As a member of Rostrum, the English equivalent of the American Toastmasters, I was often asked to do an impromptu speech, lasting three minutes with just three minutes to prepare. One such speech was titled “Silence is Golden” and it was part of the club’s annual speaking championships.
There are many ways to plan an impromptu speech. You can use “How, When, Where or Why”; “Past, Present and Future”; or perhaps “Local, National or International” as your approach.
One of the best ways, I believe, to give an impromptu speech is to use an experience you have had. This way you don’t have to make up your content. All you need to concentrate on is your delivery. So that is what I did. Here is the basis of that speech.
As a secondary school teacher, I often attended school camps. One such camp was held at a place called Highfields on the edge of the Great Dividing Range, north of Toowoomba in Queensland. Meal times in a large dining room with 300 twelve year old students were a very noisy nightmare. Silence was not something we were able to achieve around camp except in one place.
Let me tell you about that.
One of the activities on the camp was to hike down the escarpment to a place called Spring Bluff. Here a railway station was situated with a camping area. The students camped out for the night before hiking back to the camp site the next day.
On the way down, we stopped in a grassed area in the shape of a semicircle that sloped away from the track. We told the students to lie down on the grass and just listen. It did take a while for the students to settle down, stop talking, making any sort of noise and lie still on the grass.
At first they heard
• the birds chirping;
• next, the insects;
• then twigs and leaves falling from the trees
• followed by the wind whistling through the trees.
Then something strange happened. They heard a strange gurgling sound that they didn’t understand, being city kids. Eventually, a student guessed that it was the sound of water bubbling up from a spring. (That is how Spring Bluff got its name.) the students were truly amazed and counted this as a very special part of their camping experience.
Of course, we, teachers, made the point that it is often good for the soul to just stop the noise of living and listen. Yes, “Silence is Golden”
