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Speaker Ambassador

Schedule a Speaker Ambassador Training here.

The speaker ambassador has opportunities to share their personal and organizational stories about AccesSurf. The stories must reflect the personal touch of how AccesSurf impacts individuals and the community through adaptive water sports. Here are some tips to get started on the path of speaking formally and representing AccesSurf.

Telling Your Story

How do you tell your story as a volunteer and as a participant? Identify what type of story you would like to tell and then get to work.

Origin stories depict your beginnings. They hold your DNA, revealing key moments of insight and early influences, which help us understand who you are today, without having to list out every single hurdle you’ve ever leapt. They:

      1. reveal to community members, colleagues, partners, and funders, why you do your work in the world.
      2. show what you’ve learned on your journey to build well-being and how much you’ve grown.
      3. create connection among individuals around a common goal.

Impact stories connect your audience to what you do. They are the smaller stories that reveal key moments, define your offering, and put a face on the changes you’ve helped catalyze. Another word for impact stories is success stories. But, of course, going too quickly to the success can drain the power out of the story. How you set up the journey is essential.

      1. A well-told impact story can:
        1. remind you and those around you, why you do this work.
        2.  inform decisions going forward.
        3.  raise money, help recruit, and promote services.
        4.  show that your funds have been well-allocated.
        5.  connect you more deeply with your community.

Vision stories tell the audience where you’re going. They can draw the audience into the future, rallying their participation in making a great shift that alters their direction. Vision stories also communicate your role in that future and, sometimes, reveal your role in helping make this happen.

      1. Vision stories are, by definition, intended to inspire a change in the way the world works, such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. 
      2. Vision stories can sometimes be origin stories connected to your vision statement: “And that’s why, today, our vision is…”
      3.  This is important because your audience may never be able to repeat your vision statement, and if they do, it will sound memorized.

Contact us to learn more about practice and getting trained to becoming a speaker ambassador.