There was a famous occasion in Trinidad a few years ago when an audience, bored out of their minds by an interminable function, decided to take matters into their own hands and exited the seemingly endless and agonizingly dull proceedings. On that day a banner was raised which should not be lightly lowered.
The brave pioneers were the graduating students of St Benedict’s College in Trinidad. On that revolutionary day the vast majority of the students declared enough is enough and walked out of their own graduating ceremony. The ceremony had started at 9 o’clock in the morning and the student walkout was provoked by the lengthy speeches inflicted upon them with no end in sight and the benches hard and lunch ready and the feature address by an Archbishop and God knows what other pious palaver still to come. A few meek souls who remained were in bad shape, propping sorrow, slumped in ennui, waiting to be put out of their misery.
Can there be any doubt that all functions and ceremonies are too long? Every single person attending an event where speeches are the order of the day hopes and prays that the organizers for once will keep the number of speeches to a minimum and that the speakers will have mercy on their captive audience and keep what they have to say short and to the exact purpose.
Short means no more than seven to ten minutes which is the scientifically researched attention span of the average person listening to a speech. The main speaker at an event can be forgiven if he or she speaks for longer than that but, even so, much beyond half an hour risks a rustling and restlessness and much silent sighing and yawns politely stifled in the throat.
I like the story of Winston Churchill who said the he didn’t too much mind people looking at their watches when he was making a speech – but when they began to shake them to see if they were working then he knew it was time to stop.
The fact is that very few people indeed can make a long speech which is also good and interesting. Oratorical skills are exceedingly rare. It is a self-indulgent fantasy in most public speakers to believe that an audience is hanging on every golden word they deliver, it being much more likely that the audience is covertly looking at their watches after about five minutes. An absolute rule of public speaking is that ninety-nine per cent of speeches would be much improved if they were cut by half.
It is a mystery, therefore, why event organizers customarily want to pack an average of two to three more speakers into a programme than should be accommodated. Do they really think speeches are fun?
All functions and ceremonies should be organized with audience comfort in mind. The guidelines, to be known as St Benedict’s blessing, must be strictly followed.
One, the master of ceremonies to be an unobtrusive facilitator and not an important mini-speaker by his own estimation.
Two, a real effort made to begin on time even if honoured guests are embarrassed by having to find their places after the start of proceedings.
Three, speeches limited to 75 minutes in total at most.
Four, persons introducing speakers must get up, give the unembellished facts and sit down fast.
Five, seriously consider how many speakers need to be featured in addition to the star of the show and any such subsidiary acts warned to keep it short, say five minutes apiece.
Six, vote of thanks should simply be that, kept brief, and not hi-jacked as an occasion for yet another self-serving speech.
Seven, refreshments should be ready and waiting and it should be understood, and become socially accepted practice, that the audience, after, say, 90 minutes of ceremony, must be able to drift off towards the drinks and snacks, leaving any weak master of ceremonies and remaining speaker or speakers deservedly in the lurch – in other words, the burden of seeming impolite must be fundamentally shifted from persons leaving early to speakers going on too long.
There must be a Manifesto for the long-suffering listening class. The sore-of-bottom, hungry, fed-up student martyrs of St Benedict showed the way. Let the rest of us follow their example.
