Pamela,
A few additional thoughts:
1. You say that you feel uncomfortable speaking to a group, yet you feel totally at ease
competing on a National level with your skills and you have come out on top on more than one ocassion! I think that the uneasiness you feel with speaking to a group is simply a mental block that you can easily overcome. When I first started teaching, I had no plans to do that at all. I was approached to develop an entire Vocational curriculum because of my background, experience, and reputation. It was a relatively easy task to compile the information that I thought should go into an entry level training exercise. Organizing it into a cohesive plan of advancement from ground zero to the level of an employable graduate took much longer. But educating the general public in the basics of
why we do what we do is much the same in my mind. Price is not an object of debate in this issue, as Casseta mentioned. And, if that subject IS broached, it simply opens up an entire new area where you can expound on the differences in materials, procedures, and design of the custom framing business vs. the DIY'ers and other forms of "framing" that are floating around out there to take those peoples' money.
2. When you first introduce yourself to a group of people who have invited you to speak about your specialty, who is automatically assumed to be the expert in that group? You need to condition your mind to totally believe in yourself as the one and only expert in custom matting and framing in that room! Because you probably are in every lecture. Granted, many groups simply like diversity in their outside presentations, but there has to be an interest in what you have to say or they would have invited an autobody repairman to speak to them instead.
2. dns brought up a valid point about involving the group in the lecture. I have never given a talk to any group where they all sat there and not a single hand went up during the lecture. In fact, you have to take control of the direction of the discussion many times or you will be sucked into rationalizing somebody's individual situation that they encountered in a frame shop visit. But that group as a group will become involved in your lecture if you choose to let them and you will find that much of the information that you prepared to present will fall by the wayside in lieu of the focused area of expertise of the group.
For example, local historians have different concerns that a group of business people. Crafters want the nuts and bolts of their specific area of interest when it comes to framing their articles. You have to be fast on your mental feet to recognize these differences and focus on the concerns of the group but think about all the workshops that you have attended at the frame shows. They tend to take a certain track after the preliminaries are covered and there may develop a focus for that group that you can follow and help them to understand better that area of which they have the greatest interest.
3. You will sweat bullets the first couple of times you are in front of a group but that apprehension will pass as you become more comfortable with being the focus of attention by the groups that invite you. They don't want to tear your techniques apart or critique you as a professional. Usually they simply want to understand what it is you do and how it applies to their interests.
How did you feel the first time you climbed into the saddle on a horse? Pretty frightening for many, I can assure you. I raised quarter horses and Apps for 15 years but I wasn't endowed with an automatic ability to handle horses or ride with some very good riders at first. And you weren't an instant expert when you started into framing. (Well, you weren't, ................. were you??)
I think that public speaking is just like anything that we attempt to do. You would not be condidering this area if it didn't hold some mistique or interest for you. So take the plunge and give it a try. You may find that you really really enjoy the challenge of new questions and new groups with diverse interests. And it becomes an exercise of testing the lecturer's ability to field questions, to pass on to a group of individuals enough knowledge that they can leave that room knowing that they have learned something new and YOU can end that lecture knowing that you have helped someone.
You can ask Jim Miller, Vivian Kistler, or any of the framing educators and I am sure that they will endorse what I tell you. It is very exciting and very challenging to approach a group without any profiles or background of their knowledge levels or skills and walk away with that feeling of accomplishment.
Framerguy
Edit:
Consider this, every time Jim stand before a group at a Decor workshop, he is in a group of professional FRAMERS!! He isn't lecturing to a group of people who know very little about the subject matter he is about to cover. And the couple of lectures that I have attended of his and Vivian's, and Brian's have led to me being a better framer for the experience. And that is what really counts in the end. You will find that you will be asking more and more questions here on the Grumble than you may have asked in the past just to hone your presentation skills for the next lecture you have to give. You are fortunate to have such a resource to fall back on.
[ 01-16-2004, 10:45 PM: Message edited by: Framerguy ]