cut!
This afternoon I had a novel experience. The Committee’s officials are spread out over six different buildings and there are simply too many of them for us realistically to be able to invite them all to a single meeting. At the same time, I wanted very much to be able to thank them personally for all of our extraordinary achievements this year and to wish them season’s greetings. The Communication Department’s answer is a recorded Christmas address that will be posted on our intranet site and can therefore be ‘streamed’ by colleagues when they wish. So at five this afternoon, when I got back to my office after a day of meetings, I found no less than seven people (variously; manager, director, camera operator, sound operator, telescript operator, make-up, and gofor) in my office, together with a jumble of very bright lights and a camera. I have never delivered a speech to camera before and never used a teleprompter. My colleagues will be the judge of how good my delivery was. I was conscious throughout that I was tired and tense and not smiling enough. Also, this was a ‘speech’ that I had written but not practised, and so there were quite a few awkward passages to be navigated. Still, this was an experiment and, if it works, I’ll be using this method again in the future so as to be able to communicate directly and personally with all of my staff.
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