The Keynote Presenter

Last week I spoke at the Hudson Memorial Presbyterian Church about the old-time camp meetings. What was neat was this was the first time I had made this presentation to Presbyterians. The Presbyterians were responsible for one of the most celebrated camp meetings in the history of Camp Meetings. That was at Cane Ridge, Kentucky in 1801.

I also had the opportunity to pass around my collection of communion tokens. In the early camp meetings conducted by the Presbyterians celebrating communion was a big event. However, before you could participate, you had to demonstrate to the church leaders that you were worthy of participating in this event. If the church leaders deemed that you were worthy, you were given a communion token that you would then present at the time of the Lord’s supper. I have collected 20 or so communion tokens from the 1800s. Some of them are shown below.

You would think making the same presentation over and over again might get boring. Yesterday I presented the History and Evolution of the Outhouse to a group at the SearStone in Cary, NC. One of the questions asked by the audience was how many times I had give this presentation and my answer was for over 30 years. But one reason it doesn’t get boring is because I typically learn something new from the audience every time I present. Yesterday I learned that 25% of the population in Russia uses outhouses. When I got home I looked that up, and learned that fact to be true.
https://russialist.org/one-russian-in-four-lacks-an-indoor-toilet-one-of-many-signs-there-are-now-four-distinct-russias/ The photo above is of a Russian outhouse. Now I may have to add this new information to my presentation.

Did you know there were Catholic Priests who were circuit riders in the 1800s? The operated in South Texas and were known as the Cavalry of Christ. I spoke at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at North Carolina State on Friday about Circuit Rider preachers. While the Methodist had the most circuit rider preachers, nearly every religious denomination had some circuit riders. They were dedicated, hardy individuals who braved cold and hot weather, robbers, marauding Indians, wild animals, sickness, thugs, poverty, and impassable rivers to spread the word of God on the American frontier. It was a hard life. Neatly half of the Methodist circuit rider preachers died before the age of 30 in the early 1800s. My presentation focused on true stories about these brave messengers of God.

It was neat to speak in a hotel where you could look out on to the playing field of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball field from the hotel restaurant. The meeting room I was speaking in didn’t look out on the field, which is probably a good thing because the audience might have been distracted. I was speaking at a meeting of the ECMC Postsecondary Fellows Program. This program is operated through the College of Education at North Carolina State and is designed to prepare individuals for leadership positions in Postsecondary Education. They were a neat group to work with. My presentation was Career and Technical Education in a Changing World: A History. In case you want to stay at this hotel sometime and look out at the ball game, it was the Toronto Marriott City Centre.

It was a very nice room but I knew it would be too small when I first saw it. As people drifted in, it didn’t take long to fill the room up; then people started dragging in chairs from an adjacent room. Then the staff collapsed the portable wall on the left and doubled the size of the room and it was still a tight fit. I was speaking at a retirement center in Raleigh, NC about the history and evolution of the outhouse.

One of the neat things about making this presentation to an older audience is that they can relate to the topic since many of them had real world experience with outhouses. We had a great, engaging discussion of outhouses. I appreciate the staff at the Cardinal going to great lengths to plan stimulating programs to keep their residents mentally sharp and engaged.

Exactly a year ago in January, I was speaking to the Kentucky ACTE Leadership Cohort (TALENTS) and it started snowing. Well, guess what happened this year? Same place, same time, same event (but with a new cohort) and it snowed again. However, the snow was not nearly as bad as last year. It was nice pretty snow and only took a minute or so to sweep off my car. So, if you need snow, just ask me to come speak in January.

I made two presentations. The first was on how to use some assessment tools I have developed to improve teaching. The second was about “Being a 2nd Mile Leader.” Since I served as national president of four major professional societies during my career, I do have some ideas and experiences in regards to being an effective leader.

My voice was back to nearly normal when I spoke to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute last week. However, having a scratchy voice played into my role as Bishop Frances Asbury. Since he traveled by horseback through all types of weather, he often got head colds. 

I was dressed as Bishop Asbury and spoke about Camp Meetings. Bishop Asbury, the first Methodist bishop in America, had actually spoken at several of the camp meetings that I talked about (and visited). It was neat having one member of the audience whose father and grandfather were circuit-riding preachers, which is the subject of my next presentation to the Osher group on April 5. 

At first, I thought it was a good idea to do four presentations on four consective days. After all, they were in the same city (San Antonio) and were either in the Convention Center or the adjoining Grand Hyatt. However, by the time the 4th presentation rolled around I had a head cold and my voice was somewhat raspy. So perhaps it was not such a good idea.

The first presentation was titled “Search for the Wizard of Oz”. I was the luncheon speaker for the National Agricultural Education Summit this past Tuesday. The 2nd presentation was “Searching for the Early Leaders in Vocational Education.” This was a research paper presented to the Association for Career and Technical Education Research. Presentation 3 and 4 was “Live Like You Were Dying: Balancing Work and Family. On Thursday this was presented to the National Association of Agricultural Educators and on Friday the audience was the Association for Career and Technical Education. It was good that I had a strong microphone on Friday.

Just when I thought doing four presentations in a row was a bad idea, I received the following message from one of the attendees. So perhaps I will continue doing a bunch of presentations in a row.

Dear Dr. Moore,

My name is xxxxxx. I am in my 7th year teaching, my 9th year of marriage, and just finishing my first year mother. I just want to say thank you for your presentation today. I clearly have not had time to implement all that you presented, but I want you to know you have made and will make a difference in my life and the life of my family. I am going to work on my “homework” on the plane home. I have scheduled a meeting with my husband this weekend to discuss how your workshop will impact our family. I just want to say thank you, I am certain that I will look back at this hour and a half as one of the best investments I’ve made for my professional and personal life.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart and from my family.

This is an exciting time for the Farm Bureau as many of them are kicking off the 100th year celebration of the founding of the American Farm Bureau.  Since I am a big history buff I really enjoy speaking at such historical celebratory events. That is why I was in Montana last week. My keynote presentation on “Searching for the Wizard of Oz” was designed to kick off the year-long celebration. While I planned to challenge the Montana Farm Bureau, I found from my research, that they were doing a lot of good things already. They have their act together.

It was a tad cold in Montana and there were snow flurries while I was there. I was pleased that my flight home was not canceled. On my last two trips, my flights home were canceled because of hurricanes in North Carolina. Yippee – there were no hurricanes this time.

Speaking to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute is always a treat. The audience is attentive (I guess paying to hear a lecture helps ensure that) and they ask good questions. What was unique about my recent presentation about the Women’s Land Army was that 90% of the audience were women.  I was somewhat surprised when I asked how many people had heard of the Women’s Land Army and no one raised their hand. A number of the ladies in the audience had attended all-female colleges that supplied the “Farmerettes.” during WWI and WWII. I passed out electronic responders to the audience to use when I asked questions and also passed out about 20 demonstration type signs that had role play information that further engaged the audience in the presentation.  We had a good time.