By Christine Hurley
It was a lucky day for Women in Transport when Dorcas Ariyo-Francis became a member just over a year ago. She came along to our AGM and, by the end of the evening, pledged to join our team of volunteers. As our Volunteer Engagement Lead, Dorcas has done a really professional job co-ordinating and supervising our team of volunteers for which I, as Events Lead, am truly grateful.
But it doesn't end there. Dorcas is something of a hybrid. While she has a long career in the transport industry, when her children were growing up, she re-trained and became a very successful science teacher. Now, as a Senior Consultant with CPC Project Services, she has returned to the transport sector, bringing her coaching skills with her.
We discovered that she has also been running successful and engaging voice projection workshops for the past five years in schools and the community and we were delighted when she very generously offered to run a workshop for our members.
As we all know, even the most ingenious ideas are worthless, if they are not communicated effectively and our voices are a very valuable asset. The interactive voice projection workshop Dorcas leads shows how to make the most of this asset by modulating and increasing the volume of your voice, enabling you to deliver your message in a relaxed, confident and impactful manner, while avoiding shouting or straining.
Clearly this struck a chord with many of our members as we could have filled the workshop twice over.
The evening started with a warm welcome from Samantha Grant, a Director of WSP, who were kindly hosting the evening. She told us how appreciative she is that her employer is incredibly supportive of the women who work there and outlined some of the corporate initiatives. This includes the launch of PLEDGE, one of several diversity networks. PLEDGE stands for Promoting Leadership, Encouraging Diversity and Gender Equality.
As this was the second event WSP had hosted for us in just a few months, they have certainly been and continue to be a great supporter and sponsor of Women in Transport.
Dorcas kicked off the session by asking each member to rate their public speaking confidence on a scale of one to ten. We would, she promised, review this rating at the end of the evening.
The workshop focused on a number of aspects of using our voices including:
Correct breathing to project the voice
Finding and balancing our centre before beginning to communicate
Varying pitch, tone and volume of the voice
Using and controlling pauses effectively in communicating and presenting
Reflecting on a root strength to support our communication
Using emotion when speaking
To drive the theory home, there was a great deal of interaction and practical exercises. As well as learning by doing, this proved to be a great icebreaker and a lot of fun.
The final challenge from Dorcas was to 'stand and deliver'.
She handed everyone a different article that had appeared in the news during the preceding week covering a whole range of topics from ‘the judicial crisis in Poland’ to ‘ants as an undiscovered species’ and instructed them to prepare a two-minute presentation using all the lessons learned in the workshop.
Everyone rose to the challenge admirably and we were treated to 15 very different interpretations of the news, delivered with confidence and panache. Dorcas was listening and watching intently and followed up a few days later with personal feedback on each individual performance.
After two hours’ of intense learning activity, members were asked to review their earlier scores of their confidence in speaking. It was no surprise that they had soared!
Here are some comments from members who took part in the workshop:
Very interactive and there was time to practise what we were learning.
Dorcas has a very energetic and personal training style which makes a powerful impact.
Dorcas is a very engaging trainer.
Great exercises to put skills learned into action.
The session was well structured around the voice projection aspect of presentation.
Dorcas gave us valuable tips and practical exercises, that can be applied through practice and further reading.
Dorcas's enthusiasm was infectious!
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