Tickets to the event had sold out within a blink of an eye, and before I'd even known they'd gone on sale.
As panelists, we'd been given the questions about a week ago, so we weren't flying by the seat of our pants. Of the seven questions, there were only 3 that I was able to prepare for because I wasn't under 30, wasn't over 50 and don't have kids (two questions were related to parenting).
Here are the 3 questions that I did tackle (and roughly the responses I gave):
a. What have I gained the most from my relationship with my grandmother?
Given that I had the coolest grandmother that ever walked this earth, this one was easy as. To me, Grandma gave me a real sense of self, an understanding of why it is that I love music, fresh flowers, watercolours, historical novels, Sherlock Holmes, silly television adverts, cats...its all built into my DNA. Grandma celebrated my uniqueness, and loved my quirkiness...she never once baulked at any of the strange things I did or said or wanted, she purely loved me for being me. Her passing was one of the most traumatic moments of my life. I still miss her every single day. The last thing I ever said to her, just a week before she died in 2003 was "I love you Grandma". Best. Final. Words. Ever.
Following the death of my Grandfather several months ago, we cleared out his house. Amongst the things, I found a little book I'd given Grandma for her birthday in 1992. I'd actually gone through and underlined some of the phrases in pencil that were peculiar to our relationship. These included:
"Good grandmothers let you tell them the entire plot of the film
they too watched last night on television.
With suitable amazement".
"Grandmas sometimes race you to the next lamppost...
but then they sit on a wall,
and go a funny shade of yellow".
I finished that section with one of my all time favourite phrases..."Be who you are and say what you want because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter, don't mind" Dr Seuss.
b. If you had the ability to turn back time to improve one aspect of your life, when would it be to and why?
Hindsight: wonderful and torturous all at once. My overall response that I wish I'd listened more often to my gut feeling...and gone with what I'd thought was right instead of pandering to others beliefs and desires or being railroaded by the bolshy people in my life (I didn't say that bit, but I was blimin thinking it!).
But I can put my finger on an EXACT moment in time. When I was 22, a local radio station that my employer had a lot to do with was looking for someone to work the graveyard shift. I'd done some voiceover work for them, and was good friends with a lot of the team at the station. They asked me if I wanted to take on the shift (yes, the hours would have fitted with the job I had at the time and training was no problem), but I declined the offer. Everyone said things like "they're not gonna pay you enough" or "those hours suck" or "I'll never see you" or "do you really want to work in radio, its boring", et cetera. And idiot me didn't go with my gut feeling. Idiot me went with what everyone else said. I have been kicking myself ever since.
I would have LOVED a career in radio or on tv...something media/journalism oriented. Now I just have to make do with flirting with tv and radio hosts and their sidekicks on twitter...you know who you are ;-)
c. How do I foster healthy communication in a day when technology has altered the way we communicate?
Ok...so the audience was 100% women! Yeah, I was really surprised at that. I thought a few husbands or fathers or brothers would pop along, but no...it was a chicks only event. But it was cool!
The youngest there was 17-ish, the oldest about 80-ish, and the bulk of the audience would have been in the 50-70 age bracket. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they came from all walks of life, but certainly there was a wide cross-section of nationalities represented.
Thankfully, several months ago, I'd had a one on one Skype power session with @thornybleeder (shameless plug), and a lot of what we'd covered was in respect of communication in this day and age, and in particular women and social media.
Accordingly, I was armed with all sorts of stats (women aged 55+ are the fast growing demographic on the internet) and knowledge in order to answer it. My main response (from a business point of view) was that as women, we need to embrace technology as a method of communication, that modern business is all about talking with people, not at people. I explained that old school advertising was dead (yellow pages, billboards, newspaper, etc) because companies were no longer getting the return on investment that they did using those methods say, even 5 years ago.
Then Kaye asked me to explain twitter. I tried to be succinct. I just have so much to say about it. I was practically jumping out of my chair talking about it! However, omg, get this. A friend of mine, Tania was there in the audience, and following my brief enthusiastic description, she signed up to twitter as I continued to speak.
Fast-forward to the dessert break --> I tweeted that Tania had signed up, and within a few minutes she had 13 followers although she still hadn't even tweeted. Good work team! You guys rock.
Anyway, back to the event. It finished with some questions from the floor including "What is your most annoying habit?" and "What poster was on your wall when you were a teenager". FYI: Jon Bon Jovi, of course, the man I have been in love with flat-tack for 27 years, without ever waivering in my devotion to him.
Every so often Kaye would throw in a light-hearted question to put us on the spot, and all in all, the event was hilarious, convivial and a tonne of fun.
The evening finished with a brief speech by Julie, then it was home, into my PJs and onto twitter and instagram.
I had two highlights from the event: my passion for public speaking was rekindled (gimme more someone!), and funnily enough my second highlight was the natter that the panelists, Kaye and I had in the green room prior to the event starting. We could hear the audience arriving and talking and laughing, but for an hour or so we just talked about our backgrounds, being stuck in the lift with movie stars, you know...that general chit chat you get. Fantastic.
A special thanks to Bronnie for inviting me to be a part of such an auspicious panel. It truly was one of the best nights I've had out this year.
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