Perceptions of Saint John by Locals and Visitors - February 8 2016

Perceptions of Saint John by Locals and Visitors 

At our February 8th meeting we again had three speeches delivered.  And three guests, two of which have joined and will start participating in our self-paced program.  People can join and begin at any point throughout the year.   

One speech exercised vocal variety, one exercised use of visual aids, and one exercised interpretive reading techniques, in this case interpreting poetry.  Topics were on working with media, decisions related to visual aids, and of course a poem, in this case one from the 1800’s.

The Table Topics, the impromptu speaking session, were on perceptions of Saint John by locals and by visitors.    This was inspired by a recent conversation with local comedian James Mullinger.  James is performing in April at a fund raiser for another group I work with, L’Ache Saint John.  James was talking about a recent trip he made to Ottawa to promote Saint John, and how he often has local people asking him why he moved here, of all places, from London, England.  People who haven’t travelled widely often don’t appreciate all we have here.  Table Topics were interesting also as around the table there were only two people who were born in the city.   It was a spirited conversation where virtually everyone struggled to keep their comments to within the two minute target. Quite funny too.  Saint Johners it turns out are very willing to push a couple of ill equipped foreigners in a car out of a snow bank, or to share a cab with a foreign university student who jumps into an already occupied cab and declares ‘take me to the university.’ That trip turned out to be a free ride.


Three more speeches scheduled for Monday February 15th, 6pm-8pm at St Macs High off Sydney Street, downstairs in room 002.

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