PSA North West

Just in case you think I only MC sporting events, I hosted the Christmas meeting of the North West Chapter of the Professional Speakers' Association on 4th December. The format was that every member present spoke for around five minutes, and I did the links and intros. It seemed to go well on the whole, but I ended up scriptless and had to frantically think on my feet. "Serves you right," you might say. "You should have been better prepared."

Not exactly. I was well prepared. I came along armed with an amusing range of links and intros. Some slightly risque, but nothing overtly rude or offensive. Only one problem. We had a first-time attender at the meeting, a quite charming woman who happened to be a C of E vicar. There went my "script". Lock, stock and two bloody smoking barrels. I tried out my tamest gag. Two giggled hysterically, everyone else seemed too conscious of who was in the room to laugh. If that one didn't work, the one about the busload of nuns that crashed and the one about Bob Hope and Cilla Black spending the night together certainly weren't going to! Ditto the Billy Connolly one! So I commented on the speaker just finished, said a few words about the next one, sat down, listened, and repeated the process. The role of the MC is, of course, low key and to facilitate the other speakers, so that was probably for the best.

And for my own turn... I just showed my gold thong. Produced from the holdall after the gold waistcoat, gold shirt and tie, gold leotard, gold trainers, and gold socks. And proved the old adage that visual gags tend to work best. I mean, I didn't really say anything. I just kept producing golden things from my bag. And with each one, the volume of the laughter increased.

And then the vicar, who had previously declined an invitation to do a spot, stood up and said my knickers had inspired her to speak, and she did a five minute turn! You couldn't make it up!

It was a fantastic evening's entertainment, and there were several Chapter members whom I knew well but had never heard speaking before. Two in particular were outstanding - David and Enzo. I won't give surnames, because both spoke about their Mafia connections. David was a superb, fluent speaker and we all loved his story, but Enzo just blew everyone away with his passion and delivery style. He's already been booked for the February meeting and I think we're all looking forward to hearing him speak for longer. He came out with one fantastic line, which I'd never heard before... "A leader with no followers is just a man out for a walk". I love that and I'm going to use it at some point!

I love the PSA meetings. I come home from each one so motivated that I always do my best work during the two or three days following the meeting. As I said in my closing remarks, I only wish there was one a week...