• We want to talk to a lot of people in our communities, our schools, our workplaces and our governments about GNH ideas. This working group will collect and develop resources and coordinate requests for speakers and GNH Ambassadors.

 

NEXT MEETING: October 5, 2010  Burlington, Vermont   Peace and Justice Center – 60 Lake Street (Lake and College, near Echo Center)

 
Launch of the GNH Speakers Bureau

The first GNH Ambassador Training was held on June 4th following the conference at Champlain College. More than 75 attendees of all ages learned about GNH that day, and practiced the skills involved in sharing the concepts with others. The day was designed and facilitated by conference speakers and planners. More Ambassador Trainings will be offered beginning in the fall – keep an eye on www.gnhusa.org

Presenter’s Toolkit   Resource Library for GNH Presenters  (This will be frequently updated, so come back and see what is new)

 

Report Back on August 5th meeting in Montpelier:

News from the GNHUSA Speakers’ Bureau

August 19, 2010

Hello everyone, and welcome to this first email report on our GNHUSA Speakers’ Bureau!

Many of you expressed interest in joining this working group, but were unable to attend the inaugural meeting in Montpelier on August 5th at such short notice.  We look forward to having many more people in the room next time – either in person or by Skype.  We’re also moving the next meeting to Burlington.  Join us October 5th from 5:30 to 7:00 PM at the Peace and Justice Center, 60 Lake Street in downtown Burlington.  As the name suggests, it’s near Lake Champlain — let us know if you need directions.  Also let us know if you want to Skype in.

In the meantime, here’s what happened on August 5th.  Tom & I were joined by Rickey Gard Diamond (briefly), and by Nova Kim, Les Hook, and Richard Czaplinski.  Because Nova, Les, and Richard are all accomplished public speakers, we had a very rich discussion about giving GNHUSA speeches.  Highlights of the discussion follow.

Overall thoughts

  • Talks are best when the speaker knows the subject well & is passionate about it.
  • People are anxious to talk about the economy.  Even though some of what we have to say might be disturbing, the speech shouldn’t be a downer.
  • Help those of us in this movement who already make speeches on other topics (for example, eating wild foods and building root cellars) draw specific connections between those topics and a GNH framework. 
  • Make sure we include in every speech – either as part of the speech itself, or in a handout these set pieces: 1) our philosophy; 2) our ethics; 3) our background; and 4) a reading list.

 Structure

  • Go through the basics in the speech – including history.  How did we get here?
  • Engage the audience.  Lots of audience participation – interruptions even – is a good sign.
  • Stories are very important!  We will start gathering these.
  • Value of power point was noted.
  • We should gradually develop a series of different types of talks.
  • Tom recommended that we use a 2-person system: a presenter and an organizer.  That way, the presenter can focus on the upcoming talk.  The organizer is a way to apprentice to be a speaker, and/or a role for people who want to be involved in the speakers bureau but don’t actually want to do public speaking.

 Materials

  • Develop quarter page handouts that have GNH specific data on specific topics (like our food supply).
  • Should always hand out evaluation forms, and business cards (with web address & phone #)
  • Develop a personal GNH decision-making template to hand out to attendees at speeches so people can weigh a simple set of well-being indicators to decide if a particular choice may lead to more or less happiness for themselves and others.  Ie, individuals could use a process much like the one Karma described Bhutan used when deciding against joining the WTO.
  • TOOLBOX:  We have started a toolbox of videos and power points to show.  That toolbox  includes the RFK speech, which everyone present at the August 5th meeting found to be quite powerful. This is available on the Speaker’s Bureau/Ambassador Working Group page at http://www.gnhusa.org/working-groups/speakers-bureau-gnh-ambassadors/

 Venues

  • Be open to speaking to all kinds of groups – Nova & Les shared their very positive experience with the New England Evangelical Women.  Other ideas: Senior Centers, the Vermont Fuel Dealers Assn.
  • Nova & Les also suggested the ECO Speakers.com  bureau – an environmental speakers bureau we should be part of.
  • Vermont Technical College is doing some good work – we should look into that as an option.

 Publicity

  • Issue a press release when we’re ready to launch.
  • Make sure there’s lots of p.r. around each speaking event.

Miscellaneous

  • Put a “Triumphs” category on the website
  • Quote from Les, “Happiness is a root cellar full of food you’ve put there yourself.”
  • We should meet with Bread and Puppet – get them to include GNH concepts in their skits.
  • Tom will set up a WIKI site for everyone on the Speakers Bureau to share thoughts, experiences, etc.

Commitments

  • Richard will weave GNH into the talks he’s already giving on root cellars, and will think about other options.
  • Nova and Les will go through their list of possible GNH venues, and Nova will share copies of the handouts they use at our next Speakers Bureau meeting

See you on October 5th at our next meeting!,

Ginny Sassaman & Tom Barefoot