have you ever been asked to do a talk...

[puddicat]

...to a group of horsey people, and if so what was it about and was if fun or scary or both.

I got asked to do one recently on "any subject I felt like" which was a very dangerous thing so say but unfortunately I couldn't make the date they wanted. I can't stop thinking about what I would have done it on though - think it might have been on aiding...

 

[Seahorse]

I used to be a Wine advisor for Tesco and did loads of presentations about wine, which mainly meant drinking it and pretending to be Jilly Goolden lol!!

It's not bad once you get started just make sure you have loads of notes, and take some good old rescue remedy before you start

 

[puddicat]

I'm not sure it would be such idea for me to have wine available either before or during a talk but I like the thought.

 

[billbobaggin]

good old rescue remedy - works on the horses too!!

 

[Beanyowner]

"any subject you feel like"...sounds ominus! Could go on forever given a brief like that!!
I taught some kids stable management once...but never done a talk! Terrifying I think...especially doing it out of choice! Its one thing given a presentation in an exam...but definetly not of my own free will!

So what were your 'talk' ideas?!?!

 

[the watcher]

I do them regularly for Horsewatch to PC, RC and other groups. Obviously my interest and expertise is security, access and welfare and everything surrounding that, and I wouldn't deliver a talk about something that I was totally unqualified to discuss (Grand Prix dressage, flat racing or a veterinary subject for example).

However I have chaired debates in subjects I know very little about and these are often very interesting...

The main key to success, apart from confidence, is enthusiasm in your subject..so if asked again, my advice is to pick something that really interests you, that is relevant to the audience and not intellectually too challenging so that nobody is excluded

 

[puddicat]

What made me giggle was that I suspect it wasn't intended as 'absolutely any subject' becuse the person has a pretty good idea of what I do, but some of the things I do I rarely talk about and I was just playing with the idea of doing a talk on something totally unexpected - still to do with horses but away from the usual stuff.

The ideas? Well the front runner was "what traffic jams, central heating and mobile phones tell you about traiing your horse" I've done that one before but I've got some better photos and demo's for it now. Then I get all sorts of ideas from HHO, there's been a lot of stuff on bitting in SY recently so I wondered about just doing a workshop on how bitting and bridling works. And then I thought it would be fun to do a talk centred on muslce and pull in all the things to do with horses where muscles figure - except eating them of course which never goes down well in this country. Shame really it would be a good finish to end with a BBQ

 

[puddicat]

thanks, I haven't done any PC or RC stuff for a while but I used to really enjoy it and it was great fun.

 

[hussar]

Was asked a couple of years ago to give a talk on endurance to a riding club. It was good fun because I took along a load of endurance kit which was new to them, and even persuaded a few of them to try a pleasure ride. I've also done a ridden demo for our local Pony Club, demonstrating endurance paces and rhythm, one-handed riding, and kit again. That was more scary than the riding club because of the PC mums!