From the Ashes of Disaster

21 Replies

So, I hear you ask, how was it? As if the title didn’t give enough of a clue.

The slide show was good. I spent a lot of time on it. Part of this was the time I spent relearning the system because I only use it once every two years, and forget how it works. Another portion of time was spent in the script, because it took me months to sort out what I wanted to say. After that, the text and photography was, as always, tedious and seemed to take forever.

However, at about 4pm on Monday (a couple of hours before the talk), I was 90% ready. I’m never 100% ready, and I bet most people aren’t. I had a well-crafted slideshow, the commentary was running round in my head (I don’t use notes, just have a lot of information and use the slides as prompts to bring it out at the right time).

The first presentations I ever did were about the Sealed Knot. Sometimes I would use an old-fashioned show, the sort that actually used photographic slides. They were expensive to produce, there was a delay between taking the pictures and seeing the results, you could load projector magazines back to front or wrong way round, bulbs blew, I even saw a slide melt once (fortunately not one of mine) . . .

Miniature Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM)group to L H Childs – a member of the Northamptonshire Regiment in WW2. The recommendation for his DCM shows that he waded across a canal and tackled two German machine gun nests. Then did it a second time. A newspaper report shows that he was wounded after the war whilst disarming German troops in Italy.

I did talks for history societies, schools, the WI and Scouts. They had varying levels of equipment so i gradually developed what is essentially my current style – I’d take enough items to fill a table, I’d pick something up and talk about it, pass it round or make someone try it on. Whatever I say about modern technology, I do love digital photography, and am quite keen on PowerPoint (or the free ODF equivalent in my case). You can do so much more.

Anyway, back to Monday afternoon.

By the wonders of modern delivery technology, Amazon had delivered a box of USB drives to my door in under 24 hours. I didn’t want his masterpiece of numismatic storytelling to go to waste on my cluttered old drive. I even loaded a second one as I am very much a belt and braces type of presenter, and only the best is good enough for my gem of presentation.

Are you following me? Or have you already deduced the full horror of the precipice I am about to fall off?

Oh yes, despite the care and attention I had taken, the hours of blood, toil, sweat and tears that had gone into my presentation, it wouldn’t show up on the screen in the meeting room. It wouldn’t show up on the screen next door either. But someone else had a USB drive with him and it did show his. It just wouldn’t read mine. Mine, once I got home, functioned perfectly well on my computer. Investigations are ongoing.

There was some muttered discussion about whether any of the others had an old presentation with them as a replacement . . .

Miniature DCM group to Frederick Cowham, once a member of the Royal Artillery, later a prison governor. He won it for mending telephone lines under fire – we didn’t hav e much radio communication in 1914-18 so many medals were given out for telephone-related incidents.

However, cometh the hour, as they say, cometh the man. And that man, after arranging his display cases in the amended order necessary and stood up to deliver the talk. There were no slides, no photos and no prompts, just a man and an audience. And that man, having lived and breathed this presentation for the last panic-stricken week, saw no reason to worry. I missed some things out and didn’t deliver it with the polish I would have liked, but an hour later (it rambled a bit more than the slideshow), it was all done.

Despite everything, people seemed to enjoy it. I was able to pass exhibits round in my new display cases so people all had a look, and I was congratulated several times on the content of the talk, and my ability to stand up and give it without a script or visual prompts.

So, all in all, despite the technological disaster, it went quite well and I was able to carry it off despite everything. If anything, I am now, if anything, a bit too pleased with myself for having kept calm and carried on.

Miniature Medals of Pte Charles Winch, Leicestershire Regiment, with related school attendende medal and picture of his full size medals, which were sold in the same sale. After fighting in the battle of Talana and defending Ladysmith, he was recalled for service in WW1, but did not go overseas. Note the presence of the extra bar “Natal” on the miniatures – this sort of thing, though the fact that the medals have swapped sides is a wild deviation from the main group, even by the standards of strange things that miniature medals get up to.

For a good read, follow this link to the lady in question.

 

 

 

 

21 thoughts on “From the Ashes of Disaster”

  1. Pingback: I’ve Done It Again | quercuscommunity

  2. Marcia L. Moran

    Just came across this article and curious to why you chose Frederick Cowham as one of your studies? He was my Great Grandad and, very proud to say, I have his full size medals. Thank you for choosing him. It’s always wonderful seeing his story used like this. He was a great man. Thank you!

    Reply ↓
    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      Sorry, I’m in and out of hospital at the moment and not very quick with my replies. I chose him as part of the presentation because he is a good example of how people have lives outside their military service. It’s often easy to find out a little about the recipient’s military service and think that this is the story of their life, but in his case, though the winning of the DCM is a tremendous story it’s the rest of his career, and the hard work it must have involved, that is the real story. I can see from the newspaper article that he replaced an ex-Colonel in a job, which in those class conscious days was a major achievement. I was lucky to find the newspaper article with the extra information, but would be very interested if you could give me any other background information. about his life as, after hours of searching, still have no idea what he looked like, what he did in WW2 or anything about hobbies, family and his career. I have details relating to his medals, the DCM citation, a few census details and the newspaper article if you need any of those.

      On the night I had details of about 30 people in the presentation. I selected his medals for the blog as they paired up nicely with the WW2 DCM group. It’s amazing how things fall into place, and you ended up reading about it.

      Reply ↓

  6. Pingback: Moving On | quercuscommunity

  7. paolsoren

    A presenter who knows his subject and can talk to his audience ALWAYS performs better than the presenter who relies on a projector to show slides. That, for what it’s worth, is an opinion formed over years of watching magic lantern slides and modern slides and computer driven shows and listening to an interesting person.

    Reply ↓
    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      Thank you. I have always aspired to be the good sort of talker, though the sildeshow is a useful prompt. It also ensures that I have to look things up and make sure I know what I am doing.

      Meanwhile, I will cherish the image of small boys in Australia sitting in darkened church hall watching a magic lantern show. I know you are too young for that, but you have the gift of conjuring up images in a few word.

      Reply ↓
    1. quercuscommunity Post author

      Thank you. Yes, all that work and research and at the end people kept coming up and telling me how well I had done to work without notes as if it had been easy. A bit like my overnight success as a poet, or yours as a writer of YA fiction. 🙂

      Reply ↓

Leave a Reply to derrickjknightCancel reply