You are invited to the 13th conference of the UK Speechwriters’ Guild at the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on 20 & 21 October 2016.
By accident, rather than design, this conference will be at the epicentre of major recent political upheavals.
One of the things the UK Speechwriters’ Guild likes to do is fly in trainers from America to share their expertise. Their approach is different, but useful. Because we’re not so familiar with American culture, the examples are fresh.
On 21 June 2016, Mike delivered a speechwriting workshop at St Matthew’s conference centre in Westminster. His background is as a physicist and a computer programmer.
It’s hard to summarise a day workshop in a few paragraphs. So here’s some of the asides he gave us.
One tip was when you’ve finished the speech, change the font and point size of the text and then read it out again. It’ll make you see the speech in a different way.
The European referendum campaign is hotting up. One of our members, Lucia Hodgson, was invited to offer some top tips on the BBC. You can watch her punchy video above.
Tony Blair’s former speechwriter, Phil Collins, will be delivering the closing keynote speech at the spring conference of the European Speechwriter Network on ‘How to make the case for the European Union’.
The conference is at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford on 14 & 15 April 2016.
Phil Collins is a columnist on The Times and has spoken at many of the previous conferences of the UK Speechwriters’ Guild and European Speechwriter Network.
1) Sie ist ungewöhnlich
Henry Boettinger hat gesagt: „Gute Referate sind wie Ströme; schlechte sind wie Kanäle“.
In der Geschäftswelt möchte jeder Kanäle heruntersegeln. Dagegen ist diese Tagung wie Wildwasser-Rafting für Unternehmenskommunikatoren. Ein Delegierter hat letztes Jahr bemerkt: „ Es ist wirklich seltsam, weil jeder jeden Vortrag besucht“.
On 23 October 2015 at the Neue Mälzerei in Berlin, Marina Lacroix, a communication specialist at McKinsey, and Suzanne Levy, a speechwriter for the Dutch Minister of Education, Science and Culture, gave a presentation on the similarities between music and rhetoric.
These were their take-away lessons.
Let the music set the mood
Play with expectations Read more
The 11th European Speechwriter Network ‘Speechwriters’ and Business Communicators’ Conference will be held at the Neue Mälzerei, Friedenstraße 91 in Berlin on 22 & 23 October 2015.
The conference will offer advice and inspiration to solve some of the difficulties facing speechwriters in their daily work across Europe.
Hans Kristian Amundsen, the former speechwriter of the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, will be sharing what he learnt about speechwriting from his experiences during the terrorist attack in Norway in 2011.
The following article first appeared on ft.com in April 2014.
By Sam Leith
To Trinity College, Oxford to give a talk at the UK Speechwriters’ Guild’s annual conference for speechwriters and business communicators. A proper treat. I don’t know what the collective noun for speechwriters is, but here they were – delegates from all over Europe listening to presentations, swapping tips and eating biscuits.
The UK Speechwriters’ Guild has created a new trophy for Steve Bee, from Jargonfreebenefits, who has won our award for Business Communicator of the Year.
The award is a reproduction of a gargoyle from the Bodleian Library in Oxford which has the motto, ‘tread lightly, speak softly’.
I’ve now been to 11 conferences for speechwriters. I’ve organised eight myself in Bournemouth, London, Brussels and Oxford,
I’ve been to the Ragan Communications conference in Washington and the Professional Speechwriters’ Association one in New York.
Last week I went to the Verband der Redenschreiber deutscher Sprache conference in Berlin.
Of course I’m biased about what makes a good conference, but I thought it would be worth putting on paper why they’re worth attending and what you should expect from them.
