Crow Sister - as you know (I think) I have been presenting a show with Ralphie Jordan on Lucy Broadwood's life and work in the last couple of years. We have presented it to folk festivals, a couple of folk clubs, as a charity raising event for my local choral society (very successful), and also to the Surrey History Centre (the archive centre holding many of Ms Broadwood's personal records, and the focal point of much of my research to date)all with very rewarding reactions from the audiences present - whether folkies or non-folkies. The show consists of 50% speech, 50% song (two songs unaccompanied) and includes a couple of duet concertina duets. The whole lasted two hours, with a 20 minute interval in the middle (mostly to allow me to get my breath back and sit down for a little while ... and answer questions).

However,before the Listen and You Shall Hear show came into being, I was giving talks (and still do so, if anybody would like to hire me!!) with the same title. I have given these to local history societies, a local Retirement Association, the Local Guildford Institute membership, an old people's church group and to folk festivals. In the case of the talk it is generally around one hour to one hour ten minutes in length - incorporating just four unaccompanied songs (which tend to startle those who are not expecting them ... makes them wake up, and results in some lovely smiles on faces sometimes!!) The talks are normally tailored to some degree to the audience which I am giving them to (but using the same basic material), and incorporate a great deal more spoken material than the show. They have no interval - most organisations that you give talks to will provide the tea and buns for their membership after the talk - and if you're lucky they might serve up some jammy dodgers so that you can drink tea and eat biscuits while fielding the inevitable questions (eg have your ever made a CD , where can I find out more etc etc) after you've finished the talk! WIth the exception of two talks given at Sidmouth and Whitby Folk weeks, the talks have all been to non-folk orientated organisations, all of whom have received them with great interest and apparent enthusiasm (I'm happy to say)

The rate of fees that Virginia Tams records her organisation as charging for talks sound more than a little light to me, I have to say. I don't propose to go into my recent fees here, but they do tend to recognise the amount of pre-preparation that go into them amongst other things. (Several dry run throughs talking to the wall in the week before hand to time them,writing new material,excising duff material, retweaking etc etc, preparing photographs, additional material to take along, print out bits and pieces etc). I don't as yet use powerpoint as an additonal aid - on the whole it hasn't been necessary. You shouldn't forget the matter of travel costs to and from the venue either.Having said which the actual figure of fee can differ according to the organisation and their state of finance (something that gets probed in the minefield that comprises the "How much do you charge?" element of discussions

On the whole I have found that the type of audience for these talks makes little difference to the reception that they get,which may very well be down to the way in which the talk is put over.

What you will discover is that those who organise talks are always on the look out for the new talks on the circuit - variety, and novelty are quite often very welcome.

If you want any further discussion - PM me! :-)