Jan/Feb 2020 - It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
At the turn of 2020, the College of Public Speaking was going places. We’d had another record year on fear of public speaking course numbers, and our train the trainer courses, class occupancy, revenues, and customer satisfaction. I’d had fourteen years at the helm, and the wind was behind us. It’s never plain sailing heading an ambitious company, especially when your time is divided between the classroom and coordinating offline team efforts.
When COVID came and the first lockdown, it released havoc and uncertainty on the nation and the world. We lost some good staff (they’re still alive thankfully), and experienced practitioners whose unique efforts will always be remembered. Seventeen months later, stepping back into the classroom I felt relief and joy, as well as a huge responsibility to maintain the company’s ethos.
This is a new College of Public Speaking, just as focused as before on classroom training but also working harder behind the scenes. My personal journey as a trainer has given me so many wonderful experiences both at home and abroad. In recent years, I have worked on three humanitarian projects in the Middle East as well as working alongside three NGO’s in Bangladesh, where they manage millions of people in poverty who face daily issues like malaria, sanitation, water supply, poor housing, flooding, HIV and a raft of other difficulties. I have learned so much from these humbling engagements. Although we lost a lot with the COVID situation, I would choose not to compare it with everyday life in those countries.
In 2016, I assisted a good friend with one of his projects in Transylvania. The location was a beautiful hotel just outside of Sibiu, which was bordered by a living agricultural museum. A phenomenal experience to use this backdrop to facilitate outdoor storytelling. I’d never experienced classes on a veranda or outdoors in a pine forest, and it really opened my mind as to what else training could be, once you’ve abandoned the formal classroom. That gave me an idea and so the 5-Day Discovery Pubic Speaking Course in Barcelona was hatched. Again, sadly its plan was short-lived due to negative exchange-rate fluctuations following the Brexit referendum, a terrorist incident, and separatist demonstrations in Catalonia. That said, my eyes are open to the possibility in 2022 of leading some further projects with an international scope while creating even better learning outcomes for our students in the UK.
Best wishes – Vince Stevenson – Founder of The College of Public Speaking Ltd
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