How to organise a presentation evening

Friday 8th Feb- Presentation Evening

A further £65 was donated at the Presentation Evening, bringing the total raised so far to: £295

The presentation evening went well.


In writing up this blog I am torn between:

1. Making it sound like a ravingly successful project (when in fact there is sometimes an awful lot of work for a small return..)
2. Writing this in a rivetting blog style (still learning) rivett, rivett
   
3. Giving useful advice for others who may want to do a similar project
   
4. Just making a true diary of what happened.. It is hard enough finding time to write things up while I can still remember.

Who came?

1. Our team of five organisers: Myself - the speaker, David Briggs the chairman , digital projector provider and operator, and Hilary, Lesley and Richard making the coffee and scones.
2. Two people came from our church
3. A couple came as a result of my handing out leaflets for the coffee morning
   
4. Six people came as a result of my sending out emails to Craven Conservation Group and others.

I wrote out a detailed programme and emailed it to the chairman and we both forgot to bring printed copies. However the preparation did mean we were able to pack a lot into the session.

At the beginning I asked people to work in pairs and find from their partner: their name, where they lived and anything else the partner wanted to say. They then had to introduce their partner to the group. This created a good buzz.

I gave a 15 minute talk on the importance or rainforests, and how they are being lost- e.g., Just one urgent example is that at current rates of forest destruction in Borneo the Orang-utan will become extinct in the wild withing 10 years according to a FOE report.

Main threats throughout the world include:

• To Palm oil
• To soya
• To cattle ranching
  
• To mining such as "coltan" rare metals for mobile phones in the Congo Basin
• To logging, especially illegal logging

I showed how much of this is linked to things we buy

Palm oil - soap, hydrogenated vegetable oil in food, etc
Soya- soya lecithins (emulsifiers) in processed food
Soya - to cattle food in this country
Cattle - Corned beef, leather
Coltan - Mobile phones
Logging - Garden furniture in Garden stores.



Then we showed extracts from two videos of the World land Trust: One on Belize, made in 1994, and one on the Philippines made more recently. The Philippines video is about an island - where as well as forest there is mangrove swamps and also an important marine reserve. Fishing is a key source of income for the people there but overfishing by big trawler ships and also local over fishing had reduced fish numbers. By having certain parts of the coral sea protected from all fishing, fish numbers were beginning to pick up.

There was then coffee and scones and lots of opportunity for questions and discussion.

Work before the meeting involved:
Sending off to World Land Trust for the videos and more leaflets
Having support of local group at church who voluntered to get projector tea coffee etc
Preparing display used at coffee morning.
Producing posters for local shops and sending a short item to the local paper.
Sending out an email to my contacts list.