Interested in speaking at an HPH meeting? Please read this article about the Rotary Audience and guidelines for interested speakers. 

The Rotary Audience

Rotary is a professional business service culture based on farming or cultivating relationships and not hunting for business.  This means that Rotarians are not there at a meeting to be “pitched” or sold to. The purpose behind a Rotary Classification Talk / Presentation is to first educate your audience about your profession and to demonstrate your credibility through your knowledge of your vocation.  Once Rotarians are comfortable with you and have gotten to know you, they may engage in professional business relationships with you or offer assistance to you for building your business.

Always keep in mind, The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

A. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;

B. High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society;

C. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business, and community life;

D. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service

 

Preparing your Presentation

Write an outline of points you want to cover. Go from general characteristics of your career field to the specific duties involved in your particular job today. Examples might include:

Why you chose your particular business or profession.

Parts of your job you find most rewarding and most difficult.

Forecast employment opportunities in your field for the coming decade.

Advice you would give persons entering your career field.

How your profession is being impacted by technology, government regulations, and environmental factors.

Ethical issues you face at work, and how the Rotary 4-Way Test and the Rotary Code of Conduct helps you deal with them.

 

Presentation Time

Avoid the urge to rush though your presentation in five minutes, use your full 20 minutes, and plan for five minutes of Q&A by preparing a few questions for the audience in case they have none.

Speak clearly and in an audible tone, stick to your prepared outline.

Use hand movements sparingly, avoid nervous habits such as coughing or twitching.

Maintain eye contact with your audience and always face your audience.

Try to relax as much as possible and put genuine emotion into your voice.

Visuals such as PowerPoint can enliven your talk. Make sure the required equipment for your presentation is available. The Rotary club program(s) coordinator can be helpful at the time of your equipment set up or to answer any questions before the meeting.

How you share information about your profession is up to you! Relax and enjoy your opportunity to educate the Rotary audience about your vocation, or your chosen subject.

Mahalo to our Club Sponsors