By Bob Nisbet
Toastmaster member since November 1998 and President of Camberley Speakers, member of Guildford and Woking Speakers and District Logistics Manager since 2014, Bob is the most important person to invite to any contest, conference, workshop or training – with apologies to the Trio who thought they were 🙂 With Bob at the controls desk you can feel secure that the electronics will work – somehow – even though plans may need to be changed at the last minute! Bob has also featured in the Toastmasters magazine with a picture of him on holiday in Laos – and of course all Toastmasters have copies of the magazine wherever they are in the world!! This is what Bob has to say:
I am in my fourth year as Logistics Manager for District 91. This essentially means that I have space in the garage to store the District flag and banner plus a few other bits and pieces, like the big set of timing lights used at District contests.
The most obvious sight of me at Conference has been behind the sound desk. Over the years I have acquired a fair range of kit and I can cope with most things that events throw at me. But not always.
At the 2017 Gatwick Conference everything appeared fine until Aletta Rochat, the keynote speaker, took the stage. Every time she stood centre stage, her wireless microphone went dead! Somehow she got through her speech and as soon as she finished, Taz Miah and I started shifting the receiver to get a better signal. Nothing worked, and the speech contest was approaching. Plans to use wireless microphones for the contestants were abandoned and wired microphones rapidly set up in front of the stage. Luckily the cables were long enough and it all worked.
At the end of the Conference I mentioned what had happened to the crew who were de-rigging the stage. “It’s the wi-fi” came the reply. “It blots everything out.” Now I ask where the wi-fi hides, just in case!