TERAPROOF:User:marktwomeyDate:31/08/2010Time:14:15:34Edition:01/09/2010ExaminerLiveXX0109Page: 17Zone:XX1

17FEATUREIrish ExaminerWednesday 01.09.2010

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Images showing the preparation for this weekend’s Body &Soul area at Electric Picnic. Pictures: Michael O'Rourke

Here’s a toast to public speaking

Richard Fitzpatrick at Dublin Toastmasters, and veteran speaker Joe Grehan (right).

Afraid ofspeaking in

public? JoiningToastmasters

could help youface your fearsand build your

confidence,says RichardFitzpatrick

P EOPLE suffer from avariety of phobias, butapparently the most

common fear in life is public speak-ing, yet every week people volun-tarily do just that as members oftoastmaster clubs. There are 90-oddclubs in the country.Each club has its personality:

some, like Engineers’ Ireland, have adress code; Vox Populi meets inLarry Murphy’s, a Dublin pub, on aWednesday night; others, like Price-WaterhouseCoopers’, are hewn outof the workplace. The country’smost venerable club is Dublin Toast-masters. On Thursday, its 53rd sea-son kicks off. It has 45 members permeeting in a room in Buswell’s Ho-tel, off Kildare Street, in Dublin.The Toastmasters flag is draped on astand at the top of the room.Membership for the year costs200; guests pay 5 a night. Peoplejoin, for example, because they havea wedding speech to make, or theyneed to hone their public-speakingskills for work or job interviews, oras a cheap way to build assertivenessand boost confidence. Or even, justmake new friends.The infectiously friendly atmo-

sphere puts you at ease. Members,unsolicited, will converse with you.The membership is drawn from abroad spectrum, from college stu-dents to 92-year-old Joe Grehan,who worked as a salesman. He wasborn in March, 1918, the last yearof the First World War.Every week, like a member of

parliament, he talks about somesubject or other. He rests one hand

on the chair in front of him andeyeballs the audience members.He has an authoritative, boomingvoice. His favourite part of Toast-masters is the topic round. It takesup the first half of the two-hourmeeting. A topic master will picknames from a hat, and the topicsare wonderfully diverse; most ofthem are cultural issues of the day,and light-hearted.You have two minutes to im-

press, and you have as muchchance of being asked about thedubious glories of The X Factorshow as you do of being quizzedon the merits of NAMA. Samplesinclude: What would be yourdream job? Why are women supe-rior? Why are men superior?“It puts you on your toes,” says

Grehan, with masochistic relish.His favourite topic was: ‘If youwere not Joe Grehan, what wouldyou think of Joe Grehan?’ Thesecond-half of the session is taken

up with five-minute to sev-en-minute speeches, which arethen evaluated. Novices will beginwith the ice breaker, the first of10 speeches, concluding with theinspire-your-audience speech.Some senior members have given50 speeches in their time.After attending a couple of

meetings, I put my name down todo an ice-breaker. It’s straightfor-ward. You talk about yourself. Inkeeping with Harold Macmillan’sdictum that you should always

know what you’re goingto say, but never how you’regoing to say it, I didn’t usenotes.I had prepared, though. The

more you know about your sub-ject the less nervous you will be. Iknew there were four or fivetouchstones I wanted to hit aboutmy life, my family, Co Clare,where I grew up, and my job as ajournalist.I was short on personal detail; I

favoured anecdotes, including

ones about my four-year-old niece,who is something of a truth serum,and of a memorable encounter withsinger Liam Clancy, who was a greatraconteur.Pat Farrell, my evaluator, com-

mended me on my use of stories;rightly saying that too much dataloses the listener after a few minutes.We are born to absorb newsthrough metaphor and story.Where I fell down was in my

voice projection. He told me to“speak to the person outside thedoor” and to vary my tone — tospeak high and low, according tothe gravity or excitement of thetopic. I didn’t know what to dowith my hands — sometimes

putting them in my pockets,sometimes touching myear. As part of the eval-uation, the club mem-bers gave me feedbackslips. I was encour-aged to smile more, inorder to relax myselfand the audience. Onepointed out, in keepingwith the club’s gram-marian role, that I said

“about 72 ahs.” The BBCwould not have been impressed. Iwas enthused; by the end of myspeech I was struggling to finish —it went on for nine minutes. Aswith most things in life, said Farrell,it is about the time you put in. Af-ter 10 speeches, he said my kinkswould be ironed out. I can’t wait.

For more information about Dublin Toastmas-ters, visit www.toastmasters.ie.

Life and soulof the party

Garden party: Avril Stanley decided to organise Body & Soulafter attending The Burning Man festival. Picture: Maura Hickey

Avril Stanleyfound her

vocation bycreating an

oasis of calmwith Body &

Soul at ElectricPicnic, writes

JenniferHough

SHE was 23 and jumpingaround the Nevadadesert dance floor at the

hedonistic Burning Man festivalwhen the thunderbolt struck.Galway woman Avril Stanley, who

founded and runs the Body & SoulVillage at the Electric Picnic, hadbeen travelling through India andJapan and found herself at the festi-val. “It was like nothing I had everexperienced before — I was blownaway by it,” she says. “I bounced upto my friend and said this is what Iwant to do — this is amazing.”Fast forward more than 10 years

and Stanley is running her very ownBurning Man — Irish-style, replac-ing scorching sand with soggy grass.The passion instilled in her that

day in Nevada, however, did take abit of nurturing, which began onthe streets of San Francisco.Having left the Burning Man fes-

tival full of inspiration and passion,Avril and her friends began hostingunderground parties in the Califor-nian city.“They were in warehouses, old

falling-down places by the sea,places you could come in and set upa sound system with no trouble —off the beaten track,” she says.Although Stanley and her crew

weren’t earning much from these“renegade parties” as she calls them,at such a young age, it was enoughjust to be there and be doing it.“We lived very cheaply, it was not

about it being a career, we workedfor free and had enough to survive.”But when real life came knocking

and Stanley found herself backhome in Galway, helping out withthe family business, running the lo-cal golf club.“It was a nightmare scenario, and

not what I was into at all,” she re-calls.Then, as fate would have it, an-

other opportunity arose. “One daythis invitation came to put on anight for this event called earthdance — a one-night thing to raiseawareness about Tibet — and I wasinvited to run the Irish leg by peo-ple I knew from San Francisco.”Held in an upstairs venue in Gal-

way city, Church Lane, the nightproved a massive hit, with all sortsof people climbing out of thewoodwork to help.“After that night, the guy who

owned the nightclub asked me tomanage it for him, so I jumpedship from the family business anddid that for nine months.”But it was Galway in the 1990s,

and it was just too small for Avril’sbig ideas.“I became increasingly frustrat-

ed as I could not do what I want-ed to do,” she says. “I just felt likeI was putting a load of energy andlove into this but was not gettinganything back, and really peoplejust wanted a pint — and wouldonly dance if they were pissed.”Disillusioned, Stanley upped

sticks and headed for the brightlights of London, this time tostudy as a therapist.She spent three years training

and eventually set up her ownpractice in Bristol.“Life was simple and I loved it,”

she says. But that desire born allthose years ago would not goaway — and sure enough thethunderbolt struck again, this timeat Britain’s annual Big Chill festi-val.“I was at the festival and saw

how their therapy area was set upand being run and just thought I

could do that, so I put in a pro-posal to run it and they took meup on it.”Seven successful years later the

Electric Picnic came knockingand Stanley, feet itching again,took up their offer to come onboard.Body & Soul, according to

Stanley, who runs the show alongwith her assistant Freddie, hasevolved “organically” and whileshe had felt “hemmed in” andbranded simply as a therapy andhealing area, now the idea has fi-nally evolved to what she envis-aged — one giant kaleidoscopeart and music installation withmany interesting and quirky facetsto explore.Electric Picnic offered her a

blank canvas which has allowedher to create the mini-festivalwithin a festival which exists to-day. “We want to leave a positiveimpact on the music and artsscene without leaving a negativeimpact on the earth,” she says.“The message is inspirational

and positive — it’s about givingsomething back.”Stanley has already branched out

and set up her own independentevent — the first of which washeld earlier this summer, behindthe spectacular walled gardens ofBallinlough Castle, Co West-meath. The festival, Body & Soulwas a huge success and is set tobecome a part of the growing fes-tival fabric of this country.Back to this weekend’s gig,

Stanley maintains anyone can getinvolved.“You don’t have to be an artist,

we are open to everyone, it is agreat opportunity and anyone cansubmit art or volunteer.”With limited budgets available,

people willing to offer their ser-vices for free is the only way itworks.“It would not work without the

volunteers and I wouldn’t want todo it without them. They covereverything from carpenters, todrivers to stage crew, stewards. Itis an exchange — they can learnfrom the experience and we needthe help.”Stanley says due to the recession

she has noticed more high-ly-skilled people than ever beforewilling to volunteer.

“Three years ago we could notfind people to help us, now wehave professionals, there are a lotof people looking for work.”This year, the village will once

again be a haven inside the festival— a meandering, colourful won-derland of music stages, visual in-stallations, massage tents, cocoons,disco corners, great food, andpromises, as always, somethingthat little bit different.“There’s not necessarily more

going on but we are really startingto fine-tune things and we knowwhere we are going.“We know what works and

what doesn’t. We have a few reallyamazing acts on our stage thisyear, and we have a second, al-most experimental stage, with po-etry, theatre and music, showcas-ing emerging artists.“I’m so proud of our line-up

this year, it’s a real mixture.”With all that to look forward to,

can she take time to enjoy it allonce the festival begins and ninemonths of planning is coming tofruition before her eyes?“No, I wouldn’t say I enjoy the

festival when it’s on — it’s

non-stop running, I’d love to put aspeedometer on, see how manymiles I do.“I feel like I become these eyes —

constantly dealing with people,there’s always a problem here, aproblem there, someone has trippedover a hole that needs to be filled inwith sand, there’s a band on the waybut they got lost, someone’s misseda flight so you have to send a driverto pick them up at airport, the in-ternet is down so you can’t send anemail, your phone has blown up inyour hand and there are 500 peopletrying to get hold of you but theycan’t. It’s like a vigilance — makingsure everything is okay, checking inwith people — it’s a massive partyin your back garden and you haveto make sure everyone is alright. Ifsomething is not working, you haveto be there to sort it out.”So, if you are lucky enough to

make it to the Body & Soul Villagethis year, and you see a particularlystressed-out pair of eyes dartingfeverishly round the site — don’tworry, it’s only Avril.Body & Soul is part of this week-

end’s Electric Picnic festival in CoLaois. See www.electricpicnic.ie