I just want to send a Thank You to everyone who organized, and participated this past weekend in the Kelowna & District Genealogical Society [KDGS http://www.kdgs.ca/] workshops! I have to send a huge shout-out to Claire Smith-Burns as she was my go-to person for everything KDGS for several months, right up to collecting me from the airport, sharing her lovely home with me for a couple nights, getting me back to the plane on time, and also managing to show me around her beautiful city. She did this as she also manged to oversee the entire event and she always praised the many qualitified volunteers it takes to put on such an event. Everything went off without a hitch so Congratulations to you all!
It was a pleasure to be there as one of the speakers. I met so many wonderful people who took the time to share their stories with me, or to ask their questions of me. You are all a very smart group of genealogists!! And I was very honoured to have been invited. It was also fun to learn how many people with Saskatchewan ties were there! Go Riders? hahaha
Thanks also for the lovely comments you made directly to me, and shared in your questionnaire responses. Being a spearker is perhaps not the easiest job in the World, and even after 19 years of putting myself 'out there' I remain very nervous for the first few minutes! Shhh don't tell anybody!! The nerves just mean I'm totally dedicated to giving my best and it can take a couple minutes to settle down. If you don't think it's stressful, try it!! HaHaHa
Speakers know as they research, write, prepare, and practise their 'content' that they will be delivering that content to an audience with a wide variety of skill sets, and one size will never fit all or make everyone happy. I suppose speakers are no different than anyone in the audience - we too have various skill sets, various personalities, and various abilities and comfort levels.
I want to Thank all of you for making me feel so welcome, and comfortable. It's so much easier to work together towards a common goal - that of learning more ways to advance our family history. Sometimes you may hear something that you already 'know', but if you take it as a gentle reminder who knows what it might do for your research? And when I said that I truly believe each speaker can [and in my opion *should*] be just as willing to learn from their audience of fellow genealogists, I was totally serious! So Thank you also for teaching me!!
I would also encourage those of you who have certain skills to share those skills by doing some presenting. You may turn out to be one of the BEST!! I guarantee that, if nothing else, you will become a total expert on whatever your topic is as it takes a ton of work to be relatively confident you can handle all questions, convey that information in a suitable manner, and deal with all the challenges speakers encounter. Think about it. Maybe we'll share presenting duties at some conference in the future? That would be totally awesome!!
I would love to hear any success stories you might like to share - especially if I had anything to do with helping you. LOL And remember to keep re-examining those old documents, searching for new clues. Happy Searching Everyone.
Cheers,
Pat
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