired through your participation in the Sports Turf Managers Association and contact your fellow professionals. The STMA head- quarters may also be able to steer you to additional resources. Not matter how you do it, specifics sell your ideas better than generalities. ORGANIZE Think in terms of a thesis statement. Just what point do you want to make with that audience? If you can’t state it simply, then perhaps you haven’t focused your topic enough, or you may be working on more than one focus, which means you are working on more than one speech A solid thesis statement does more than just de- scribe. It gives context and perspective and goes a long way in answering the “so what” and “who cares” questions. Consider the difference between the fol- lowing statements. • We are going to install the newest ver- sion of Monsanto’s artificial turf that feels like real grass. www.stma.org SportsTurf 27