[djgustashaw]

i'm running for student council president this year. tell me how my speech sounds. it has to be under a minute and a half, and i timed it at just under 50 seconds.

Hey.

I'm DJ Gustashaw, one of your presidential canidates this year.

I've been a member of student council since my freshman year, and to say that we've seen some changes since then would be an understatement. In fact, student council has gone through three different faculty sponsors in the past four years.

But this year, we're seeing more changes than ever before. We're attempting to make the jump from a small council to a full-fledged student government. Our constitution is being radically updated. And we're streamlining our duties so we can focus on things that are more important to the school.

I believe that my deep experience with the council and my hard work ethic would serve me well as your next president. Regardless of whether I'm elected or not, I will work closely with our new sponsors to ensure that the afore-mentioned changes are made smoothly, and to also ensure that we as a council do our very best to represent the students. Thank you.

so how does that sound? any insight would be appreciated.

 

[blip]

Looks decent enough... It is hard to give advice to you about how you might improve it because I don't know the context, your audience, your opposition or your requirements.

Let me see if I can explain what I mean by telling you a bit about my own experiences. Maybe they will help you.
1) Context. What has been happening recently that has influenced your audience? For example, I became president of my college's student council after the near impeachment of the previous president. As his vice-president, I had disagreed with many of his decisions... particularly his use of presidential power to bend the assembly to his will. After I had made my disagreement with him known to a few members of the impeachment movement, I became a viable replacement. To my shock, he resigned shortly after it became aparent that the movement (which represented maybe 40% of the assembly) had chosen me as his successor. So after I was unanimously appointed by the assembly to fill his position, I was faced with a problem. On the one hand, the impeachment movement was my core of support. On the other hand, the majority of the assembly, while angry with him, had not been ready to push for a change. On the third hand, the other members of the executive council all believed that I was basically brutus who had assasinated their Caesar.

So when I gave my acceptance speech (which was a traumatic thing too because I was one of the youngest people ever to achieve the top spot) I had to balance the three parties. I gave nothing to the impeachment group because they would support me anyway. Some things to the average assembly member. (I talked about Constitutional reform.) ANd something to the executive council. (I praised the outgoing president.) This made everyone happy and consolidated my position.

2. Audience. Who are they? And what do they want? While I discussed this under context, audience is actually a seperate thing. Audience is who the people you are talking to really are. Do they respond best to humor or serious persuasion? Remember, no one needs 100% of a vote to be elected. If a certain appeal will work with 51% of the vote and alienated 49% do it! Once you have the position you can mend fences with them.

3. Your requirements. This is the most important thing. Ask yourself, what do I need to win? An example of this can be seen at my school, Willamette, in that the two wings of our student government are elected differently. One wing is elected by the people directly. The other by representatives of their halls. Both wings are equal, but very different. I was president of the indirectly elected one and thus my own appeals were very insider full of jokes that only people in the assembly would get. After I retired, however, I was asked to become the campaign manager for one of my friends campaign for the publicly elected one. This required a total change of tact because I couldn't let him rely simply on personality. Instead we used rational persuasion and won that way. When I managed another friends campaign for the same position, we used his popularity (which was much higher than his opponents) as our appeal.

4. Opponenet. This is the second most important thing. I've managed three successful presidential campaigns now and this is always the thing that the other guy always misses. Thing about who your opponent is and how that will affect what he will say about you. Will he run a dirty campaign? Or will his attacks be vieled. Once you know this, then you can predict his (or her) moves and prepare your own countermoves. Practically, what this usually amounts to is thinking about what you may be criticized for and reassuring your audience that it will be okay.

Anyway, consider these four things in your speech. They will help you to give it life and make it bullet proof against your opponents. Or if you'd rather, tell us a little more about the four of them and then I'm sure people will have more specific recommendations.

Good luck!

 

[fractus2]

Looks good djgustashaw, considering you only have a short time alloted. Sounds like you've been practicing..., good. If you don't have it memorized, print it out in very large lettering (multiple pages won't matter) so you can look up and make eye contact with the audience and look back down and not lose your place. Scan the whole room from end to end. You don't have to worry about turning your back to the audience as with a slide presentation. Dress for success and good luck!

ot, but this scene from "Election" had me ROFLMAO!

Tammy Metzler: Who cares about this stupid election? We all know it doesn't matter who gets elected president of Millard. You think it's going to change anything around here, make one single person happier or smarter or nicer? The only person it matters to is the one who gets elected. The same pathetic charade happens every year, and everyone makes the same pathetic promises just so they can put it on their transcripts to get into college. So vote for me, because I don't even want to go to college, and I don't care, and as president I won't do anything. The only promise I make is that if elected I will immediately dismantle the student government, so that none of us will ever have to sit through one of these stupid assemblies again!

[Student body erupts in huge cheers]

 

[djgustashaw]

thanks guys.

as for my opposition, there's only 2. regardless of who gets elected, we're gonna end up doing the same things anyway. student council has been changing alot over the past few years, and we finally have a sponsor who gives a **** and she's gonna grow it into something huge over the next few years. but for now, it's still not very important and no one has any original ideas for what they'll do after they're elected; we probably wouldn't be able to do anything special, anyway. i have a good shot at winning, though, and i'd still work hard even if it were in vain. but thats why i tried not to make any false promises- i know we don't have the power to really change anything, so i instead focused on the changes and how i would help to smooth them, which i will.

fractus-
that quote rocks. i've been copying and pasting that to my friends in AIM tellin em that it's my speech. it could work, but not coming from me. lol.

 

[fractus2]

Quote:

Originally posted by djgustashaw fractus- that quote rocks. i've been copying and pasting that to my friends in AIM tellin em that it's my speech. it could work, but not coming from me. lol.

They'd be rolling in the aisles.

edit: don't forget to let us know how it all goes.