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Since 2001, Vince Stevenson and Speakers of Bromley has worked hard to raise its profile in the community and has collaborated with a number of organisations to develop a greater awareness of its work.

From 2003, the club has sponsored the speech and drama sections of both the Bromley Arts Festival and Beckenham Arts Festivals. Each year contestants work hard to present speeches of excellence to these Arts Festivals' adjudicators. This publicity has been an effective method of attracting new members over the years.

Trevor Kenning - District President with District Development Officer Vince Stevenson Feb 2004

In November 2003 the club announced that it had been successful in receiving a development grant of £200 form Bromley Arts Council as well as a grant of £1000 from the Bromley Community Fund for a data projector. In February 2004 the club was delighted to announce that it had been successful in its bid for a National Lottery grant of £685 for video equipment to help accelerate the development process of our members. The camera has subsequently been used to record the ASC National Finals 2004-2007 and is regularly used on club evenings along with the data projector for our PowerPoint events.

Vince Stevenson at the Hinckley National Conference 2005

At the ASC National Conference in Hinckley, April 2005, Vince Stevenson was presented with the prestigious Awards for All blue plaque by National President, Neil McLeod. In 2005 and 2006 the club applied for further Lottery Grants for PA equipment, a quality standard presentation screen and laptops to assist with GLE projects at BFSC. The screen is resident at Ripley Arts Centre and is regularly used by other community groups.

From 2004 to 2006 Speakers of Bromley worked in combination with the Greater London Enterprise (GLE) to deliver a series of European Social Fund backed courses for vulnerable groups. The purpose of these projects was to help people back into work or into further education. Living Learning Grant 2005 - 2006 The projects were incredibly successful and featured heavily in the GLE's promotional works.

Considering the club is totally voluntary and has no paid officers it was a pleasant but unexpected surprise to be selected for such important roles. Vince's communications skills workshop project was nominated for an award in Adult Learners Week, May 2005. Click on the following link for the club's previous web site for details of the first two ESF projects and their beneficiaries. First Projects The club was also featured by the GLE as a case study for their work in 2005. Living Learning Report 2004 - 2006 pdf Page 38 for the Speakers of Bromley section.

Since the successful ESF projects, Vince has been invited by Gordon House in Beckenham, a organisation that works with gamblers in rehabilitation to deliver an annual public speaking skills session to help boost self-confidence. Gordon House

In March 2006, Vince founded Beckenham Speakers Club which is now one of the strongest clubs in the South-East District. It's also a great opportunity to share Bromley's educational resources.

In 2006, Vince Stevenson was successful in fronting an Awards for All bid on behalf of Bromley Arts Council for a grant of £9,300 for the renovation of an old external garage into what is now known as the Studio at Ripley Arts Centre. The Studio is utilised as a flexible work space for dancing, drama, speaking, music and conference room for groups of all ages and creeds.

In 2006, Vince returned to Bromley Field Studies Centre to deliver some interview training for young unemployed people undertaking NVQ courses Bromley Field Studies Centre.

In 2007, Vince's involvement with the College of Public Speaking attracted £10,000 worth of sponsorship from BT for voluntary work undertaken with the BT Talent Pool in a programme of presentation skills. The recipient of this hard-earned sponsorship is the Association of Speakers Clubs.

In 2008 and 2009, Vince has undertaken pro bono work at Oxfam, Breast Cancer Care and Marie Curie Cancer Care, Medicins San Frontier, The Oxford Hub, The Rainbow Trust and the Skoll Entrepreneur Students.

On September 30th 2009, Speakers of Bromley is assisting the inaugural Chislehurst Arts Festival by putting on a special speaking event at the Bull Public House.

Oxfam - Voice Coaching in Oxford

Vince was nominated for an individual award in the Directory of Social Change Awards 2009 for his work involving several charities.

In December 2007, the College of Public Speaking responded to a training request through the Charity Days Programme for a voice coaching workshop in Oxford.

When we were told that the request had come from Oxfam, a charity world famous for its international crisis management, we could not have been more delighted.

Below are a sample of the comments received following the training of 30 Oxfam staff at Oxfam's premises in Oxford:

Voice Coaching at Oxfam in Oxford

Hi Vince,

Thank you once again for the workshop you did. Everybody has said how much they enjoyed it and have been talking about it all week!

Here is some of the feedback for you:

I thought the session was really effective, particularly from the perspective of getting us all to work together in different ways. Having us operate outside of our normal roles for half a day was a great way to do this. As you mentioned, everyone was surprised by the hidden talent in the team!

I really enjoyed it, it was nice to do something so active with different members of the team and so on.

I thought the voice workshop was a nice way to spend an afternoon and I did find parts of it very useful. It was really interesting (even if a bit uncomfortable) watching ourselves on TV so we could see how we come across to others. I thought Vince was very good at explaining how to improve our speaking and the handout we received at the end of the workshop is full of great tips consolidating what he said.

A really good opportunity to get to know more about the team and gain experience of giving each other feedback, which I think is really important for the team to work together well. I think public speaking is a very important skill to practice, and it was really good for everybody's development to have a course to help us to do this.

Although the focus on public speaking made for some interesting exercises (watching ourselves talk, in particular), I thought that the session could have had a stronger focus on telephone communication.

I thought the workshop was really good. I learned some new tips for public speeching (use of metaphors, long and natural pauses, repetition i.e saying things in 3s). I was glad that I didn't know before hand that we would be filmed because that would have made me nervous. It was good that we found out on the spot.

Thanks once again for what you did with the team.

Many Thanks

Joe

Breast Cancer Care
Again through the Charity Days programme in May 2009, we were invited specifically by Breast Cancer Care to facilitate some telephone training for one of their support teams. This was a pleasure to deliver and it was a thoroughly rewarding experience for both trainer and staff.

Marie Curie Cancer Care
Once more through the Charity Days programme in June 2009, we were invited to work with the Marie Curie Cancer Care team and develop lunchtime communication skills sessions for their support teams. Not an easy task to squeeze the complex subject of effective communication skills into a 90 minute session, but great fun and a great experience for us to utilise our skills in assisting organisations on the cutting edge of paliative care.

Hi Vince

You are absolutely a hit at MCCC, I've attached some of the feedback from today and as you can see it's great. So I can't thank you enough!>

Not only did the group have fun and get something valuable from the workshop they also started talking and discussing ideas with one another. This is excellent as most of these people were meeting for the first time today. You were right, it was a great team building exercise. You were also right about the photo, you are a handsome bunch!

I would love to work with you again and will be in touch with Jane Tregett from Charity Days on Monday so we can grab you as soon as possible!

Have a lovely weekend and thank you again.

Best wishes,

Janu

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Hi Janu,

I just wanted to say thank you for organising today's Presentation Skills workshop - I got a lot of out the session and really valued being able to attend. The ease of being able to fit it in to the normal working day was extremely beneficial.

If you could pass on my thanks again to Vince Stevenson for giving up his time to lead the session, that would be great. Whilst I hated seeing myself on the big screen, I found it really useful and would recommend the session to all at MCCC if they were given the opportunity.

Kind regards - Nardia

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Hurrah, well said Nardia! I second that, I was v nervous but actually really enjoyed it and found it very useful. I thought the trainer was really good.

Emma

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That's the best training session yet Janu - and a lovely bunch to be with too.

Bobbie

Gordon House, Gamblers in Rehabilitation, Beckenham
Gordon House is a specialist provider of residential treatment for addicted gamblers. The Gordon House Association believes that a severe addiction to gambling, although having some parallels to a substance-based addiction, needs an inherently different approach to treatment. This is not so much due to differences in the various addictions themselves but due to the associated behaviours.

Living the life of an addicted gambler means most of the waking day is centred on the avoidance of creditors and wheeling and dealing to manipulate others to create the space to gamble in and the cash to do it with. Unlike those dependent on a substance-based addiction, such as drugs or alcohol, there are no limits to which the gambling addict is able to subject themselves or others. An alcoholic's body will eventually stop the ingestion of alcohol and there will be physical signs to indicate their state; they will stagger, fall down, slur their speech, smell of alcohol etc. Others will be able to recognise the addict's problem without the assistance of that addict. However a gambling addict can carry on indefinitely with no outward signs that they are addicted; it is a hidden addiction, others may never know that an addict even has a problem let alone what the problem is. Therefore the addiction can continue and develop to an extreme state without being detected.

An addicted gambler's life is not based on reality but on avoiding reality. Therefore those who started gambling heavily at an early age sometimes lack some key social and survival skills; they may never have cooked or cleaned; they may never have had a significant relationship or taken the time to fully mature. Once they no longer have their gambling activities to concentrate on, and hide behind, we find that commonly faced for the first time with the actual reality of their situation and the issues they need to address, clients can experience severe anxiety and panic attacks. Some cannot deal with this reality on their own, seeing the route to recovery too daunting and seemingly impossible. Being with others who have 'been there', but have moved through the stabilisation process, is of particular value at this stage to a new resident who is struggling to come to terms with their situation. However we frequently find ourselves working with clients 'rejecting' treatment, or those working with them, in a misguided attempt to protect themselves from reality by finding an excuse to hide again within their gambling behaviours.

Ray and Ian persuading the group to speak up about the dangers of discourteous cyclists and the negative effects of Inheritance Tax.

Really enjoyed the session. I got a lot from it and would like to say thank you.
Ray

Thank you Vince, good fun, easy going and really informative.
Ian

Enjoyable and instructive, a good use of time and its proof that I do have some confidence after all.
Ted

Thank you, I enjoyed it. With the video I am now more aware of my outer self.
Mat

Good fun and most enjoyable. It took me back to my school days when I really enjoyed role play.
Des

Bromley Field Studies Centre

Bromley Field Studies Centre is situated in green belt land on the edge of Scadbury Park Nature Reserve in St Mary Cray, Kent. It offers a range of courses for vocational and school training.

It also runs Inset training for teachers focusing on the management and use of wildlife areas within schools and environmental crafts for pre-school teachers and childminders.



BFSC runs a NVQ level 2 courses in Environmental Conservation, basic skills training, job search and first aid. With the development of the TrEE (Training and Education for the Environment) centre in Scadbury Nature Reserve the centre will be expanding their work to courses encompassing horticultural training, and further vocational training for community groups, Post 16's and clients with special needs.

Everyday, there are up to 60 people out in the field receiving training at the same time as completing valuable conservation tasks within the parks, schools and green spaces of Bromley and surrounding boroughs.


Bromley Field Studies Centre was opened in 1988 by David Bellamy as a centre for Environmental Education allowing school pupils and teachers access to facilities and expertise in the environmental fields. To date this work continues but has grown to include vocational training in environmental conservation allowing unemployed individuals to access employment through practical training, work experience and careers development. The centre focuses on developing individuals' social skills, basic skills, environmental awareness and knowledge.