Paul Cooney is a long-time supporter of Proportional Representation (PR) who recently attended a Make Votes Matter training session on speaking up for PR. With a number of speaker engagements under his belt, Paul shares his top tips on engaging an audience and inspiring people to take action.
I’m now retired after many years working for BT and then the NHS. I had many varied roles with BT but probably my most satisfying was as a professional trainer for around 10 years.
I mention this specifically because of one very valuable lesson I learnt in that role which is still useful to me now as a speaker for PR; if you believe in, and know your subject, you will naturally come across to your audience as a confident and passionate speaker.
With that in mind, here are my top five tips on how to get your audience engaged and taking action to help win PR:
Know your subject matter
Make it personal
Know your audience
Practise your speech and learn how to deal with questions
Get people to take action!
I can’t stress enough how important it is to know your subject, which for me is a matter of research and study. There’s plenty of material on websites like Make Votes Matter and the Electoral Reform Society.
To help you with all of this, Make Votes Matter (MVM) runs a cross-party speaker training programme which I highly recommend. During your virtual MVM training session you will be given information and tips on how to prepare a five-minute talk on PR. Then you have the chance to practise your speech on other volunteers and get positive feedback. This is the opportunity to make it personal. Tell your story about what motivated you to support PR. Do you live in a safe seat where your vote doesn’t matter? You can reference recent events such as election results, so your audience can relate to your experiences. For me it was the increasing awareness of how unfair our voting system is for the majority of people and thinking about what I might be able to do to change this.
Once accredited as a speaker, the team at MVM will discuss upcoming speaker engagements with you and whether you are comfortable speaking at an event hosted by a political party, a university or a charity, for example. That way you can weave in a few supporting facts to help you frame your talk and make it relevant to the group. Knowing your audience and tailoring your speech so it resonates with them is just as critical as knowing your subject because you want to hold their interest throughout.
And if you are thinking of becoming a speaker on electoral reform, the fact that you want to help the campaign by taking on this role means you are already a passionate believer in the subject.
I’ve been a speaker for MVM and the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform for a few months and I’ve spoken at Labour, Green Party and Liberal Democrat events, along with a humanist association. I also use my existing contacts to speak to faith groups, sports societies, in fact any group who may be interested in democracy. And with three more events lined up this month alone, I’m really enjoying the experience and feel that I’m making a contribution to our campaign for fair votes.
As with all talks, the key is to practise your speech enough so that it flows easily. A good tip is to say it aloud to someone as feedback from a listener can be really useful. Have a structure and outline what you will cover - the problems with our current voting system and the benefits of a fairer system of democracy - and for how long. I don’t try to explain the details of each possible PR system but I do let people know there will be a Q&A session at the end. This also helps with the flow, but of course if there are questions to deal with during the speech, I’d politely make a judgement call as to whether I can address the question then and there or ask the person to wait.
I actually find the Q&A sessions are really useful and my own knowledge and experience has grown with each one. Don’t be put off by someone asking a question that you can’t immediately answer; have reference material on hand and if you still can’t find the answer, promise to look into it further and get back to the meeting host with the information.
One last thing which is very important is to get people to take action. Be sure to encourage the group to be part of the MVM movement by providing them with the MVM sign up sheet (or a link to it). And if there is an event coming up, do plug it. For example, I’m encouraging people to sign up to MVM’s virtual Equal Votes Lobby on Friday 12th March. The more people taking part, the louder our calls for PR will be.
Good luck everyone and maybe I’ll see you at a (virtual) event soon!
Want to get involved and speak up for equal votes?
You can sign up to our cross-party speaker training programme here.
Alternatively, you can request a speaker on Proportional Representation to come to one of your local meetings here.
Visit the Make Votes Matter YouTube channel and the resources page on the website for more great content on how to speak up for fair votes.
Join our virtual Equal Votes lobby and make the case for PR to your MP. You can sign up here.