Since my last Blog post, I have met with my mentor and developed a subject, sub-subjects, and an outline for my speech. After I’m done writing my speech, I plan on spending a large amount of time learning to present it, and practice presenting it in different ways (e.g. serious, comedic, etc.). My mentor, Teri Towner, gained her experience and expertise through her years of being a city councilor, her experiences with the “toastmasters” group, and her time spent volunteering with various groups. She says she values those experiences and, while some were difficult, she overall enjoyed the process. So far she has given me little tips and tricks to writing a speech (such as choosing a topic that I am interested in, and choosing a large topic that I can narrow down into more defined points as I begin to write), but we plan on meeting more frequently once I begin learning how to present the speech. As for facilitation strategies, the most helpful strategy I’ve learned is to be prepared ahead of time with meetings (what I want to get done, what I need help with, etc.), and to just write my speech and edit afterwards, because some thoughts that aren’t very interesting can lead to thoughts that are become the most important lines in my speech.