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Speaker Network newsKey changes in statistics New figures have also recently been released about how many people have been reached with WASH in each of the countries we work in during 2010/11. I thought it might be useful to highlight those statistics that might be of most interest to the groups you speak to.
If you are interested in hearing about any other countries, or the cost per person in each country, or if you have any queries about our statistics, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Success Story – Nepal – continued: WaterAid started work in Ambika's village a year ago. Ambika says that "there was a real buzz in the village that something was going to happen. In the beginning we did not believe that a water supply would be so easy, but later we found it was true." Before WaterAid came to her village,, her children were getting sick three times a month, but with the toilet, they rarely get sick once every six months. They constructed the toilet themselves, carrying stones from the river. Ambika says that they "were encouraged, because all the other villagers had started to build toilets so we were compelled." As for the tap, Ambika was so happy when it was built, because it meant no more water scarcity – she could do whatever she wanted to with the water, and her children would never be filthy as there’s water nearby. She has also undertaken training to become a community health and sanitation volunteer, which means after cleaning her home; she cleans the public taps, and encourages others to keep the taps clean. Ambika enjoys being a volunteer as "I get chances to hear more information on health and sanitation and the importance of it. I have received knowledge on how to escape disease." Top Tip for April Speakers often ask about display materials to take along to talks. One of our speakers, David Gregory, has created a display board, and a "non splash" water bucket! The board is a single plywood sheet, bought at a hardware store, and with all the cuts needed done for free at the store. David has a drawing of the exact sizes if anybody needs them. He has used a blue water based stain to colour it, and three pieces of piano hinge along the joints, and has included a hand hold cutout for transport. He then laminated our posters, so that they will last longer, and so that the board can be used outside! If you would like to know more, please let Becky know, to be put in touch with David. Top Feedback from April This month we wanted to share feedback from two very different groups. The first is from a Brownie group, who said that the speaker "pitched this talk at just the right level to keep the Brownies interested. We liked the dressing up and use of visual aids which kept the talk interesting. The pictures were good and about the right number. He was very enthusiastic and this made it a very enjoyable talk - excellent." The second is from a Rotary Club who had a last minute talk at the end of March: "One of our members, who makes presentations professionally in the course of his work said that 'this should be an exemplar for after lunch presentations – short, punchy, packed with pertinent facts that are put across in a memorable way – excellent'. So thanks to you and your team of volunteer speakers. Our club has worked with WaterAid in the past, and it is likely that you will enjoy our support in the future." Top Tip for March One of our newest speaker recruits, Dave Padfield, has written an interactive poem which he uses when speaking to primary schools. It's designed for the children to join in with, making it go down really well! It is designed to be read out by the speaker in such a way that the children can guess the last word of the second line of each couplet, and can shout it out in chorus! "When the sun's shining, d'you know what I like? I pedal away – not a worry or care It makes me so thirsty, so what do you think? It's really refreshing, you know what I mean? And, as I drink, it comes to my mind The water is dirty and sometimes, perhaps People walk miles to find a good source And in some places they don't have a loo Small children die – so very sad So let's pull together – let’s make a plan Don't say "I might", don't say "I may" February 2012 Claiming Expenses: WaterAid will reimburse any reasonable travel expenses incurred whilst you are volunteering in your capacity as a volunteer speaker for WaterAid What constitutes a "travel expense"? WaterAid views travel expenses as direct expense incurred when travelling to a training session or a talk for WaterAid, i.e. public transport costs, or mileage costs if you are driving. What cannot be reimbursed? Taxis should not normally be used to travel on WaterAid business unless absolutely necessary. Travelling by taxi to/from your volunteering activity to home will not normally be reimbursed. However, there may be times when it is safer, more practical or better value for WaterAid volunteers to use a taxi, e.g. when travelling late at night or when a group of volunteers are sharing a taxi, or when carrying additional items on behalf of WaterAid. If you are planning to travel by taxi, please contact speakers@wateraid.org to check if a taxi fare claim will be reimbursed in that instance. Expense claims for taxi fares should be supported by a receipt. We will not reimburse the following, with exceptions for long distance travel to training, by prior arrangement:
Please note that credit card statements cannot be accepted, the actual ticket is needed. Is there a maximum expenses claim? When travelling to a training session, WaterAid will reimburse anything up to £60. If you think that your expenses will run above this, please contact the volunteer manager at speakers@wateraid.org or call 0207 793 4988 and we will make decisions on a case by case basis. When mileage for a talk is over 50 miles, please consider that there may be another speaker closer to the talk. Please check with your coordinator if this is the case. How do I claim expenses? Please fill in the Expenses Claim form and attach any receipts. When you send your form in the post, please mark it for the attention of the Community Fundraising Team. Please ensure that you sign the bottom of the form, and if this is your first time claiming expenses, please fill in your bank details on the bottom left of the form. Please submit all expenses within one month. February Top Tip: Looking for groups to approach? Why not try your local University of the Third Age. These groups are always really interested in what you've got to say. Find your local U3A here. December 2011 World Toilet Day – the results: A big thank you to all of you who helped us to raise awareness of the water and sanitation crisis on World Toilet Day – 19 November 2011. We had around 300 letters returned by supporters which we sent on to 188 MPs to arrive on World Toilet Day. Our supporters have sent just under 3,000 emails to their MPs to share the message that Water Works, where they added their own messages to strengthen the campaign. Some examples of feedback from supporters that met the MPs include:
Thanks so much again for your help to highlight this very important issue. December Top Tip: This month's top tip comes from a speaker in the Severn Trent area, who is particularly experienced at talking to children, thanks to his day job as a children's entertainer! David recommends that when you speak to young people, one of the most important elements leading to success is to build a rapport with the children as they come in to the hall. If they've raised money, or are raising money, it's a great idea to say thank you for their efforts, and to ask them open questions. David points out that this meant he could note what clearly made them laugh and grab their attention and what left them fidgeting and yawning! December Feedback: This month's feedback comes from Aldermaston School: "We have been most impressed with WaterAid from the moment I requested a speaker to us having the talk. It really is a worthy charity. Thank you so much. He was very honest with the children, and gave some tough messages, but at the same time wasn't 'doom and gloom', and said to the children that it's great that they are doing something to help the problem." This feedback shows the importance of saying thank you to those groups that do great work to fundraise for us, and also what great representatives of WaterAid you are as speakers. Thank you all from us, for all your hard work. November 2011 Use your speaking skills to influence the Government! Will you mark World Toilet Day (Saturday 19 November) by helping to secure vital parliamentary support for action on the water and sanitation crisis? The High Level Meeting of the Sanitation and Water for All partnership in April 2012 will bring together key stakeholders from developing and donor countries – it's an unprecedented opportunity to make some real progress in tackling the root causes of the crisis, but those with the power to make life-saving decisions must be there. We know that meeting MPs face to face is by far the best way to get them on board so we'd like you to visit your MP at your local constituency surgery as close to World Toilet Day as possible. Your visit will be an opportunity to make them aware of the crisis and to ask them to support International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell's leadership on water and sanitation and encourage him to attend the meeting. We'll give you a summary of our new report to leave behind and some compelling evidence to share, tailored to your MP’s interests. If you'd like to use your speaking skills to help us with this important action, please email campaigns@wateraid.org or call Rebecca Owen on 020 7793 4478 for more details! Speaker Resources: Don't forget, we have a host of new presentations, along with information that you can include in your presentations if you're interested in talking about WaterAid's advocacy work, our equity and inclusion work, the Millennium Development Goals, or our stance on climate change. We also have a DVD celebrating WaterAid's 30th birthday and all we've achieved together. Please don't hesitate to contact speakers@wateraid.org to request them. Important information about Gift Aid If you would like to receive Gift Aid on the donations you receive from groups that you talk to, there are a few things we need you to bear in mind: If you have any further questions about Gift Aid and the process for collecting donations to be eligible for Gift Aid please contact speakers@wateraid.org. November's Top Tip and Feedback: November's Top Tip, and the feedback for this month overlap around the question of talk generation. It is important to remember that within every audience you speak to, there will be links to other community groups that may want talks too! This point is clearly made in three pieces of feedback from three very different groups below. The first is from Buckland Women's Club in Surrey who were interested in WaterAid's work. They thought their speaker was excellent, and said they will "certainly pass WaterAid talks on to other clubs that I know of. I am sure they will enjoy it." The second is from a Sitra, a corporate organization that are raising money for WaterAid. They have said: "We will use WaterAid speakers again without hesitation, this is our charity of the year and we will do our best to raise as many funds as possible." The third and final feedback quote is from Camden School for Girls who thought the speaker was very engaging and have said: "I would recommend this speaker and would consider asking her to return to speak to a different year group." So if you're looking for more talks, it's worth finding out if anyone in the room is from another group that would like to hear what you have to say! September 2011 Get talking about WaterAid! We have a whole host of resources to help you to start generating talks in your local area, including posters, postcards, and business cards especially designed for speakers! We also have template emails that you can send to groups to let them know there are speakers available in their local area. You can find contact details for many groups, including schools, on your local council website. The service organizations that support WaterAid, including Rotary, Lions, the Women's Institute, Soroptomist and Inner Wheel, each have their own website too, which are worth searching for on the internet. These websites are really easy to use, on the Rotary website, for example, it's quite simple to find a list of the different districts they operate in, and within these you'll find a list of clubs, with either contact details or links to their district website, which has these details. These groups are always really receptive to hear from WaterAid speakers. Update your presentations: We now have new presentations for speakers to request to keep your presentations fresh and to help you learn more about WaterAid. These include presentations on advocacy, WaterAid and climate change, and WaterAid and the Millenium Development Goals. If you'd like to request any of these resources, please email speakers@wateraid.org. September Top Tip: This month's top tip relates to generating talks in your local area. We have mentioned before that there are many links between WaterAid and scouting's Global Challenge badge. It has been brought to our attention by one of our coordinators that some of the county websites let users upload news or resource items. This particular coordinator has managed to get information about WaterAid's Speaker Network on both the Suffolk Scouts website, and the Essex scouts website! To see the information on the website, please see http://www.essexscouts.org.uk/news/articles.php?storyid=9h5FtA September Feedback: This month's feedback comes from Kingswood Preparatory School in Bath who said: "We have a WaterAid day each year to raise money. This was the first time we had a speaker and it made the day more meaningful for staff and children alike." We feel that this quote sums up the impact that speakers have on the groups they speak to. August 2011 Interested in running workshops in schools? If you're looking to further develop your skills as a speaker and gain new experience in schools then our latest project may be for you! In collaboration with WaterAid's Education team we are recruiting and training speakers to deliver interactive workshops at schools to support our Charity of the Year school scheme. This is a pilot project, so spaces are limited. We will need speakers to commit to delivering a workshop a term for WaterAid, and to attend a training day at WaterAid Head Office in London. To learn more about the project, and to put your name down for the training session we are running in London on 24th August, please contact Becky at speakers@wateraid.org. New Speaker Resources Thank you to everyone who has got in touch to suggest resources, presentations or slides for presentations that you think other volunteers will find useful. We try to fulfill all of these requests unless there is a specific reason why the resource cannot be produced. We now have a poster that can also be used as a slide showing the step by step journey of how we plan and deliver projects in country. Following a request from a speaker, we have also produced a new slide explaining the effects of oral-faecel transmission which may be useful when talking about the health risks of poor sanitation. Please contact Becky at speakers@wateraid.org if you would like to use these resources at your next talk. Also, check out the new Inspiration Station resource which is packed full of fundraising ideas and ways to get involved. Coming up We are currently working on presentations focusing specifically on the appropriate, sustainable technologies that WaterAid uses, as well as one on climate change and an introduction to the Millennium Development Goals. August's Top Tip: We know that sometimes speakers are asked to choose hymns or readings for talks to churches, and this can be a bit tricky. If you ever get stuck looking for a Bible passage, try the website www.biblegateway.com where you can search for passages using key words! August Feedback: This month's feedback is from Westbourne School in Sheffield, when a talk resulted in the school choosing WaterAid as their Charity of the Year! "The students have given me great feedback from the talk and are very enthusiastic about the prospect of supporting WaterAid in future. The students were so impressed with your assembly that we as a student body have decided to support WaterAid from September until Christmas." A fantastic result from a talk! Also check out an inspiring poem written by Frank Stewart, a speaker in Northern Ireland. July 2011 WaterAid at the South of England Show The event was a great success, with over 1,100 of the show–goers signing The Loo Queue petition, asking the coalition government to end 100million people's wait for sanitation by 2015. We also promoted Coast Along, and even had the chance to play poopla, teaching the attendees the importance of sanitation and hygiene education! All in all, a fantastic three days for WaterAid and great opportunity to celebrate the year of water in the rain! July Feedback: This month's feedback is from Ilminster Choir, who are taking part in our Sing for Water event on 9 July. They were really impressed with the way Anne approached the subject, by giving statistics about the problem, but not depressing them, as she explained that things could be done, and were being done to improve health, and boost education, which the choir found very encouraging. To conclude their feedback, the choir said that Anne was "An engaging speaker, flexible in her approach and has galvanized us into doing our best for WaterAid. So pleased we asked her to come." July Top Tip: Bring a bit of our history into your talk by relating the problems in the countries WaterAid works in to the Big Stink of 1858 here in the UK, when water borne diseases such as those our country programmes are coping with now were rife. Draw comparisons, and show your audience how the simplest solutions have allowed our country to develop to the level that we're at now, just as WaterAid are doing for communities throughout the developing world. For information and pictures relating to the Big Stink, please email speakers@wateraid.org. June 2011 Making the most of the web: We are changing the way we ask speakers and groups to feedback to us at WaterAid. We are becoming paperless within the Speaker Network at WaterAid. If you have any feedback, please fill in our online form. This survey is designed to help us to understand how to support you better in your role as Speakers for WaterAid. Groups will receive an invite to complete a similar feedback survey on the same website. If you'd like to learn more about why we've changed the feedback to this format, please call 0207 793 4988. This month's feedback is from Duloch Primary School, in Scotland. "The speaker was well prepared and delivered a very interesting talk. She aimed it at the age of the children and made good use of questioning…we will certainly be using the website as a stimulus for class work and look forward to raising funds for this worthwhile cause." A great example of the Speaker Network inspiring group's to raise vital money to support our cause. June Top Tip: Bring a bit of our history into your talk by relating the problems in the countries WaterAid works in to the Big Stink of 1858 here in the UK, when water borne diseases such as those our country programmes are coping with now were rife. Draw comparisons, and show your audience how the simplest solutions have allowed our country to develop to the level that we're at now, just as WaterAid are doing for communities throughout the developing world. For information and pictures relating to the Big Stink, please email speakers@wateraid.org. May 2011: During refresher training in October 2010, advocacy came up as a subject that speakers found quite difficult to talk about. To help you with this, we have put together a set of slides for you to include in your presentations, outlining the importance of advocacy work, and the type of campaigning and advocacy work we do; from a local level in country, to an international campaign like the World's Longest Toilet Queue! Download advocacy slides ( Recently a number of difficult questions have cropped up more regularly, which have prompted us to rewrite our Top Tips and FAQ document that is currently found on the Speaker CD. The new version can be downloaded here: Top tips FAQs and key facts (2) ( Please let us know difficult questions that you've had in talks you've given in your feedback form. This will help us to add new questions that are asked regularly to the document, as well as let you have the answers to questions that you've not been able to answer for the audience. May Top Tip: One of our speakers in the Yorkshire Water region has been helping spread the word about WaterAid's campaigning work here in the UK by putting a picture of local MP of the group he’s speaking to within his Powerpoint presentation, and telling the group about the latest thing to ask their MP to act on with regarding to the water and sanitation crisis. Keep an eye on Speaker News for information about future campaigns that you can ask your audience’s to be involved in. May Feedback: We have been inundated with glowing feedback about talks that you've been giving this month. The feedback below is from Headington School, a secondary school in Oxford, who say that the speaker was "superb – an excellent speaker. He was very informative and has an enthusiastic approach to the issues. He really inspired many of the girls to fundraise for WaterAid. He was outstanding! The talk really made me realize the important, life changing work WaterAid does." What a great talk: not only raising awareness, but influencing the audience to raise money too! April 2011: Now is a great time to start generating talks in your local area and opening doors for WaterAid in community groups that we might not otherwise have the chance to get to know. We have resources to help you with this at WaterAid, including postcards, posters, template emails and Speaker Business cards, as well as expert knowledge of the groups that you might want to approach within the team. WaterAid's Media Team can also help you to generate interest from your local press too. There's a real demand for speakers throughout the UK, so let people know you're here! For any advice or resources for generating talks please email speakers@wateraid.org. Feedback on your talk Remember to always feedback to the Community Fundraising Team after a talk. This helps us to follow up on any doors you may open for us, and support the group further in their support of WaterAid, as well as to record the number of people that have been reached by the network, and to stop us duplicating efforts by approaching groups you have approached in generating your own talks. April Top Tips: This month, the top tip relates to generating talks. For those speakers keen to approach youth groups, especially Scouts groups, a great selling point is their Global Challenge badge. To complete this badge, the Cub Scouts need to complete four out of six challenges, including finding out about the work of an international charity that helps around the world, and finding out about a global issue such as poverty, conservation or water and sanitation and what can be done to help. So look up your local Scout groups and offer to help them achieve this badge! For more information please see the Scouts website: http://scouts.org.uk/supportresources/1391/global-challenge-cub-scouts April Feedback: If your talk has been organized through WaterAid, the group will have received a feedback form from WaterAid. After your talk, please remind the group of it, so that we can let you know all the great things groups are saying about the network. This month's feedback is from Queen's College Prep School in London: "The speaker was super - she was warm and friendly, and spoke clearly - all the children from 4-11 enjoyed it and were talking about it all day. She showed them excellent slides and then a fantastic DVD which the kids thought was interesting, gross and hilarious all at the same time - very good learning discussion material! It was truly inspiring. Thank you very much - it was fantastic. Just what we had wanted!" Hopefully feedback like this will inspire you all to carry on spreading the word about WaterAid! March 2011 We ran 2 successful training sessions in February - one in Bath and one in Exeter. This means that we now have 20 new speakers in the South West, so a big welcome to our new speakers! Let us know any tips for generating talks among local groups to help these speakers to get started, and to help WaterAid reach new audiences. Last month we also welcomed Lucie Martin as the new coordinator for the Wessex region. Lucie will be the main point of contact for all speakers in that area. We are still looking for coordinators for the following regions:
To find out more about the coordinator role, please contact Becky on rebeccadallison@wateraid.org. February 2011 We currently have 260 speakers throughout the UK and are looking to recruit and train more during 2011. Do you know anyone who would make a great speaker? Please encourage them to sign up to a training session. A number of speakers attended refresher training at the end of 2010. The training was a chance for speakers to share tips and experiences and for us to update them on key messages and answer queries. A number of questions about the ways in which WaterAid works, our technologies, our fundraising costs were raised during these sessions. We have put a useful Question and Answer document together to share information from the refresher sessions, which will be available to download from this page shortly, so please keep checking this page. The refresher sessions highlighted 2 ways in which we can better support our speakers. Firstly by providing a set of projector slides on loan from Head Office. We know that there are some venues that are not equipped with high tech projectors and laptops, so we have had our most up to date presentation put on slides. As the slides are expensive to produce we currently have one set which can be booked out for talks. Secondly, we have produced Speaker Business Cards to help you generate talks and keep in touch with local supporters. If you would like a supply of cards please get in touch. In future newsletters we'd like to be able to share your tips and ideas for engaging your audience with other speakers. If you have any ideas you'd like to share, please email them to speakers@wateraid.org.  |
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PPTX File 4056KB)
PDF File 108KB). The document contains information about resources and support on offer, tips for talking to a number of community groups, as well as answers to difficult questions that have been posed to speakers, from "Does WaterAid carry out emergency work?" to "Why doesn't India help itself?"