Hi Everyone,
I trust that you are enjoying the warmer weather and looking forward to an enjoyable summer.
I can’t quite believe it is now 6 weeks since our amazing Impact! 26 Conference in Leeds. It was wonderful to see so many of you there!
We have many tickets purchased for The Speaking Business Summit 26 – it’s going to be a fabulous event.
Quick heads up!
The ticket pricing for the Speaking Business Summit 2026 will be going up on Monday 1st June 2026. Prices of tickets are currently £499 plus VAT = Total £598.80
From MONDAY the tickets will be £599 plus VAT = Total £718.80. So if you are joining us in October, please get your ticket by Sunday 31st May.
Here’s the link – https://speakingbusinesssummit.com/#tickets
If you have any difficulties please reach out to us – [email protected].
In the meantime,
Let me get you caught up with everything going at Board Meetings and what it means for you.
Recruitment – As you will have seen we have launched Phase 1 – https://thepsa.co.uk/new-psa-roles-2026/ – and we have also extended the deadline for application to Monday 1st June. If you know someone who should be applying, please give them a nudge. Or, if you wish to apply then please do so as soon as possible.
Phase 2 will be launching next week – keep your eyes peeled for the new roles as well as some Board Roles that might be the next step in your PSA profile.
If you think someone would be great to be our Vice President to take over from Denise Fay for October 2027 then please ask them to look out for Phase 2 opening up soon.
Board Strategy Day – The Board held a facilitated strategy day at the beginning of May, where we were led by Sue Evans (FPSA) to consider all the elements that we wanted to move forward to make the PSA even better.
Our next steps will be to put together the projects that will add value, create simpler processes and help you as members build your speaking businesses.
Alongside the recruitment of new team members, we look forward to involving all of you in being clear in our objectives, bringing the best speakers to our Regions and growing the PSA.
Here’s a thought for you – please feel free to respond to this by e-mailing me [email protected]
“Call me on Tuesday”
At our regions we encourage members to do Showcases and these are given feedback in the room. Members know that they will receive feedback and therefore have prior knowledge. They appreciate knowing what they could do to improve and what went well with their short segment of a longer talk.
Other speakers and Regional Presidents however have not given permission for feedback to be given either just after they get off stage, or on the day of the event, and I wanted to reflect on the effect direct and immediate feedback can have on us as speakers.
Most of us are sensitive souls and believe we are giving our best either on stage or in running a Region. That’s not to say that there isn’t room for improvement, but it does mean that it can be soul destroying to receive feedback straight away.
Quite often, when we’ve seen a talk or a way of MC’ing that either doesn’t suit our style or doesn’t live up to our expectations, we want to make sure that our viewpoint is heard, and we think we are being helpful to bring it up whilst it’s fresh in our minds.
This type of feedback can be helpful, but I’d like us to be mindful of the timing of that feedback. Hence, “Call me on Tuesday” would be a great response when asked if you would like feedback.
We don’t need to accept feedback immediately after we have come off stage.
If it’s important it can wait until Tuesday. The benefit of this is that the speaker/MC and the person giving the feedback have time to reflect on the best way to give and receive this information.
Imagine you cooked a wonderful meal for your friends or other-half and they started to critique it immediately after the meal. That wouldn’t feel great would it? Feedback in our speaking environment is just the same. In the adrenaline pumped moment when you get off stage or finish an event, unsolicited feedback can feel very daunting and upsetting, so I’d love for us to try something different.
Just a thought – something to consider for the next time someone offers feedback, or for when you’re itching to help someone to speak more or speak better.
Suggestions
Whilst we have a suggestions form, for the month of June, I’d like to offer you the opportunity to send me any suggestions at my direct e-mail address. Your suggestions will be taken to the Board and responded to during June. It would be great to have your input at the time we are assessing how to make the PSA the very best it can be.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
With Best Wishes,
Yvonne Emery
Chair
The Professional Speaking Association UK & Ireland.
Related events
Impact! 2026 — The Art of Connection
