Researching House History Presentation

Today was my presentation at The Heights on how to research the history of a home. I arrived an hour early because I have a phobia that the electronic equipment will not work and I'll be stuck with a poor presentation. While some talks can be handled with no visual aids, this particular one would be very difficult to do without my slides. The first words out of the tech guy's mouth were that he could not find the cord to connect their projector to my laptop. Words to warm every presenter's heart. He ended up finding a different projector and we went to work connecting the two machines. I normally work with a Mac, but most facilities do not own the cord to connect a Mac to their projector, so I brought Jim's PC laptop along. We finally got the two machines to talk to each other, but the full slide would not show up on the big screen even though it was full screen on the PC. While the situation was not ideal, I could make do with it if I had to in a pinch. Fortunately someone in the audience suggested that I press Control, F7. Sure enough, that did the trick! And I was ready to go 10 minutes early.

There were only about 10 people in the audience, which was a little disappointing. As Jim pointed out, it takes as much work to prepare for an audience of 10 as an audience of 1,000. (Well, except for running all the handouts!) But those who did attend were very engaged and had a few suggestions on resources they had used in researching their homes that I had not even considered. Plus I sold 3 copies of my book, and considering that 2 of the people in the room already had it that is not too bad. I am hoping that I can do more of these presentations because I really enjoyed it.

As an update to the CreateSpace debate, both the books I processed through CS are now live and available on Amazon. Woo, hoo!

Speaking of House History...

Century Home, Webster Groves, MO

Thursday night I gave a presentation on how to research the history of your home to the Kirkwood/Webster Groves branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). I was unfamiliar with the organization, but apparently one of their members knew of my book on researching house history and they asked me to come to their monthly meeting. In case you also have not heard of the AAUW, it is an organization dedicated to advancing equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy, and research.

Because my topic is obviously so focused on house research, I was a little concerned that some members of the audience would not be interested. I should have know better with a group of women (and one man) who live in or near Webster Groves and Kirkwood. Once we finally got the provided projector to recognize my laptop, things went smoothly. They had a lot of great questions, which always makes for a more interesting event for everyone.

It was helpful for me to do the presentation at this point because I am giving a talk in Richmond Heights after the first of the year as part of their centennial celebration. From the questions raised at the AAUW meeting I can see that there are a few more slides that would be helpful if included in my slideshow. Though I did not sell any books Thursday night, I did have the opportunity to talk about all of them. I was also able to give a little insight into why people should be writing stories down - their own, an ancestors, or those of their house.